Class 3 Blog W/E 20/01/17

 

Happy New Year to all our readers, this is our first blog of the year.  We would like to welcome a new reader, Mr Dennett (senior) – delighted to have to read our news sir!

In assembly we have been talking about ‘Personal Qualities.’ So, we have discussed what we are good at, what we are bad at but most importantly what we can learn from each other and how we can help each other.

We have been thinking about New Year resolutions. Some of us would like to get fitter by playing more sports, some of us would like to travel more, some of us would like to spend more time with our families but we would ALL like to get good SAT results!

Mr Dennett has kicked the year off as he means to go on – no rest for us, he was straight in there with the maths!  We have started off by looking at area, perimeter, shapes and volume. We have been measuring tape on the floor around the outside to get the area measurements, perimeter. The surface of a shape is the area. We can now convert between units of measure. Centre Metres– Metres you divide by 100, Centre Metres – Milometers you multiply by 10 and Centre Metres – Kilometres you divide by 100,000.

We haven’t started our new books we are reading as a class yet but we have started to write our own magazine articles. Mr Dennett has been showing us what non-fiction text is and hybrid text. We have been sending letters to Mrs Freeman in a persuasive way, examples were to convince her to build us a swimming pool, give us sweets during break times, chairs made of bouncy balls and wearing no school uniform.

As a class we have been watching a video called ‘The Alchemist’s Device.’ It’s a machine that takes memories and turns them into gold, the more precious the memories the more gold. We can’t wait to continue this area.

The sports coaches are in this half term teaching us athletics and dance.  We are learning a formation dance to the music ‘no education’ and will hope to show the rest of the school at the end of term.   In Spanish we are learning our numbers by re-learning poems and songs we remember from when were younger.

In Geography we are looking at a country in the Middle East called Iraq. We have looked at the borders of Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait and Syria. We have been learning about the history of Iraq, the perfect circular/round city, the invasion, the library of the sacred books within the city of Bagdad the capital.  Also, we have been looking and learning about the river Tigris and Euphrates.

We look forward to telling you more in our next blog about our learning journey at our school. We won’t be able to blog next week but hope to be able to produce one for you w/e 3/2/17. Until then keep warm in this cold weather.

Class 3 Blog W/E 16/02/16

This will be our last blog of the year! We will miss blogging but lots to do, people to see, gift to open and of course the real reason for Christmas – celebrating the birth of Jesus!

We thought we would tell you all about our Christmas production in this blog which was held last week in Church.

After many weeks of rehearsals and learning new songs it all came together and was a massive hit with all. We all went outside and Mr Dennett had us warming up with arm actions for the production and star jumps. We then walked over to church and lined up outside whilst our parents and friends settled in their seats with a nice warm drink and mince pie.

We were then given our que to walk into church.  Two year 6 pupils started off with some Christmas banter which was enjoyed by all before we started off with our first song, ‘news news.’ Through a variety of narrators and children dressed up as nativity characters St Mark’s school told the story of the birth of baby Jesus.  The early years and infant children sang the song ‘big star’ which they sang very well indeed.

Our narrators continued with the story as small scenes were acted out at the front of church. The hall was full of parents and friends and it was so silent so we knew they were really listening and enjoying it. We all then went on to sing the songs, ‘How much further to Bethlehem, God’s Messengers, Ba Ba Bethlehem, Wise Men are We and Tonight We Celebrate.’ The hall was filled with our singing!

At the end Mrs Freeman stood up and told us how well we did and that she was really proud of us. She thanked the staff who had put in so much work too, not forgetting our visitors for coming along to watch us. Then Eileen said she had a surprise for us, with that Jack the donkey walked down the church to the front. We had a real life extremely important nativity character visit us. We were allowed to give him a stroke and some carrots. He looked like he enjoyed the attention.

Today in school we will be having our Christmas lunch followed by the Snow-Ball after school – we are all looking forward to the celebrations!

Class 3 would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year on behalf of all the children, staff and governors of St Mark’s School.  We will be back in 2017!

 

Class 3 Blog W/E 02/12/16

 

Mr Dennett has been assessing us this week on our mathematical knowledge. He has been giving us a mix of work we have been covering this term. He has been really impressed with his findings.

