Bluebirds have been busy in Art lessons. Over the last two lessons, they have experimented with mixing colours and shades using primary colours and black and white and used various brush sizes to create different lines and patterns.
Hotseating Goldilocks!
This week in English, the Bluebirds have taken inspiration from our class reader and are re-writing the real version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. On Tuesday, we listened to the story again and retold it to our partners, then we looked at everything she did and thought of an alternative reason. This morning, we hot seated each other being Goldilocks and asked each other open questions, using what, when, why, who, where and who.
Goldilocks (Evie) said she was starving so couldn’t help but eat the porridge, she didn’t know it was wrong to break in and she just wanted to play. She apologised but said she was still innocent!
Goldilocks (Salaf) said the house is too small so just got lost in the forest, the porridge was too yummy and eating it felt good. It was terrifying seeing the bears come home!
Goldilocks (Leah) said the porridge was just on the table so she thought it was a cafe or a hotel! There was definitely a screw loose on that little chair and she didn’t mean to break it.
Enjoying ERIC
Year 3 have been enjoying ERIC this week, we like reading with our friends in small groups, with a partner and reading to the teddies in the class library.
Skimming and Scanning
During our reading lesson on Tuesday, the Bluebirds in Year 3 have been looking at skimming and scanning. We have been looking for words on a word mat and using the skills to count how many types of words there are on that word mat. In our reading lesson on Wednesday, we read non-fiction books and retrieved information, using the skimming and scanning technique.
Super Science
In Science, the Bluebirds have been learning about different types of rock and how they are made. We looked closely at granite and pumice; both are made from magma that has cooled down. Granite is made when the magma cools down slowly, and pumice when the magma cools down quickly – we looked at the bubbles still left in the rock. We felt and held the rocks and wrote a list of their properties.
Our World
This week in Geography, the Bluebirds have been learning about ‘Our World.’ First, we mind mapped the facts that we already knew and discussed them. Some of us knew about cities and countries and continents!
Mrs Moore wrote some questions down and as a group, we had a go at answering them – we then used the large map in the hall to help us answer them. We found out that Birmingham was in England, our county is the West Midlands and there are 7 continents. We pointed to where Birmingham is in England, and we walked around the continents.
Floods
As part geography, the children in Bluebirds designed an instructional poster with advice about what to do in a flood. They looked at the dangers people and communities would face in a flood as well as the environmental impact a flood would have on the landscape.
Bluebird’s Bollywood Dance
What another great dance workshop for Bluebirds! They really enjoyed working with our visiting dance teacher. As you can tell, they are very talented when it comes to dance.
Twycross Zoo
What a fantastic trip Bluebirds had to Twycross Zoo! They learned such a lot about biomes and why they are so important to all of life on earth.
Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in one area—the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even micro-organisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.
The children first played a game where they place animals in different habitats: mountain/sea/rainforest/savanna. They learned through this that, although we think of penguins only living in the Antarctic in fact you can find some penguins in South America.
Bluebirds went on to look at food webs and how each plant, animal, insect, fungi, and bacteria played an important part in the life cycle of that biome. We also learned that in every biome you will find some keystone animals that all other life is supported by. In Africa, the rhinos is a keystone creature as they eat the bushes to keep them under control and stop them taking over the savanna. Rhinos also spread the seeds of the bush in their poo, making sure new plants can grow because their poo in very rich in nutrients. Rhinos love to wallow in mud this helps new waterholes to develop creating more place for other creatures to drink from, such as giraffe. In a healthy biome all life supports each other and this showed the children the reason why we need to look after our earth.
Bluebirds learned about the 4 R’s: Re-use, Re-cycle, Reduce and, maybe one that we may never think of, Refuse.
Thank you Twycross Zoo for all we have learned on our trip.
Chocolate Cake By Michael Rosen
In English, Bluebirds have been taking part in a debate about whether it was right for Miss Dainter to just have a little taste of the chocolate cake that Mrs Parry had brought into school to share with the teachers. Without her knowledge, Miss Dainter did have one small slice of the cake and found it yummy.
The children took part in conscience alley; this is where they each say their side for or against Miss Dainter eating the chocolate cake.
For not eating the cake:
Yusuf: She did not have permission to eat the cake.
Anren: It’s not right because Miss Dainter ate it right in front of the class (not a good role-model.)
Charlie: It’s not breaktime and Mrs Parry said it was for then.
Musa: She couldn’t stop herself from eating the cake ( no self-control.)
Declan / Aya : She may have been hungry but it was not breaktime yet.
For eating the cake:
Tatenda: She felt left out as it was only for the teachers.
Alexander H: It was teasing and too tempting for her as she smelt it.
Elias: It’s not fair that the cake is only for teachers.
Sam: Teaching Assistants work harder than teachers so she should have the cake as well as the teacher.
Shriya : A teacher just does the marking whereas Teaching Assistants help everyone.
We then enjoyed Micheal Rosen’s Poem called Chocolate Cake. You can listen to him reading it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrOeNKvtHI