Emmaville Primary School

Northern Europe Year 3

Welcome to the Northern Europe Year 3 Class Page.  Here, you can find out about everything that we've been doing this term.
Friday 22nd December
 
Merry Christmas
 
We have had a wonderfully Christmassy time in school this week.
 
In RE we learnt about what Christmas means to Christians and discussed the question 'Has Christmas lost its true meaning?' We also thought about what gift we would give to the world for Christmas. The children had some wonderful ideas including: a big smile, a greener environment, love, end world hunger, no more wars.
 
We also had a fantastically fun time at our Christmas party; you can see the pictures below.
 
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Friday 15th December
 
Wow! What a week it's been!
 
Carols in the playground
Year 3 performed carols to their parents, carers, aunties, uncles and grandparents in the playground after school on Wednesday. They did a wonderful job and were treated with some juice and a gingerbread man afterwards.
 
Enrichment Week - Reading, Book Talk and Oracy 
Over the course of the week the children have taken part in lots of reading activities. They have shared books with children from other classes, listened to other teachers tell stories, made a 24 hour read poster and shared books from home on a blanket. As part of our Oracy, we read a wordless book, discussed what might be happening and predicted what might happen next. Then we worked on our listening and responding skills  in groups to discuss our own version of the book. We also learnt a song all about books; you will find a video of this below! We changed the words to fit in with our school, Miss Armstrong and the book we are reading in class.
 
We also had Christmas jumper day and Christmas lunch which was thoroughly enjoyed by all! 
 
We are certainly feeling very festive!
 
Thank You Mr Elliott and Welcome Back Miss Rochester
And last but not least the children made a beautiful card to say thank you to Mr Elliott and also enjoyed spending some time with Miss Rochester who we will be welcoming back to Northern Europe on Monday!
 

Friday 8th December
 
Carol singing at the lighting of the Christmas tree lights
 
On Wednesday evening, the year 3 children joined with singers from St. Agnes School to entertain the local community by singing carols before the lighting of the lights on the village Christmas tree. It was a wonderfully jolly evening and the children did themselves proud! Everyone felt very Christmassy by the end and Santa even came along too. Thank you to Mr Saddington for the wonderful photos!

Wednesday 28th November

 

Science: Light and Shadow

 

Today we continued to explore ‘Light’ in science, but this time we focused on shadows. The children ‘played’ about with creating shadows with natural and man-made light sources and explored how they change when the light moves and when the object moves. The class learned how and why shadows are caused and are going to continue exploring them in their home lives too.

Friday 24th November
 
Art and Design - Prehistoric Painting
 
During Art and Design this half term, we have been learning about prehistoric art. Today we discussed what sort of natural materials prehistoric people could have used to paint on cave walls. The children then made their own paints using spices such as tumeric, paprika, cinnamon and nutmeg. Then they experimented with producing different types of marks and different depths of colour, including layering the paints to make new colours. To make it more authentic we switched off the lights as it would have been dark in the cave. Then we 'lit a fire' to made a bit of a warm glow so that we could see to paint. Everyone enjoyed the painting and some talked about trying this out at home too.
Wednesday 21st November
 

Science: Light

This week in science we have continued our exploration of light by looking at reflection. We discussed which materials reflect light well and explored reflections in mirrors, bumpy surfaces and dull surfaces. Extrapolating that when something is smooth and shiny it reflects well, but when it is bumpy and dull, it doesn’t. We also played with what is the same and different in a reflection with our own images, objects around the class room and letters.

It was a fun afternoon with lots of practical and explorative learning.  

Friday 17th November
 
Christmas Carols
We have had a lovely week this week in Northern Europe. We have been beginning to learn the Christmas carols we will be singing as a class at the lighting of the tree and the playground carols in December. At the start of the week we were all a little shaky, but I have been really impressed with how much the children have improved. It has been lovely to see their enthusiasm for the singing.
 
Children in Need
It was wonderful to see all the Pudsey t-shirts, onesies, ears and badges in school today. The children have enjoyed raising money for the charity and loved the Pudsey biscuits that were made for them by the cook at lunchtime. We did a few fun Children in Need activities this afternoon and the children burst into a spontaneous rendition of the 12 days of Christmas. They are starting to sound like angels - Mrs Jarvis I think you will be very impressed at some of the wonderful voices we have in Northern Europe!
Friday 10th November
 
Library Visit
We visited Crawcrook Library this week and I was so impressed with everyone's behaviour! The children played a game that the librarian had created where they had to match characters from stories to make a pair. The characters were printed on paper which had been rolled up into a ball. It was like large paper snow balls when the librarian tipped them out! There was also some time for quiet reading, which everyone enjoyed. Thank you to Crawcrook Library for inviting us to visit and preparing the games.
 
