Y3- Farm trip and the bees!

We have had a brilliant trip to a sunny Maiden Castle farm.

Hazel spoke to us about the wheat and barley that they store and make in to animal feed. 

We went and saw the cows and saw them eating the food. It was really interesting to see the food and the different grains in it. 

After that we went to the pigs and fed them. Hazel fed the pigs some maze, this looks just look a sweetcorn cob but not delicious!

This morning we watched live footage at the Watercress farm of a beekeeper. It was fascinating to learn about the bees and what they make. Such as did you know that bees make royal jelly and feed up the Queen bee so that she is bigger. 

It was amazing to watch them on a live stream and learn about the importance of bees. 

Y3- Farming fortnight begins!

Today we launched our 'Farming fortnight'. I hope you all enjoyed seeing the tractor outside of school this morning! Over the next couple of weeks we will learn about local farming, visit Maiden Castle farm and focus on Harvest ready for our Harvest assembly next Friday. 

In Literacy we are still focusing on our Rainforest topic. Today the children started to write their own 'What am I?' piece of writing. They had to include key facts such as the type of animal they were, describing colour, movement and diet. We had some fantastic descriptions of animals pouncing and stalking their prey. 

In Maths we are still focusing on place value and in particular hundreds, tens and ones. Please do still go on mathletics. This should be updated now with some new challenges. Purplemash also has some fantastic resources on it. 

Just a reminder about the farm visit on Wednesday. Normal school jumpers but home trousers and wellingtons please.

At the end of the day we were visited by Twinkle the calf. The children tasted cheese and got to understand a little more about dairy cows. All of the children loved this visitor. We are very privileged to have such amazing, hard working farmers near and involved with our school so thank you!

Y3 Farm trip and information about Forest School

Next Wednesday afternoon is our farm trip. If any one would like to and is available to help we will be going in the afternoon this year. Please just let a member of staff know.

On Monday I will be on the Accelerated Reader training all afternoon so I’m afraid Forest School will not happen next week.

Mrs Thorpe

Y3- Windy trip to Maiden Castle!

We have had a fantastic day at Maiden Castle. I am extremely proud of all of Year 3 and how well they walked to Maiden Castle and handled the rather windy weather. They all got involved in the activities and were very polite. Well done! A huge thank you to our parent helpers this morning and to the South Dorset Ridgeway project that hosted the event.

We started our trip at the top of the hill where we were talking about boundaries. There were some amazing settlements that had been set up and some interesting boxes with different pieces of art work in.

Then we started to head down where we learnt about the defences at Maiden Castle and what a struggle it would have been in battle. 

After that we split in to groups and did a number of activities such as natural painting, 3D art work, Dance, flint demonstration, animal totems and finally we made badges. 

Y3 Our fantastic encounter with rainforest creatures!

Wow what a morning! Nick the Bugman came in and gave such an informative show about the creatures that live on the forest floor and below!

The children saw so many different bugs including stick insects, scorpions, snails, millipedes and tarantulas.

Can you believe that this creature on the left is actually a stick insect!

 The stick insects varied in size and colour. The boys were always the smaller of the species and were mainly a shade of brown.

 This bug was called the 'twin spot assassin'. We weren't allowed to touch this one as it had quite a pincer on it!

This was 'Sally' the bird eating spider! She was the slower of the two tarantulas today. I wonder if the children remember why they were not allowed to hold this one? The adults were brave though and had a hold.















Below area selection of photos from our morning. We will put the others on the screen in the classroom tomorrow.

(Mrs Thorpe isn't the biggest spider fan!) 

Y3- Maiden Castle trip on Wednesday.

I hope you have had a restful weekend and are ready for the week ahead! On Wednesday we are going to be spending the day at Maiden Castle. Hopefully you have all received the letter explaining everything. If anyone can support us for the day please can you let me know in the morning. It is going to be a action packed day.

Many thanks

Mrs Thorpe

Y3- Swimming information and some exciting adventures next week!