As you are aware we have been looking at the solar system (sun, earth and the moon). Using different sports balls we can demonstrate how the earth spins round the sun 24hours a day, 365 days of the year. How the moon spins round earth exactly the same way.  We know the sun is a star a gas giant (a planet that produces flammable gas).  We have learnt that if we didn’t have a sun no planet would exist and if we didn’t have the moon we wouldn’t have a tide, waves.

We are still enjoying our new book called ‘The Portal’ by Andrew Norriss, the same author who wrote ‘Aquila.’  We have learnt about the characters Daniel who is an 8 year old boy and his brother William who is 13 years old.  All of a sudden their parents disappear so William visits Mrs Duggan who is their neighbour and tells her. A gentleman called Uncle Larry arrives and is talking to Mrs Duggan but the boys have never met or heard of an Uncle Larry and are immediately suspicious. Uncle Larry claims that he received a letter telling him that their parents have gone on holiday and wouldn’t be back for a few weeks. However, some other weird things are happening such as Uncle Larry doesn’t know how to do every day things like turning on a tap or going shopping, even how to drive.

Uncle Larry let’s Daniel do whatever he wants and gives him lots of money for things. He even let Daniel have a chainsaw! Daniel is excited, he even found a dead bird so chopped his head off and put it in an ants nest so they would eat all the flesh (he wanted it for his skull collection). William definitely knows something is very wrong and try’s to find out the truth. William persisted to Uncle Larry knowing his parents wouldn’t have just gone without talking to them and follows Uncle Larry to the office. Here he sees Uncle Larry push a button to reveal a hidden office. It has a secret underground base with a milky coloured pool which is the portal. Uncle Larry tells William that his parents are really scientists and not the brokers he thought they were, their entire life was a lie. Their job was to look after the portal but Uncle Larry believes they have gone into the portal for an unknown reason. Could they find out more from Emma who is their in-wall robot? Who really knows?

We have started writing a non-chronological report about Pandora (the moon). We are also doing some creative writing about strange creatures which we shall update you on in further blogs.

Next week in golden time we shall be decorating the classroom with Christmas decorations, so we are all working really hard to produce some amazing work so we can have this fun festive time in class 3.

Sadly, we will not be blogging next week as we are far to busy with rehearsals for our Christmas Production. We will however be back for one last blog before we break up for Christmas.

Thank you to those who comment and read our blogs – we do get your feedback in class!

 

St Mark’s CE Primary School Class 3 Blog

W/E 18/11/16

Today we had another ‘Gold’ first thing. Sean was awarded the gold cushion today for being totally amazing in invasion games and maths, being creative in his writing and his presentation of work. We all agree he is a very worthy winner this week.  We sang the traditional Spandau Ballet Gold to him and pointed as he was presented with the cushion. The lyrics are as follows: Gold, always believe in your soul, you’ve got the power to know, you’re indestructible, always believe in, because you are gold, glad that you’re bound to return, there’s something I could have learned, you’re indestructible, always believing.

 We held our workshare this week and it was epic!  We wrote it ourselves in teams. Our English group told the storyline of the book we have been reading The Butterfly Lion. This was done through stories, chapters and a live debate. Our geography explained how we have been looking at food from around the world and we even held a quiz ‘The Weakest Leek.’ Our maths team demonstrated various maths techniques we have learnt or been practising, speed maths, metal strategies etc. Our science team did live experiments, one went a little wrong but did work in class. We demonstrated reversible and irreversible substances. The class 1 children loved seeing the colour changes. It was a really good workshare, enjoyed by all. I think the parents even learnt from it.

We have started looking at Science Fiction this week. We have been talking about what we already know about space and pretending we are all space cadets and our mission which we have accepted is to try and find out as much information as we can about the moon, the sun and earth. If we visited any of these things we would bring back,  images, video’s, written reports, diagrams and samples of our findings. It’s going to be really interesting and we are all excited to learn more.

Mr Dennett has been letting us watch parts of Doctor Who to kick off the start of this project. We will be looking a different snippets of sci-fi and take areas from each to develop in our new roles as space cadets. We have already climbed through a magic mirror to be a character in a story and questioned Doctor Who through our magic micro phoning session.

Art has been linked to our space theme too. We have been designing our own abstract drawings of a space ship and have looked and talked about the work of the famous abstract artist Peter Thorpe. Peter is probably most famous for his artwork in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis.

We have begun our new spelling tournament. Our spelling bees are Kieran and Michael who were in our ‘spell off’ at the end of last term. We are all working really hard already to be the next spelling bee.

Last week it was Remembrance Day. Mrs Freeman organised for a drama company to come in and teach us some skills relating to this special day through acting and songs whilst telling a story.  We learnt the song the soldiers’ use to sing ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag’ and acted out scenes of the battlefield. We really enjoyed it and will never forget our fallen.

Christmas is coming up and we are especially looking forward to our Snow Ball. We will probably play some games and have a dance off like last year but this year we want a dance off with the teachers!

We won’t be blogging next week as we have so much to do in class but will be back soon with our news.

 

 

Class 3 Blog W/E 28/10/16

 

We have a new gold cushion winner this week, Bradley has written an amazing chapter in our big write and Mr Dennett was so pleased with it he was awarded the gold cushion. In true class 3 style we sang ‘gold’ to him.

As a school we have been talking about ‘Sacred Books’ this week. Our sacred book is our Christian Bible but we have also looked at other religions sacred books such as Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism.

Science has been eventful as usual and we have been doing more experiments, this time with vinegar and a glove. Maths has consisted of yet more division and times table practise.

Two children from class 3 attend regular meetings in Lancashire and represent our school as part of The Sports Council. This week they went along to Ormskirk School with Mrs Lyness and discussed how we could get more exercise. As a group we came up with the idea of running a mile a day. The benefits from exercise are amazing, it helps you sleep better, concentrate, boosts fitness and puts you in a better mood. The more you run the cleverer you become.  We will be making posters to tell others about this.

Finally we have finished the book, The Butterfly Lion. Millie was looking for Bertie and became a nurse in France. She established that she had only been working a mile away from where he was. They were reunited and went to find a house together. One day they were in this café and saw a poster advertising a circus featuring The White Prince. They went along only to find that the circus had shut down and all the animals had been shot because of the food shortage (no food to feed them, not that they were shot to feed humans). They found out where the circus owner lived and went along to his house only to find that the lion, The White Prince was in his home. The circus owner of Circ Merlot was called Monsieur Merlot. He was very poorly and malnourished but couldn’t shoot the lion.  Monsieur Merlot passed away and Bertie took the lion to see the Kernel of the army who saw Bertie had the Victoria Cross and therefore let him keep the lion. Bertie and Millie moved back to England with the lion where she grew up. Sadly, after a good age the lion passed on. Bertie dedicated the next 20 years to calving a large lion out of chalk on the hillside and called it The White Prince. Butterflies would land on the calving of his mane. Not long after this Bertie also died and Millie buried him next to the lion by the chalk calving. Michael told the story and said that there was a plaque in the church which read Albert Andrew 1897-1968, this was obviously Bertie. So was Millie a ghost telling Michael the story? Were these voices in his head?  We enjoyed the story and would give it a 9 out of 10.

We are looking forward to half term but also coming back as we will be holding our workshare assembly where parents are invited in to see our showcase of learning this term. We promise it will be explosive and totally out of this world.

Class 3 Blog W/E 21/10/16

Class 3 Blog W/E 21/10/16

As soon as we come into class we use the registration period to look at our book ‘fix its.’ This is where the book has been marked by Mr Dennett and we can see where we have made a mistake and fix it. On Friday’s we can pick ourselves whether to practise our spellings, maths etc.

In assembly this week we have been learning all about ‘Saints.’ We have heard many stories about different saints but the best one has to be our Saint of England, Saint George and how he slayed the dragon.

We are writing our own chapters in class based on The Butterfly Lion. To date Bertie has gone to war (WW1) and was shot badly in the leg.  He falls into a shell hole but hears screams from a couple of his comrades. He crawls back onto the battle field and helped two of his comrades, he put one of them on his back and crawled with him back into the trenches. He was taken to hospital and later awarded the Victoria Cross.  Our own chapters will explain what we think will happen next.

In golden time last week we tasted some of the food we have been researching for our leaflets which we are still working on. These foods were, Coconut, Mango, Avocado, Papaya and Physalis. Some of us liked them, some of us didn’t but we all agreed that the Mango was our favourite.

In Mathletics we have been challenging each other again as a class. Mr Dennett has been cheating a little to confuse us. In our normal maths lessons we have looking at division again using the bus stop/drop down method.

In science we have been looking at rust or FE203 (Iron Oxide) as it’s technically known.  We have been learning at how rust happens and have been looking at a few experiments to show this.

