Welcome to our class page. Here, you will find information about the children’s exciting learning, as well as any key dates or important pieces of information that you will need to know for the upcoming weeks and months.
Reminders and Dates
This half term, we will be swimming on Monday mornings. Children will need to come to school with their swimming kit as detailed in the letter given out last half term. They will also need their PE kit in school for outdoor PE lessons.
Homework will be sent home each Friday, and should be completed and returned by the following Thursday. Spellings will also be sent home on Friday and should be practised in preparation for our spelling test each Thursday.
Monday 15th July – Swap Over Day
Tuesday 16th July – Rugby Festival
Wednesday 17th July – Eucharist Service
Friday 26th July – finish for summer
Our Learning
Science – shadows
Our science topic this half term is all about light and shadows. To begin with we thought about how shadows are formed and how we can change the size of a shadow. Do you have to move closer to or away from a light source? The children enjoyed making shapes on the playground emulating the video they had watched in class.
Quidditch
Today began with a sorting hat. We were all sorted into Hogwarts houses and then the games began. Each class took part in an exciting game of Quidditch on the school field. The rules were tricky and the game was very fast, but everyone enjoyed it.
Sports Day
We were blessed with good weather for this annual event. All of the children picked which races they wanted to take part in and raced with huge smiles on their faces. It was nice to see such wonderful team spirit as they cheered for their classmates.
Ancient Greek Day
To end our Ancient Greek topic, we had a wonderful day filled with drama and art. We learn what life was like in Sparta and Athens; how these groups of people lived, their differences and what it would have been like to have been a child in these times. It was an incredibly exciting day full of active learning.
Mission X – Drama
We often use drama in Year 3 to help us come up with ideas for our writing. Today, we imagined that we were off on our Mission X adventure. The morning began with the launch. Everyone strapped themselves in to prepare for take off. Once at the International Space Station, we had to complete a space walk before enjoying our space meal. It gave us lots of wonderful adjectives to add to our work.
Design and Technology – Sewing
As part of our Mission X topic, the children have designed their own badges to adorn a space suit. They had to make the design match a specific set of design criteria and then practise a range of stitches to complete their badge. The children worked really hard and learnt lots of valuable skills.
Mission X
This half term, we have learnt what it takes to be an astronaut and be given a mission on the International Space Station. In one of our PE lessons each week, we have focused on the training that all astronauts undertake before they can venture into space. It was tough going and we all felt the we had improved our strength, coordination, flexibility and fitness.
Team work was also very important in space so all half term we have had challenges to complete in groups of different sizes. Mrs Wightman came into one of our lessons and commented on how well we all work as a team.
Our topic ended with some space writing. We used drama to imagine that we were blasting off into space. Ben thought that it was very noisy, and Sam loved our space walk.
The writing that the children produces was lovely and has made a wonderful display in class.
As part of Mission X, we all designed a badge that we could wear on the back of our space suit if we were chosen to travel to the International Space Station. Over several weeks we learnt different stitches and practised these on binca. It took a lot of hard work, but our finished designs are quite wonderful.
The topic ended with a space feast when we all got to try out space food. The ice cream was delicious, but we all agreed that fresh fruit is much nicer then dried space fruit.
Tennis
To end our tennis topic in PE, Miss Stubbs organised a tournament between our class and the other Year 3 classes. The children played incredibly well, using all of the skills that they had learnt, but what was most wonderful to see was the team spirit that all of the children showed.
British Science Week
Today we launched British Science Week with a bang with a visit from the Science Boffins. We had a magnificent assembly where Rodney, our boffin, showed us what happened when chemical mix. In our classes, we learnt about electricity and polymers and made slime. The day ended with an exciting rocket launch on the school field.
Later in the week, we looked at what happened when Skittles were placed in water. The children were amazed as the colouring from the sweets diffused through the water to make beautiful patterns.
Our focus this half term is fair tests so on Wednesday we planned a fair test to see which vinegar reacted best with baking soda to produce the best fizz. We had to use our observational skills and measure carefully.
Not to miss engineering out, we had an afternoon making paper aeroplanes. The children were given a basic template, made their aeroplane and then adapted the design and re-tested. At the end of the afternoon, we had one final test and a winning design was decided.
To end the week, we performed the Mentos challenge. We used different types of fizzy drink and measured which one had the fiercest reaction.
World Book Day
We had a wonderful day today, full of with book filled excitement. We enjoyed sharing books, making book covers and telling stories.
Pancake Pledges
Today we were lucky enough to receive a gift of pancakes from church. The children all wrote a pledge for Lent, but instead of giving something up, we thought about what extra we could do as we prepare for Easter. Some of the children wanted to donate items to the food-bank or charity. Others said that they would be more helpful at home.
Geography – Map Symbols
This half term, our geography topic looks at maps and map skills. Today the children have designed their own maps of an imaginary space world to link to our Mission X work. They have created a key of symbols and added these to their maps. It was fantastic to see the children developing their teamwork skills and working collaboratively.