Thank you to everyone that made the parent information session this morning. We discussed what we will be learning about over the next term. 

We have many exciting things coming up! On Monday we have the 'Bugman' in with his rainforest creatures. On Wednesday we will be spending the day at Maiden Castle where we will be working with the South Dorset Ridgeway Project. It is an action packed day full of lots of exciting learning opportunities. You will receive a letter with all of the details tomorrow.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is swimming. If your child is walking to the swimming pool from school please bring them to school at 8.35am (please do stay with them until a Y3 adult is present). We will be leaving school at 8.40am. If you are meeting us at the swimming pool please meet us there at 8.50am, again please do stay with your child until we turn up. The girls will need to wear a one piece costume, boys trunks and please bring a hat. If you have goggles that would also be good. We have had a good talk about swimming with the children today and we know they will really enjoy it. Not only that it is so important that children learn this life safe saving skill. 

The Year 3 team 

Year 3- Busy, busy busy!

We have been so busy in Year 3! Everyone is settling down in the routines and groupings they are in. Just a reminder that in the morning the work will be in the ‘house groups’ and the instructions will be on the board. I am really sorry but it turns out the magnets for the wizard wall are not strong enough so we will be replacing them soon.

In Literacy and topic we have started our rainforest topic. The children have been writing about what it might be like to be in the rainforest using their senses. We have looked at maps of the rainforest and will start this week to focus on the text ‘The Great Kapok Tree’.

In Maths we concentrating on place value. There will be a greater emphasis on reasoning and questioning this year. Please do encourage your child to use mathletics at home. New log ins will be coming home this week.

Forest school was fantastic this afternoon. Half of the class worked with Mrs Scott to collect, peel and chop apples ready for the harvest celebration. The other half worked with me where we discussed the roles of each part of a plant. They sketched and wrote about them. We have also started the job of taking down the hazel fence. There were at least 6 children today without Forest School clothes. Please can we have everyone’s next week as we do not want them to miss out.

It’s great to see so many of you have signed up to Marvellous Me! We are getting in to the flow of it now so hopefully you will have a lot more notifications regarding your child’s achievements at school.

Hopefully we will see you at the parent information session on Wednesday morning.

Mrs Thorpe and the Year 3 team

First Day Back!

Wow we have had a magical first day back! Well done to all of Year 3, we have had a busy day sorting out what we want Year 3 to be like.

This morning I explained about our self registration wizards. In the mornings the children put their wizard on Hogwarts to show that they are here. We spoke about independence and how in Key Stage 2 now we encourage children to put their own things away and sit down to their morning learning. This will always be a writing task.

Mr Spracklen came in to the class this morning to deliver us the news of the ‘fire breathing dragon’! He left us our own dragon and a sorting hat. One by one the children were ‘housed’. We spoke about the fantastic qualities that each house shows and how these topic groups will be changed every term. By the end of the Year your child would have been in three of the four houses.This encourages the children to socialise and work with different children than their usual friends. The children will be rewarded house points. At the end of the week these points will be added up. One child in that group will take our dragon home for the weekend. The whole group will then get to sit on the back bench for the following week. At the end of the half term the house with the most points will get to choose the class special treat.

In their houses the children then came up with a list of rights and rules that we want to follow in Year 3. This then formed our ‘Class Charter’ -

We will strive to be all of the 7 caterpillars

We will give everything a go and try to be resilient if we are finding things hard.

We have the right to be listened to, and therefore will listen to everyone.

We will try to have a growth mindset.

We have a right to feel safe and secure.

We are caring and kind during play and look after each other.

We will tidy up after ourselves and work in our houses to be ready to learn.

We will be positive and enthusiastic!  

We are in the process of updating logins and passwords for the online tools.

There are many news things happening in schools which we have highlighted in our class newsletter. We will also discuss this in our parent information session on Wednesday.

In the meantime if there are any questions please do come and see us.

See you all in the morning

The Year 3 team