Les couleurs

In French this afternoon we practised our colours. Some couleurs were easy like bleu and orange. We thought about our Diwali play for Christmas. In Numeracy we practised our number bonds to 20. In Literacy we put are arguements for having or not having school uniform on paper.

Artists

We have a lot of good artists in Year 3. We watched animations of how you can draw a hand or a tiger. The animation showed that the artist started the tiger drawing by doing a big circle. We then found the positions of the mouth and eyes by drawing a triangle.
We found in Numeracy that if numbers are close together they are easy to subtract. We can put the lower number in your head and count on to the higher number. In Literacy we made suggestions about how we would like to change the school. We took these ideas and wrote statements in favour and against the statement.

Should we have a school uniform?

We are going to end the week in Literacy by writing a persuasive text. We gave suggestions of ow we would change the school. Some of the suggestions were: Swimming for all Key Stage 2 children, heathier school dinners, longer playtimes, every child to have a laptop and no school uniform. We discussed having no school uniform. We tried to persuade children to agree with our point of view.
In numeracy we used a range of different methods to solve addition problems. We used near doubles, number bonds, partitioning and changing the order of sums.
We practised our drawing skills in the afternoon. We saw how artists drew hands and a tiger's face and copied their methods.

Treat time

We finished off the day by having our treat and watching fifteen minutes of Nemo. In the morning we used a fraction wall to compare fractions to see which was bigger. We finished off our literacy by writing an information report about teeth and eating.

Big teeth

we did really well in Numeracy with our fractions. We used our division skills to find fractions of numbers. We put different dance moves together (criss-cross, hand jive, head slide, slot etc) and made up our own dance.
We discussed how we looked after our teeth and some of us practised cleaning teeth using a giant toothbrush and a giant set of teeth. We then wrote an information report about keeping our teeth healthy.

Steel band

We used 2calculate in Numeracy to practise our fraction skills. In Literacy we wrote information about the different types of teeth.
We had a fantastic afternoon watching a steel band. they played Amarillo, the music to Match of the Day and to the cricket as well as the wheels on the bus. Later on we all had a chance to play on the drums.

Fractions

We were very good at working out how much of a shape had been shaded. We then drew our own shapes to show fractions, this was much harder.
In Literacy we start writing information about food. We put our topics in different paragraphs.
We did not know much about teeth although we did think that we had different sets of teeth called scissors, vampire and moaners. We now know they are called: molars, incisors and canines.

Film stars

We started by trying to think of a number less than one. We thought of 0 and -1, -2 etc. Then Jason thought of a quarter. We then folder a piece of paper in half, then half again and so on. We managed to fold the paper in half six times then it became impossible to fold again. Each time we worked out what fraction each part was worth.
In literacy we practised spelling difficult words by conentrating on the difficult bit. For instance fluoride the bit we got wrong was the uo. If we got this bit right most of us got the word right.
In the afernoon we looked at food groups and finished off the day by watching a CD of our performance at London Live Videoconferencing. This was sent to us with a certificate thanking us for taking part.

Lovely sweetcorn

School started at 10.30 as Year 6 were taking exams. We looked at and discussed some shape poems and then brainstormed some words for our Firework poem tomorrow. We came up with some very interesting verbs: screaching, screaming, zig zagging, exploding whizzing and many more. In the afternoon Mr Greenwood got out a pair of tights and put inside it a potato, beans, water, banana and sweetcorn. This was to teach us about digestion. The digestive tube in our body can be 8m long. The food is broken down with the good bits going into the blood to bring energy to all parts of our body. The sweetcorn came out without changing. sweetcorn is good for us because it helps push food through our body.

Half day

We tackled some division word problems this morning with Mrs Iqbal. We then went round the computer suite and used our work from yesteray to edit the "Boneyard rap" poem. then it was off home. Short and sweet.

Boneyard rap

We are now getting better at working out division sums. In our stand up challenge on the two times table it was very difficult to pick winners as many children were so fast.
Our rap today was the boneyard rap which we used for a model of our own writing. Some of our ideas were the Northwood rap, pet shop rap, fairy tale rap and the Nigerian rap. There were some excellent raps.
We finished our work on rocks with a quiz which showed that we have picked up a lot of information about rocks.

Rapping

We tried division with remainders today and we did very well. In literacy we looked at some rap poems and then in groups wrote our own raps. MC Leonardo suggested some wonderful lines. In the afternoon we discussed what we know about rocks and wrote a story about Roger Rock and how he is broken down by the weather and water it is broken down to become soil.

Division rules

We all worked well at solving division sums. To work out 20 divided by 5, we counted up in 5s (4) to get our answer. Some children particularly Amy were able to answer these questions very quickly by the end of the lesson. These questions are much easier if we know our times tables so our homework this week is to learn our 2 times table.
In Literacy we wrote an information text on Florence Nightingale. We used the past tense and wrote events in the orde that it happened in her life. Amazing how many children can remember details of the owl she used to carry around with her.
We tested in the afternoon which rocks are permeable and impermeable.

