Grayling 3’s Blog

A rainy welcome back to the second half of our Spring term! The sun has began to shine today, hopefully it is here to stay!

This week we designed and made our own jam tarts. We practised different skills including rolling out the pastry once we had made it and cutting it using a crinkled cutter to make our tart base. I hope they were as yummy as they smelt!

We finally got outside today to measure our raised flower beds in the garden. In Maths, we have been exploring length and using millimetres, centimetres and metres. We have been estimating the length of different objects and seeing how close our estimates were to the actual length. We even challenged ourselves to convert our lengths from CM to MM or M to CM.

On Wednesday in Computing, we looked at a new programming environment: Scratch. We looked at the different components and then we had a go at writing a short program to make our ‘sprite’ move across the screen and say hello.

Keep practising the songs on Google Classroom for our upcoming performance at the end of the half term in March and have a lovely weekend, Miss Mansell

Today, is National Safer Internet Day. The children have spent time both in assembly this week and in class, discussing and learning about how to stay safe online.

The main focus of our learning has been the importance of talking to a trusted grown-up if the children come across anything they don’t like or are unsure of online. We have also looked at our SMART rules for using digital devices and the internet and the different places we can go for help. Ask your child at home about what they can remember about our discussion and for any further information or guidance about staying safe online or Safer Internet Day please visit https://www.saferinternetday.org

It is already February and it has started to feel a little bit more like Spring! Hopefully the sun is here to stay!

This week in Science we have been learning about forces and magnets. We have been exploring different surfaces and which ones required the most force (Newtons) to pull a wooden block across. We found that the carpet in the cloakroom required the most force. Some of us predicted this at first because the surface feels bumpy.

In Literacy, we have been busy writing a short story inspired by the book Black Dog by Levi Pinfold. We have been using fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases and direct speech to make our writing super! Our home learning this week is all about using speech marks to help us show when someone is speaking in our writing.

Today was the NSPCC’s number day! We had lots of fun finding out about some famous mathematicians and explored all the different ways we use maths and numbers! We went into the garden and found some different problem solving challenges, here is one below we had a look at today, can you work out how many squares there are in total?

I hope you have a lovely weekend, see you all on Monday! Miss Mansell

We are nearly at our spelling review week, keep on practising this week’s spellings (week beginning 29.01.24) alongside looking over the previous spellings since the start of January ready for our quiz next week.

Below is an example of our Spring 1 spelling sheet, there is a copy in your child’s reading diary. If you need a new copy, please let Miss Mansell know!

This week we have taken advantage of the sunny weather and have been able to explore how light makes shadows. We learnt that we need a light source, an opaque object and a surface to create a shadow.

We went outside at different times of the day and drew round each other. We discovered that our shadows got bigger later on in the afternoon and they had moved!

Welcome to 2024! How time flies, we are already in mid January!

We have been exploring multiplication in Maths, learning how to multiply 2-digit numbers by a 1-digit number, with renaming! We explored two different methods, the expanded method and the compact method.

In Literacy we have been reading the Black Dog by Levi Pinfold. In our writing we have been using speech, learning about different contractions (such as don’t-> do and not) and thinking about different synonyms for the word ‘fear’. We are looking forward to finding out about the character Small in the book next week.

This week our home learning is to practice some of the common times tables that have been appearing in our Maths learning. These include the 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 8s. Below is a grid that we have used to help us practice these different times tables in a random order (this has been sent home in our home learning books).

Have a wonderful weekend, remember to have a look at week 2’s spellings over the weekend for Monday’s quiz! See you on Monday, Miss Mansell

Following our trip to the museum, we have been very busy designing and making our very own Stone Age inspired roundhouses! We thought about the different materials that would have been available during the Stone age, so we used sticks and clay to build the main structure and then some straw on the roof. We decided it must have been hard work to build a full-size roundhouse!

We had a fantastic time visiting the Dorset Museum to explore artefacts that have been discovered from the Stone and Bronze Ages. We explored different hand tools and worked together to decide what they would have been used for, using clues to help us and finally we experienced what it would be like to be archaeologists and took part in a ‘dig’!

We have had a busy week of learning this week!

In Maths we have continued to explore multiplying and dividing by 3 and 4. We have used lots of different resources to help us with our problem solving.

We have really enjoyed our new book in Literacy, the BFG! This week we have been writing revolting recipes inspired by the BFG, writing our own dreams and creating our very own giants!

On Monday, we spent some time exploring the art of Claude Monet in the National Gallery and have created some fantastic art of our own inspired by the work of Monet. We learnt all about light and reflection that can be seen in his artwork.

During PE we have been creating our own class Stone Age inspired dance. We used ideas from our learning in topic to think about different actions and moves for our dance!

Budding writers and artists  please read on.

If you are in Years 2, 3 and 4 here is a chance to showcase your creative talents and amazing skills by entering 1 of The Rotary Youth competitions.

You can find all the details in the documents below

2023/24 Writer competition Information Pack

2023/24 Young artist information pack

Please bring your entries to Mrs Bearwish by Friday 8th December 2023.  

Have fun!!!