Computing - Lego algorithm
 
In computing today we worked in pairs to create a Lego model from 10 bricks. We took a photo of the completed model and then removed one brick at a time, taking photos as we went. We numbered each part from 10 down to 1. Then we used the photos in reverse order to test our algorithm and recreate the model. Once we were happy with our algorithm, we gave it to our friends to have a go at making it too. Everyone worked really well with their partner to create and test their algorithm. Well done Northern Europe! Please see photos below.
Thursday 26th October
 
Roving Bookshop
We had a lovely time this afternoon at The Roving Bookshop. The children enjoyed looking at the books and choosing some for themselves and for the classroom.
 
Branching Databases with the Year 5s
In our computing, we have been learning about organising data and branching databases. We got together with the lovely year 5's who worked with us on creating a branching database on a programme called J2E branch. We really enjoyed working together and some of us made some new friends in the process! Thank you Year 5s!
Friday 13th October
 
School Council
 
This week was the prestigious school council nominations. There was a huge amount of excitement and enthusiasm from Northern Europe class and we had most of the children put their names forward. The quality of presentations was to a high standard with the children putting a lot of time and effort into preparing their speeches. They then showed bravery and confidence when delivering their speeches. If it was up to the teachers we would have chosen them all, but ultimately the vote was down to the children who could only choose one girl and one boy. We are proud to announce the chosen council members are Charlie and Imogen who we know will be fantastic role models for the class and give valuable contributions to the council. Well done to everyone!
Friday 6th October
 
National Poetry Week
 
This week the children have been exploring words to describe an animal or bird of their choice. They learnt about acrostic poems and kennings and also chose some powerful verbs.
Today they wrote a poem about their animal. I was very pleased with everyone's work. Here are just a few 
of them:
 
Butterfly by George
 
Blood orange
Under tree flutter
Tiny wings
Tiny bodies
Eats plants
Rich black
Flutter
London clay
Yellow
 
Fox by Wilf
Hole hogger
Day dreamer
Chicken muncher
Speed chaser
Rocket racer
Extreme pouncer
Red racer
Hole hider
Tree runner
Fox finisher
 
Fox by Lana
Fiery red strikes through the night,
Savage-chaser
Hole-digger
Prey-hunter
Fish-guzzler
 
Orange frosted papaya, 
White mist flash down
Too fast to follow
Hen-hunter
 
Friday 29th September
 
Enthusiasm for penny whistle!
 
This week I'd like to celebrate the children's enthusiasm for penny whistle. We learnt about the history of penny whistle and the fact that it was called 'penny' or 'tin' whistle because it used to be made of tin and you could buy one for a penny!
The children were desperate to play their penny whistles this week. They learnt which position to put their fingers for the note B and what a treble clef is. They played B for 4 beats, rested for 4 and played B again, using music on the screen. The aim was to play in unison and by the end of the session, the children were pretty good at all stopping and starting at the same time. They realised pretty quickly about the importance of breathing before playing a note that was going to last 4 beats! Well done everyone. Keep practising!
 
Thank you to all the parents and carers who came in for our 'Meet the Teacher' session this week. It was great to meet you.
 
Friday 22nd September
 

National Coding Week – Year 3

As part of National Coding Week, Year 3 had great fun this afternoon coding for a T-rex game. The children created code to make the T-rex move in a particular direction, how long it should move for and what should happen when it reached an obstacle. There was even an option to add music, but we asked them to turn the volume down as several different tunes in the classroom at the same time might be a bit noisy! They all really enjoyed it!

 

Friday 15th September

 

Well done to the children of Northern Europe who have settled into their new class and the second week of school extremely well; showing all the attributes of good learners. One of the areas they learnt about was internet safety in computing. The children learnt elements of the SMART concept and created posters to help others stay safe. 

Friday 8th September 
 
First week in Year 3
 
 
Mr Elliott and I have had a lovely week with the new Northern Europe class.
 
 
We have had great fun learning about the countries of Northern Europe and their flags and capital cities. Today we even tasted some Northern European food including Dutch Emmental cheese, German pretzels, rye crackers, salami and smoked cheese. I was really impressed that some of the children tried things they had never tried before. There were some things they liked and others that they didn't. You can see from the faces on the photos what they thought. Dutch Emmental cheese was the most popular.
 
Well done Northern Europe class for a super week!