Early home

Today Year 6 were taking their econdary transition tests so the other children finished at 1 o'clock.
We remembered that in Numeracy that it is easy to multiply by 10 and 100. We tried to use this skill to answer more testing questions such as 40 x 3. Some of us spotted that if we can do this sum like this: 4 x 3 x 10. This made the sum much easier.
We used Literacy, Science and ICT skills to prepare an information text on rocks and soils.

Guido

An array is a group of dots in rows and columns. We used these to help us understand multiplication and division. We found that if we know that 5 x 3= 15 then we also know that 3 x 5 =15, 15 shared between 3 is 5 and 15 shared between 5 is 3.
We watched a DVD of the story of Guy Fawkes and made notes of what we saw. Did you know his first name was really Guido? We practised the moves for the Cha Cha slide. If we knew our left from our right it would be billiant.
In the afternoon we researched rocks and soils on the Internet and then went on the library bus.

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Our task in Numeracy was to find different sets of four numbers that add up to 20. We worked out that this can be made easier by looking for a pattern.
The pattern we used was:
0 + 0 + 0 + 20 = 20
0 + 0 + 1 + 19 = 20
0 + 0 + 2 + 18 = 20
0 + 0 + 3 + 17 = 20
In Literacy we worked on suffixes and prefixes. Suffixes are letters added to the end of a work to change its meaning. Beauty becomes beautiful (full of beauty) care becomes careful (full of care).

Cha cha cha

What wonderful dancers we have in Year 3, including Becky and Karen! We watched a DVD of the cha cha slide and then learnt and used the moves.
In Numeracy we investigated what happens when you add two even numbers or an odd and an even number. Children explained that they knew the answer because they did the sums and this proved that their statements were correct.
We learnt that prefixes are letters that can be put in front of words to change their meanings. If you put un in front of the following words they will have an opposite meaning: tie (untie), tidy (untidy) kind (unkind). We will be working with some more prefixes tomorrow.
How can you tell which rock is the hardest? This is the problem we had to solve. We tried to scratch each one with a finger nail, a 1p coin and then a nail. By making a note of which ones were scratched we were able to find out which rock was the hardest.
Mrs Redmond told the class that she had been told by a teacher at Welling school that they had seen our videoconference at London Live. They said we were the best prepared and most interactive videoconference. We were the best! We agree.

Rocks all around us

We used calculators in Numeracy and investigated what happened when we add tens to numbers. We saw that the unit number always stays the same. In literacy we had sentences in which the words were in the wrong order. We had to change the sentences so they made sense.
Who can stand up the longest on one leg. Temi and Brogan had a competition. Brogan found this task easy but Temi couldn't do it. This was because we made Temi stand with his foot next to the wall. We realised that this wasn't fair and that they should both have been tested the same way. It is the same in science, to make a fair test we mut treat them both the same way. We looked at what houses are made of and found out that they are mostly made from rocks. Glass is made from sand and limestone, floor tiles from clay, some roofs made from slate and then there's bricks and cement.

Welcome back

First day back well not quite for Karen, unluckily she is stuck in the sun of Corfu as her plane was cancelled.
We had an enormous box of coins to count in Numeracy. Before we counted we guessed how much money there was and Lauren's guess was closest. Everyone realised that the first task was to sort the coins out and place all £1 coins, 50ps etc together. Then we saw it was easier to put the £1 coins in piles of 10 to make these easier to count.
We had no P.E. today as nine children had no kit so apologies to those who brought in their kit. It was a pity as it was a wet lunchtime so it would have been nice to get some exercise.
In Literacy we looked at non-fiction books (information books) and saw that many of them have an index, glossary, contents page and diagrams. a diagram is a picture that shows how something works.
Our topic in Science is rocks and soils so this afternoon we found out what rocks we can name and listed things that are made from rock. When we finish this topic in two weeks time we will know a lot more!

Last day of half term

In Numeracy we drew 3-D shapes on special paper. This is our homework as well. We finished our work on Bill's New Frock with another cloze procedure exercise. Mr Greenwood and Karen have been very pleased with the more mature and sensible attitude of Year 3 so after singing we had an ice cream and watched part of Finding Nemo.
Next term we will be doing science work for the first four weeks. Two weeks learning about rocks and soils and two weeks learning about teeth and eating. In Literacy we will investigating information books so if you have spare time you can head down the library and look for information books about our science topics.

Yoruba photos published

The News shopper was published today and included the story of our Yoruba videoconferencing day together with a picture of a smiling Peace. Other photographs of the day can be seen by following the Yoruba link on the school website www.northwood.org.uk
We were in the computer suite for Numeracy and played the ancient Chinese game of tangram. In tangram you have various shapes that you must turn into pictures.
We practised the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check method. We did really well and we were able to spell some difficult words. We made sure we looked at the "tricky bits" in words. With our French teacher we practised saying our numbers in French.

