A Super Start to Spring Term!

Happy New Year! We hope you have had a fantastic start to 2017. We have definitely started the Spring Term with lots of exciting and interesting activities. Thank you for your continued support – the children looked fabulous on our WOW day as we boarded the plane to Europe!

Here are a few photographs from the first week of Spring Term.

Thursday – our RE Day. This term we were learning about Hinduism. In PE we learned some traditional Indian dancing thanks to our fabulous PE coach – Mr Smith. .

We also created Holi paint pictures after learning how they celebrate the festival by throwing paint at each other. Mrs Bradley decided that paint throwing would be a little too messy, so instead we created some beautiful paint blowing pictures.

Friday – Our WOW Day

The children turned up to school dressed for their summer holidays as we jetted around Europe to learn about some of the countries we will be learning about this term. Over the course of the day, we visited Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Our classroom was set up as the plane and we watched the take-off and were even offered refreshments by the fantastic air hostesses – Mrs Bradley & Jo.

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Waiting for take-off
The safety talk….

We tried some of the German cuisine as well as learning so of their language.

In France, we learned about the Eiffel Tower and how it wasn’t popular amongst some of the locals when it was first build. Also, it was long meant to be there for 20 years, although obviously it has been transformed into one of the world’s most famous symbols of ‘love’!

As we landed in Italy, we took a trip into the past as we learned about Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. For our activity, we created erupting volcanoes – they were brilliant to watch!

 

Finally, we landed in our final destination – Spain. Here were learned a bit about the local culture, cuisine and what school is like. Next, we learned how to say the colours in Spanish.

 

Stone Age fun in Class 3

We have been looking at recipes as part of our English unit ‘instructional texts’.  After looking at the key features of instructional texts and the language used – such as imperative verbs and time conjunctions, we applied our knowledge to create our own ‘cookery show’. In small groups, we wrote detailed instructions on ‘how to make a jam sandwich’ . We filmed our instructions and really enjoyed watching them back. (Mrs Bradley will upload the videos soon.)

Here is a picture of one of the groups making their jam sandwich.

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The following week we helped Mrs Bradley bake a traditional Stone Age recipe – oatcakes. We will be writing our own recipe/instructions on how to make these.

Here are our oatcakes before we baked them.

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In DT we have been looking at Stone Age houses and with created our own model versions. We painted and decorated with natural materials, such as twigs and leaves.

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With Mrs Springthorpe, we have been creating fantastic cave paintings using mud paint. Aren’t they brilliant!

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Welcome to Year 3!

We’ve had a fantastic and busy start to Year 3 this year. I hope you have all enjoyed it and are looking forward to the rest of the year – we are!

We introduced our exciting new topic ‘The Stone Age’ with a fun and active WOW day on Friday 9th September.

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Everyone’s costumes and outfits were brilliant. Thank you all for your fantastic efforts. We all tried really hard to be scary cave people …. do you think we pulled it off?

During the day, the children enjoyed a variety of activities, including making a ‘tooth and bone’ necklace. We used white clay to create the teeth and bones and carefully threaded them on to the string. They were very effective!

The finished product!
Designing and making.

We were also lucky enough to have ‘Stone Stories’ visit us in school. With Debra, we worked to create images to retell stories. We will be using these in English.

 

Our Indian Visitors – June 2015

We have been lucky enough to have some very special visitors from our linked school in India. We greeted them with a lovely assembly this morning and they enjoyed looking around Cropwell Bishop and having a hot school dinner!

In the afternoon, they came into Class 3 to work with us! Mr Palmer introduced them to us and then they did some creative and fun activities. We had the opportunity to learn about some creative and Indian art, including printing. We used paint and wooden stamps that they had brought with them to create extremely decorative and pretty page borders.

Here are some photos of our printing.

Edie printing a pretty blue leaf!

Edie printing a pretty blue leaf!

Sam is very proud of his printing!

Sam is very proud of his printing!

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We enjoyed listening to their stories about India and activities they had planned. Here are some more photos of our fun afternoon being taught by our teachers from India.

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Class 3’s Viking Day!

What a fantastic start to the Summer Term! All the children made a fantastic effort with their costumes and looked extremely fierce and menacing – in true Viking style.

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A class full of Vikings!

We began our day with a Viking dance lesson. During the lesson we transformed ourselves into fierce invading Vikings and through a variety of simple movements, facial expressions and turns, we created a simple and effect piece of dance. Over the next 5 weeks we will continue to build on our movements from today to create a final piece.

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Some fierce faces!

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Strong Viking poses

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Using our body at different levels to add interest.

 

Next, we time travelled to the Roman period. During the Summer Term, we will be time travelling from the Romans to the Viking period looking at how life changed; the impact of each historical period and key facts about each period in history.

We designed Roman shields after learning about the Roman Empire and how successful they were at invading and conquering.

Next, we time travelled to the Anglo-Saxon period. Whilst learning about this period in time, we made an Anglo-Saxon recipe – Honey & Oat cakes.

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Designing our own Roman shields

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Carefully chopping up dried apricots

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Weighing out the oats

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Yum!

Finally we began to build our Viking longship so we could sail to Britain! We painted wood effect to create the boat and decorated Viking shields (which we learned had similarities and differences to the Roman shields).

Our longship will be displayed in our classroom once it has been finished.

Mr Palmer’s India Talk

We were extremely lucky to have Mr Palmer come into our class this morning and share some photos, memories and items he has brought back from India.

