News and pictures

Resus Rangers

Amongst all of the Book Week fun, we had the opportunity to learn some essential first aid skills with the Resus Rangers. Our trusty teddy bears acting as models, we learnt how to help people who have stopped breathing ("Excuse me Miss, I have a toothache, and I need a wee!"). We know how to help who are chocking and have asthma AND we learnt how to use a bandage and sling. It was fun trying it out on our friends! 

Thank you to Mrs Hajilambi and Miss Arslan for arranging this for us.

Dress up day

To end this wonderful week, the children and staff came into school dressed up as a book character! We had a celebration of all of the outfits, efforts and authors that were represented whilst reciting class or year group poems that were inspired by the late, great Benjamin Zephnaiah. These poems will be turned into a Firs Farm anthology, which will take pride of place in our library.

Thank you to our whole school community for their support during book week, we couldn’t do it without you.

French books and Masked Reader

We are fortunate enough to have many French speaking adults in our school and, this week, the visited all the classrooms with a book to read in French! 

Thank you Madame Dejognhe for arranging this experience.

We all loved the masked reader! 

"I thought it was fun but a bit tricky working out who the teachers were!"

"It was funny because the teachers changed their voices!"

"I liked guessing who it was and testing myself on teacher names!"

"It was named after my favourite show so I loved it!"

Thank you to Mrs Hughes for organising and filming these and to all the staff that took part.

Share a good book

During Book Week we joined forces with other year groups to listen to each other read. Here's what we had to say about it:

"I really liked the way the younger children would sit and listen to us read. It helps us bond with other year groups."

"We took turns reading pages and I was asking my partner questions."

"I enjoyed having another child to read to us because it's normally an adult."

"It was good hearing other children read."

Image Theatre Company

We watched a wonderful, dramatic version of The Selfish Giant during Book Week which some children also got to act in! We all spent time learning the songs to join in with the performance. Here is what we thought!

"I liked the show because it had a good ending and it was fun!"

"I liked the bits where they used puppets to climb the rock."

"I liked it when the boy saved the giant - it was about showing kindness which is one of our school values!"

A huge THANK YOU to the PTA for funding this wonderful performance. 

D.E.A.R & Book Bingo

Here are some of the children's thoughts of our book week activities:

"With our book bingo, I had to read a recipe and I got to cook pancakes with my Mum. My baby sister listened to my Mum reading."

"I like it that we all get a chance to listen to stories AND read out load to someone!"

"It's given me something to do at home when I am bored."

"When we drop everything and read, it calms us down and we get a chance to just read."

"It's nice and peaceful in the classroom so we can relax."

"We get to practice our reading!"

Thank you for supporting our book bingo.

Jeanne Willis

Here are some quotes from year 3 children about our author visit.

"I loved Jeanne Willis because she makes all types of books! She loves animals and has made lots of books about them."

"Jeanne has very cool animals at home!"

"Her books inspire us to make our own books about animals."

"I like it that she wrote Bog baby about her and her sister."

THANK YOU for donating money and materials to facilitate this visit and workshop.

The crazy Ancient Civilisations

What a wonderful day we all had celebrating Ancient Egypt, Sumer and Indus! After learning about these 3 civilisations since September, it was great to immerse ourselves in creative acitivities inspires by each of these settlements. 

We played games inspired by Sumerians (they liked grids!), wrote like Egyptians in hieroglyphics and crafted like the Indus people (who are still a bit of a puzzle!)

Some of us even dressed up as an Ancient Egyptian! We all met at the end of the day to showcase our outfits and share our best bits of the day.

We hope the pictures show you what a fantastic time we had......

Marvellous Maths Week

This week, we have been focusing on shape and getting creative with them! We have made a pictures of of 2D shapes, spent a lesson playing Maths related board games and used the Beebots to practice our positional and direction language. It was a great way to learn outside of our normal lessons and we all really enjoyed it. Take a look at what we have been up to!