This week’s boggle challenge is a two times challenge so you can use the letter twice. The person with the longest letter wins something from out of the box (treats). Next week as it will be half term the highest scorers in the spelling bee challenge will have a ‘spell off.’ In SPAG we are revisiting the use of speech marks, passive and active sentences. An example of this could be, ’The burger was eaten by Mr Dennett.’ That was a passive sentence, an active one could be ‘Mr Dennett ate a burger.’

We are close to the end of this half of the term where as you know we have been learning tennis skills. This week we are playing proper competitions. It’s been great fun.

Some of us attend Code Club after school. We are really enjoying this new and different after school club. So far we have been getting the computers to talk and are in the process of making our own rock band. Can’t wait until we can put it all together.

Class 3 Blog W/E 14/10/16

Class 3 Blog W/E 14/10/16

In assembly this week we have been taking about ‘unselfishness.’ We have examples of how we have demonstrated unselfishness and heard a story about a strong man who helped lift people over a river. One day the strong man lifted a child and as he was lifting him over the water he changed into an adult. The adult told the strong man that he was Jesus.

We are still talking about food in class and have been learning facts about individual foods and designing our own leaflets to promote the food. We shall be tasting some of these delights in golden time later today. Most of us have been researching online, one interesting fact we learnt about watermelon was that in ancient Egypt Kings were buried with a watermelon so they could eat it in the afterlife. It was a sacred food as it was 98% water. Another interesting fact was that Christopher Columbus took lemon seeds to America in 1495 to introduce that fruit to them. We also discovered that there really was a chocolate river once!

In Maths we have been looking at mental strategies and multiplication. We have been looking at multiple prime numbers and common factors. Mr Dennett doesn’t make it easy for us. Our golden time last week was spent as a class competing with each other in Mathletics which is an online product we all have logons for so we can use it at home.

We have re-visited identifying and using Synonyms, Antonyms, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions in SPAG. We have been practicing sentences such as  ‘I went to the park yet none of my friends were there’ and’ That one time it rained, I forgot my umbrella.’ We have been using FANBOYS to remember (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So).

I’m sure you are interested in an update from The Butterfly Lion. So the cub (named now as the White Prince) was seen by a Frenchman who took it to a French circus.  We have learnt that the old lady is called Millie. Bertie is a friend of Millie’s back in time and that is why she is now telling his story. Millie and Bertie fell in love but Millie was sent to a convent and Bertie was sent to England to attend a boarding school. It was the same boarding school where Michael attended. It’s all a little confusing at the moment but will make sense.

Yesterday, we went over to church to see the 10 commandments which are written at the front of church. We found they were written in old English and roman numerals which is different as to how they are written today. We do enjoy visiting our church and always find out an interesting fact that we didn’t know.

Class 3 Blog W/E 07/10/16

Class 3 Blog W/E 07/10/16

Today, Michaela was presented with the ‘Golden Cushion’ for remembering things from the week before, general great attitude and hard work.  We all sang ‘Gold’ to her and she was a little embarrassed but most deserving of it.

Following on from Harvest we have been talking again about our Christian Values in assembly and how we use them every day without even noticing. For example we are always kind and caring to everyone and show love in different ways, being generous doesn’t mean giving people gifts, it could be giving up time. We respect others, adults in school and those people who have different beliefs or religions to our own. We were given the example of if we were visited by an alien from space how would we explain what a good Christian was. We also talked again about examples of our British Values.

Our science experiment this week was smelly but epic! In 7 bowls were substances that were all different. There was lemon juice, vitamin c tablets, soap powder, citric acid powder, baking powder, white vinegar and orange juice. We were looking at changes to see if the substances had irreversible changes or not. We used a pipette and petri dish with red cabbage in it. We used the substances individually on the red cabbage to see if it was neutral, an alkaline or an acid. Our finding were pretty much what we were expecting. I think the vitamin C tablet was the best as it turned pink but fizzed too.

We have read more of The Butterfly Lion. The old lady has just told Michael a story about Bertie, he once saved a lion cub. As the cub got older Bertie took him out of the compound and climbed a tree with him and old him to stay in the tree. The cub kept following Bertie, but Bertie wanted him to be released back into the wild. Bertie’s Dad wanted to go to England to sell the cub to a circus. In class we had a debate whether Bertie should keep the cub or return it to the wild. Either way is sad but we all agreed you couldn’t keep animals in a circus.