Bill's New Frock

In Anne Fines story, Bill's new frock, Bill wakes up one morning looks in the mirror and sees that he is wearing a frock. The book shows how people, who think he is a girl, now treat him differently. We discussed (carefully)a big problem. Which toilet would he go to. Most of us decided he would go to the boys toilet. We then did cloze procedure on the text (predicted missing words).
We used our polygons mind map to explore the properties of shapes. In our groups we were given a description of a shape. From the clues we had to the shapes. Try this one: what shape has no straight lines and no right angles? Peace made up this clue for a shape: this shape is in the circle family and has been squeezed?
We made some calligrams on computers. The calligram below was made by Reanne and Connor.

Future poems competition

We used our polygons mindmap in Numeracy to work out the properties of shapes. To look at the mind map click on the mind maps link to the right of this page. We found the words equilateral and quadrilateral real tongue twisters.
We made some future poems in Literacy for a competition being run by the library bus. Connor's poem is below.

Car of the Future
Car car travel far. Why?
Because I want to go to Planet tar
Why? Because I want to
And I'm out of petrol
Oh you are silly

In P.E. we did synchronised forward rolls and jumps. Courtney and Brogan did theirs exactly the same which looked fantastic.

Wow what a week!

We learnt the names of 2-D shapes. We learnt that a right angle is like an L shape where a horizontal and vertical line meet. We now know that a square is special because all four sides are the same length. A square has four right angles.
In Literacy we used adjectives to describe rooms in houses. We need to describe our settings so a reader can picture the story. For topic work we made stories in groups using Indian hasthas.
At celebration assembly everyone in Year 3 was placed in the good book for their fantastic effort on Tuesday, sharing the culture of Yoruba.
Mind maps of our Victorian work are now on the school web site. Click on the Year 3 door or on the link to the right of this page.

Indian hasthas

Today we explored symmetry. We looked at horizontal, vertical and diagonal symmetry (diagonal was the hardest). We used cloze procedure in Literacy. This is where words are missing from the text. We had to guess what the missing words might be. We came up with many different words but as long as they made sense they were correct.
When we looked on the web site we saw some photos taken on our Yoruba day.
In the afternoon we watched some Indian hasthas (hand dances). We were able to guess what animal the dancer was pretending to be. We then used our hands to pretend to be different animals.

Yoruba day

We showed other schools in England, by videoconferencing, our work on Yoruba. We taught them to sing and perform a Nigerian song. We then performed a traditional Yoruba tale. The children showed them how to say hello in different ways. Some children wore Yoruba clothes and danced in them . The Yoruba children explained the meanings of their names. When we demonstrated the dance we looked up at the big screen and saw the other children taking part . A photographer came and took some pictures of the children. These photos will be in the Newshopper next Wednesday.

Poetry Day

To celebrate National poetry day in literacy we made a magnet poem by mixing up words about games. At assembly we listened to a poem and then Year 6 performed a rap poem. In Numeracy we answered time questions about Television programmes. In the afternoon we practised our Nigerian song and listened and acted out a Yoruban tale about why a Toroise has a shell and hides inside when people come near.

Bonjour

We used Jelly James to practise telling the time. In Literacy we added speech marks to sentences. In the afternoon we had our French teacher who taught us the French sounds and showed us actions for each sound. Some children from Year 4 taught us a Nigerian song. We learnt the Nigerian and English words and the actions that go with the words.

Memories of Yoruba

Can we tell the time to 5 minutes? That is our aim for Year 3. We practised telling the time this morning and we are getting much better. In Literacy we wrote a story about a bully and used adjectives to describe the characters. Our topic this week is Yoruba. Ten of our children are from Nigeria. Children shared their memories of their life in Nigeria. They said that if children were late for school that they would be hit with a big stick. The children have seen whole families who lived on the streets and had no food or shoes. To find out more about yoruba please visit our web site www.northwood.org.uk

Florence Nightingale

Lesley from the National Portrait Gallery told us about the life of Florence Nightingale. She got her name from the place she was born, Florence in Italy. She was a nurse who wanted to help soldiers who were fighting in the Crimean War. She was called the Lady of the lamp because at night she would walk the wards with her lamp. The soldiers would touch the shadows and say "God bless you." She had a pet Owl that she got from her trip to Greece. It has been told that she would not let Mary Seacole help her look after the soldiers because she was black.

Mary Seacole

The National Portrait Gallery used portraits to tell us the story of Mary Seacole. She was a black nurse born in Jamaica. She wanted to help injured soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. Florence Nightingale refused her help, some people say because she was black. In her protrait we saw three medals that she won. She was voted the most important black person.

Thomas Crapper

Last week our topic work was about the Victorians. We learned about the lives of three famous victorians using videoconferencing.
Our first videoconference was with Thomas Crapper, a plumber who was one of the first makers of a flush toilet. In early victorian times many people would throw their "waste" into the street. A lot of waste ended up in the Thames and it became known as the big stink. In the slums a whole street would share the same toilet. The toilet would be emptied at night by a nightman. Young children sometimes worked as Toshers. They would use a shovel and sticks to clear sewers if they were blocked with muck.