We have spent the week thinking about how we can make some noise about bullying. In year 3, we all know the importance of being kind and the effect that unkind words can have on us. This is why we have agreed not by bystanders but to make sure we speak up if we see anyone hurt or upset! We can tell an adult, or encourage the person being bullied/upset to tell an adult themselves. A problem shared, is a problem halved. 

British Museum

In Year 3, we have begun learning about Ancient Egypt. We have learnt about the God Amun, the ankh and Tutankhamun. On our visit to the museum we were able to see lots of artefacts that were over 3000 years old! We spotted lots of ankhs and looks at all the coffins that had ben excavated. We also had a chance to look at real life hieroglyphs, which is what the Egyptians used to write in. It was AMAZING seeing the Rosetta stone - that was the most exciting part!

In Year 3 we are lucky enough to have weekly recorder sessions. It's amazing that all of us get to learn how to play an instrument and we hope to show all of our adults how much we have learnt in the Spring term. These recorders will stay in school now until we leave in Year 6 as we will get the chance to play them in all of our music lessons. 

Take One Picture 2023

At the end of last academic year, we all visited the National Gallery to see Henri Rousseau's picture 'Surprised!'. When we came into Year 3 we spent our first 2 weeks of school learning all about the picture and re creating art work based on his post-impressionist work. This means that Henri didn't always know exactly what the image he was drawing looked like, he just used pictures and what he had seen to have a go! We did this when making our 'Surprised' inspired cards!

National Fitness Day

To mark this occasion we took part in an extra special daily mile with year 4. The daily mile is 8 laps around the red line of the playground. It was nice to see other children from a different year group whilst keeping active at the same time. 

Mindfulness Minutes

To celebrate the end of Children's Mental Health week (and half term!) Years 3 and 4 joined together in a mindfulness walk around the playground. Whilst walking, we were thinking and talking about how we'd expressed ourselves and also reflected on what has been happening in the world this week and how fortunate we all are that we were able to donate money to such an important cause. 

DT - Making photoframes

In Year 3 we have been making photoframes. We were looking at the structure, design and audience of a photoframe. We looked at a range of different shapes, designs and styles of photoframes to help us in designing our own. We had lots of fun using the DT equipment! The glue gun was our favourite part! Some of the skills we were working on, were:

• create a plan which shows order, equipment and tools
• make design decisions
• select suitable tools/equipment, explain choices; begin to use them accurately
• select appropriate materials, fit for purpose.
• begin to measure, mark out, cut and shape materials/components with some accuracy
• begin to assemble, join and combine materials and components with some accuracy

Persia and Greece Day

Today we enjoyed an exciting Persian and Greek day! we all dressed up in costumes and transported ourselves back in time to the 12th Century BC to and retell the legendary Greek story of the Trojan war and the fall of the city of Troy. We enjoyed acting and participating in the drama and storytelling session and also enjoyed feasting on a delicious banquet filled with tasty Greek food, including pitta bread, olives, grapes, dates and melon. A memorable day was relished by all. Thank you to all of the generous parents and carers who prepared, sliced and chopped all of the food contributions for their class and supported this wonderful, 'History of the page' day!

Read With Me workshop

We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon reading with some extra special adults in our class! We hope you enjoyed seeing how we read in our lessons and how we use VIPERS to understand a text. Next up in March...Calculate with me!

Year 3's visit to the Wetlands

On Wednesday 11th January, Year 3 visited the Firs Farm Wetlands which is a short walk from our school. The aim of the visit was to be inspired by nature and the natural environment, which has linked to our studies in Art on Henri Rousseau. We used our school iPads to take photos of what we could find and created a mood board when returning to school. We really enjoyed our visit and saw lots of interesting wildlife and odd objects! 

For Black History Month we have been studying Nigeria and Ghana in Africa. We have learnt about the types of traditional food dishes prepared. We were inspired by the range of tropical foods and made Nigerian food plates out of playdough and 3D modelling materials to represent the rich variety of food eaten in Nigeria. These included Yams, Cassava, Scotch Bonnet Peppers, Plantains and Okra. Here are our amazing food plate photographs!