Blackfell Primary School

It's A Mystery 

In Year 3, we have started to learn about mystery stories. Last week, Year 3 came to school to find our classroom had something very important missing! We quickly figured out that our electric pencil sharpener had vanished. We set up an investigation and performed  drama to find clues and track down the culprit. In the end, we unearthed enough clues to figure out that non other than Miss Hepplewhite had stolen our sharpener because she was jealous of ours. In a statement, Miss Hepplewhite  said " I'm not sorry, and I would do it again!" Mrs Watkins was very upset with the behaviour  of Miss Hepplewhite and said she would receive the highest form of punishment available. A red card!

Computing 

We have been using the computers to input data in to a spreadsheet this term. We used information on shapes to create a table with headings.

Telling The Time

We have been using practical resources in the classroom to assist our learning. We have looked at which hand is which, how many minutes are in an hour, what a quarter of an hour is and then we started to answer questions leading up to problem solving and open ended question to really test us!

Science

In science, we have been learning about plants. In this lesson, we looked at how roots transport water through the roots. We conducted a practical experiment using coloured water and tissue paper. The tissue paper acted as the roots and as the paper 'absorbed' the water we could see the green colour rise up. We were then able to further understand how water is absorbed by the roots and 'rises' up the stem of a plant.

Botanic Gardens Trip

Year 3 enjoyed our class trip to The Botanic Gardens this term. As our topic in science was plants and our geography topic was Africa we went to learn all about plants in different climates and how they can adapt to live in hot places such as Africa. Our tour guide, Michael was extremely knowledgeable and was able to answer all of our questions. 

Science - Plants

We have started our Summer term off looking at plants in science. Here we are conducting an experiment. We are monitoring our seed over a few weeks to see how many roots begin to grow. 

Geography

In Geography we have been using the atlas to locate and label the continent Africa and also the different countries within Africa. As a challenge, we located two oceans or seas around Africa. 

Striking And Fielding

In P.E we have been learning all about striking and fielding. We performed different skills such as ball retrieval and we learned how to perform the short and long barrier for when we were fielding. This meant we were able to retrieve the ball as quickly as possible which meant we would be able to support our team better during games.

Geography - Mountains

We have been learning about the different types of mountains and how they were formed. In this lesson, we used resources to support our learning and we wrote a description explaining how each one was created and to finish, we drew each type of mountain. 

Keep Fit, Keep Active, Keep Healthy Week

Year 3 absolutely loved our Keep Fit, Keep Active, Keep Healthy week as they were introduced to some new sports which  they had not played before. We also had the LAF team from Sunderland City Council come in to speak to the children about the impact sugar can have on their teeth! We spent some time creating an Eat Well Plate and discussed the different food classifications we need to keep our body healthy. 

African Dancing And Singing - WOW

We started our African topic this term off in style! We performed the Waka Waka - This Is Africa dance which was performed by Shakira at the 2010 World Cup in Africa. We also learned an African song called Sanibonani which we then sang as a whole class. We all really enjoyed our practical learning

Mystery Stories

We continued our mystery topic and created our very own mystery stories. As our geography topic is Africa, we based our mysteries in Africa. We all worked very hard on our writing and created some very dramatic and enticing pieces of writing.

QuadKids

In preparation for our QuadKids festival, we spent some time learning the skills needed to improve our performance and in turn enhancing our chance of winning the competition.  We focused on the Standing Long Jump and looked at the measuring of the jumps (linking our learning to maths) as well as the physical  side of the jump. We asked questions such as; how could I improve my distance and what could I do differently? Feedback was then used to improve our understanding which then helped us to improve the distance that we jumped. 

World of Work - Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

Year 3’s theme for World of Work week was ‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’. Over the 10 days, we were visited by many people who work within these roles. Our visitors included: hotel cooks, Mental Health Councillors, a Yoga Instructor, an Army Personal Trainer, Nurses, community Police as well as the oral hygiene nurse. After each visitor, we created mind maps and described everything we had learnt from them. We then used this information to help us create our final outcome. Our end of unit outcome was to create a ‘circuit training’ style session for the year 2 children. We wanted to educate them and offer different ways in which they could use to ensure they keep both their bodies and minds healthy. As our theme was Healthy Body, Healthy Mind we planned to incorporate all the methods we had learnt from our visitors which would help to keep us healthy, these included; yoga stretches, physical activities, mindful activities such as reading and drawing and healthy food choice sorting activities.