He showed us photographs of where he stayed, the people he met and those he already knew and animals he saw. It looked beautiful. We were all really impressed with the children’s art work.

Here are some our favourite facts we learned or items we were shown by Palmer:

Teddy: Indian people liked the loom bands Mr Palmer took them!

Caitlin: I enjoyed playing the Indian game of ‘Hoop’!

Ella: I enjoyed wearing the sari and the beautiful jewellery.

Alex: I learned that Indian money is called Rupees.

Max: I liked the Tuc tuc toys.

Jake: I liked the impressive art. My favourite piece was the Rangoli lion!

Angus: I liked looking at the rangoli powder Mr Palmer showed us.

James : I enjoyed wearing the jewellery. It felt strange wearing it!

Ysabella: I liked looking at the traditional Indian jewellery.

Jessica:  I enjoyed playing the game ‘hoop’ after Mr Palmer’s talk.

Lucy: We got to look at real Indian money.

Ellis: My favourite part was when he showed us the rangoli patterns.

Louis: My favourite part was when we saw photos of the rangoli patterns. They were very good!

James: I liked the photographs Mr Palmer showed us. My favourite was of the sunset – it looked really beautiful.

Archie: I liked looking at the Rupees.

Eve: I enjoyed playing ‘hoop’ – boys v girls!

Charlie: I liked the picture of the rangoli lion and peacock and the sunset.

Freya: I loved the game ‘hoop’ and seeing all the toys from India.

Tilleah: It was fun playing the ‘hoop’ game and the powder patterns were very pretty.

Sam: I liked seeing the photograph of the motorway and all the traffic was stopped to let a cow cross!

Ewan: My favourite part of today was learning about the national bird and flower – the peacock and lotus flower.

Abigail: I loved playing hoop!

Edie: I enjoyed it when we got to play a game of hoop – a game they play in Indian.

Thank you Mr Palmer for coming to share your adventures with us. We really enjoyed listening, looking and learning.

From Class 3

Spring 2 – Week 1 2015

We have made a fantastic start to our Spring 2 half term. The children have really been engaged and trying extremely hard.

In English, we have been working very hard to get out Landmark Poems completed ready to put on display. We began these in Spring 1 but took a short break to complete our informative booklet about our local area, which Mr Palmer proudly shared with the school India. We have been typing our poems up, so we can practice and improve our typing skills. To support us with this, we have also been using a BBC Dance Mat programme which teaches us to touch type correctly. Some of us are getting very good. As well as presenting our poems for our classroom display, we have also had the opportunity to share our favourite verse with the class. Mrs Bradley will try to post some of the videos soon.

On Tuesday, we had our SEAL day and our theme was ‘Good to be me’. We completed lots of activities that looked at our own individual strengths and weaknesses as learners; surprises; stress and how to relax. We also thought about how we could thank those important to us for all their hard work and effort, so we made promises to family members, friends and those close to use. Here are what they look like.

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Next week we will be beginning our adventure stories English unit, where we will be able to visit lots of exciting places!

We have nearly come to the end of our ‘Rocks and Soils’ science unit, which has enabled to study a variety of rocks, discover how they are made and the uses of certain rocks. On Friday, we sorted the rocks in a variety of ways including: appearance, hardness and how they are formed.

Here are some photos to show you our work.

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Last day in India

Dear Mrs Bradley, Mrs Harries, class 3 and everyone at Cropwell Bishop,

Well today is my last day in Mandrem. Yesterday was my last day in school although I’m going out for a meal with the teachers tonight to say goodbye. It has been a fantastic visit but I’m looking forward to coming home.

It was a beautiful start to the day as fisher men came ashore with their catch – I’ve included many photos here.

Yesterday at school I watched the children play games in PE. The primary children play a game called ring where 2 sides have a number and when it’s called they have to run into the middle to get the ring without being tagged. There is another ring game which I’ll show you when I return. Theolder boys played handball and they are the Goan champions – here is a boy called Utam (who I have known for years) with the champions medal. I am also bringing home lots of letters for you, information book about Goa, art work and of course Stilton’s adventures with the children – there is a boy who loves art and drew a picture of Ghandi which I am bringing back with me. There is also a photo of Nazma and a girl who made a bracelet with the loom bands I took over – they loved them. There is a photo of the handball team in the kit donated by Nottingham Forest. They think it will bring them luck like the last football kit.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog and seeing the photos and I hope it has helped with your work in school. The children have also created an ibook on our school ipad for you to see, it is about the school and life in Goa. It is fantastic and with everything I have bought for school I can’t wait for you to see everything

Take care everyone and see you next week.

Best Wishes

Stilton and Mr Palmer

school trip

Dear Dear Mrs Bradley, Mrs Harries, class 3 and everyone at Cropwell Bishop,

Yesterday we went on a school trip to see how rope was made. It sound very interesting but it was fascinating! It is made from coconuts and goes through many processes. It was shown to the children to fit in with their recycling projects as it shows how you can make something from waste products. First the fibres are separated and then pressed and twisted together. Four of them are then twisted together to make one big strong rope. There were lots of other products made from coconuts – mattresses (not very comfortable I have to admit!), mats and carpets.

They have houses here like we do at school, except they are colours (yellow, red, blue and green) and on Saturday they wear the colours. They have sports, rangoli and other competitions like we do. They look very smart, we have their colours uniform at school, I will show you next week.

Take care everyone and enjoy the rest of half term. I’m looking forward to seeing you all next week.

Best Wishes

Mr Palmer