Another busy week at St Mark’s so we are all ready for some rest this weekend.

Class 3 Blog W/E 30/09/16

 

Class 3 Blog W/E 30/09/16

This week has been amazing. We had a specialist Archery Teacher in school and for the entire day we all managed to get some time with him learning the skills and techniques of Archery. It was a windy day but despite the conditions we all did really well. The four main areas to remember are:

1. Stance (side on)
2. Nocking the arrow in the bow
3. Draw String
4. Aim (arrow down, arm back and up)
5. Fire/Release

We played some games such as Ninja’s and Robin Hood where we had to save the Merry Men. The theme tied in with our topic on the Anglo Saxon’s last term, see we do remember!

In Maths we have been looking at word problems such as, there are 8695 people in a theme park, 2450 are too scared to go on a ride but 1095 aren’t. How many people go on the ride again? So the questions are trying to trick you. We have also been shopping in Maths, we have been cutting items out of a catalogue that we wish to purchase, adding them up and subtracting using decimals.

We are still reading The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo. In class we had a hot seat based on the 2 main characters, the old lady and Michael the boy. So if you were one of these characters (in the hot seat) the class could interview you as if you were the character so you had to think like they would and be them.

Geography has been fun, still on our theme food we have been looking at where it comes from around the world not just in the UK. Next week we will be tasting foods from around the world.

It was European Language day this week. We held a special assembly where we all contributed something. Our favourite was the French and German tongue twisters. We are still learning Spanish with Miss Watkinson on Wednesday’s and are all really enjoying it.

As you know this weekend we will be celebrating Harvest in Church. Well, we have been getting ready in school all week learning about this special time of year in our country but have learnt that it is celebrated at different times of the year in different countries. Today, we all came into school with items of food to decorate the porch area in our church and on Sunday our school and community will come together with the Brownies of St Mark’s and have one big service together. On Monday the food will all be donated to the soup kitchens. In one of our assemblies Mrs Trewhitt told us a story about giant turnip. There were a family of 4 and they ran a farm. One day the farmer tried to pull this turnip out of the ground but he couldn’t do it by himself so he called his wife, she helped him but they still couldn’t manage to get it out. So, their 8 year old son came to help but they still couldn’t get it up. The youngest child who was a 5 year old girl came out to help and between the 4 of them they managed to pull it out of the ground. The moral of the story is, if you work as a team sometimes things work out for the better and you can give more to others.

Class 3 Blog W/E 23/09/16

Class 3 Blog W/E 23/09/16 Nutrition Special

Today as Sam came in (Sam is our Chair of Governors and hears all our blog news on Friday’s) Mr Dennett played the Superman theme music or women in this case as she walked in. We all pointed at her and she pretended to fly around the classroom. It was funny and made a change to our regular Friday routine when we blog as a class. Sam was delighted.

This week Mr Dennett invited a ‘Nutritionist’ from Lancashire County Council to come in and talk to us about food, vitamins and minerals. We learnt so much about essential vitamins A,B C, D E and K. Most of us didn’t realise that the main source of vitamin D comes from the sun. We learnt many more facts such as calcium helps prevent blood clots, minerals come from rocks, white blood cells block germs and that our platelets fight against blood clots. Our body gets rid of water in three ways, sweating, going to the toilet and breathing. We should drink between 6-8 glasses of water per day and eat 5 different fruits and vegetables. Did you know that we use over 200 muscles in our body just by walking and the rest of our body is made up from over 650 muscles? Therefore walking is very important.

We have been reading the book The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo as a class. It’s about a boy that is in boarding school and hates it. In particular his noisy uncomfortable bed, semolina pudding and the fact he is being bullied and he really can’t take it anymore so runs away. We have been writing our own letters to the head teacher as if we were that boy. We are looking forward to the next chapter and will of course update you.

Our big write is based on the small film The Dream Giver. It’s about a fairy creature/person who makes dreams by dropping the dream potion on an item of that child who is sleeping. Only one day some leaks on to a book which isn’t very nice and it turns into a nightmare.

On Friday our golden cushion was presented to Alex for working hard. Alice who was that last person to hold the golden cushion status presented it to Alex whilst we all sang along to Spandau Ballet’s song Gold. What a great way to end the school week.