Story Telling at Westbrook Library
Last week, Year 3 classes were captivated by the fabulous story telling skills of John. John retold the story of The Twits by Roald Dahl which many of the children have already read. None of them, however, had seen the story performed in such an exciting and interactive manner. The highlight was definitely Mr Twit painting ‘Hug Tight Glue’ all over the room, the teachers and the children. Spending time at the library has inspired us all to tell more stories and have more fun with our reading.
Egyptian Day
To end our topic, we had a fabulous day dressing up as Ancient Egyptians. The children took part in a drama activity where they learnt what it was like to be an archaeologist and make incredible discoveries in ancient tombs. They learnt about hieroglyphics and made bookmarks, and became ancient embalmers and mummified oranges. We are going to use our observational skills in British Science Week to look at the changes that have occurred to the oranges. A highlight for many of the children was the banquet although some children were not fond of all of the foods that were on offer. The whole day was filled with fun and lots of exciting learning.
PE – Gymnastics
This half term, the children have been developing their balancing. They have used key gymnastics shapes, star, tuck, pile, straddle and straight, to make a series of balances alone, with a partner and in groups. Some children demonstrated this as part of our class assembly.
Health and Well-being Week
This week has been all about looking at keeping our bodies and minds healthy. To look after our minds we used meditation and mindfulness to think about living in a moment, and trying not to worry about what has been and what is yet to be. We learnt about making healthy choices when we eat, and tried to add extra activity into each day. Even when we were on our trip to the museum we managed to remain active, clocking up a staggering 9,000 steps and climbing 13 flights of stairs. We had exciting events all week; a club-a-cise morning when we did a dance based fitness class in the hall with glo-sticks and dance music.
Miss Stubbs and the Year 6 Sports Ambassadors organised a fantastic boot camp, giving us the experience of some high intensity interval training.
A highlight for many was a visit from Wil from Warrington Wolves Foundation who inspired us with his talk about the many challenges he has completed. We loved seeing the cup that his team won while playing in Australia.
Liverpool World Museum Trip
What a fantastic day we had today! The day was jam packed with exciting learning to enhance our Ancient Egypt topic. We took part in a theatre workshop, where we learnt the tricks of mummification. We handled artefacts from the period, and learnt about the gods, hieroglyphics and tried to solve a puzzle. To end the day, we visited the exhibits in the museum. The favourites definitely seemed to be the mummies, although we were amazed by the number of shabtis found inside each tomb.
Art – Texture
The children have been learning about the different grades of pencils and how to use a range of effects to create texture and the effects of light. They then used these techniques to sketch natural objects.
Science – Forces
To launch our new science topic, the children became parts of their own Rube Goldberg machines. Machines which take longer to do a task than is necessary, such as the ones designed in Wallace and Gromit films. They each became a different part of the machine and demonstrated pushes and pulls to move each part.
PE – Dance
Our topic about the Ancient Egyptians has prompted us to choreograph our own dances based on the Egyptian Gods. Today, we made a start by looking at images from tombs and artwork that shows the gods in different poses. We used these to help us to make our own and share them with our group. We are excited to see how these dances turn out and share them as part of our class assembly.
Christmas Party
Today was very exciting. We had a wonderful party day with games, a talent competition, colouring competition and of course our delicious part plates. Thank you to all of you for all of your support in 2018, and best wishes for 2019.
Worship Group
The worship group delivered our class worship today, and did a magnificent job. They read and performed the story clearly and deserve their certificates for all of their hard work this half term. They have now chosen the new members of the worship group, who will assist in the delivery of weekly worship in class.
British Values Debate
Today we talked about the British Value – Rule of The Law, and debated, ‘Is Warrington a Fair Place to Live?’ Lots of the children immediately said that yes it was, but the group of children who thought that it wasn’t managed to change some other’s minds. They said that not everything was fair because there were too many people without homes and without enough food. The children were saddened at this and were glad that the choir had managed to raise so much money for ‘Room at the Inn’ to help people without homes this Christmas.
Worship Group
Our worship team led our class worship on Friday and they did a fantastic job. They planned and delivered the session by themselves, and listened to the ideas of all of the children. Well done!
Worship Group
DT – Spanish Breakfast
As part of our DT topic this half term, we made a Spanish tortilla. The children designed their own tortillas, and then prepared all of the ingredients in class. We chose to make two, one contained ham and the other was a vegetarian option.
While the tortilla was cooking, we prepared our bruschetta by mashing tomatoes and drizzling olive oil onto crusty bread slices. Then at last we got to taste everything that we had prepared. Most of us thought that the dish was delicious, so we wrote letters to the school cook to try and convince her to put our dish on the school menu.
Foxhowl
What a fabulous time we all had on our recent residential adventure. The children were magnificent and their survival skills in the forest would put Bear Grylls to shame. They enjoyed den building, forest art and stream dipping, but lots of the children said that their favourite thing was the food. Our pictures tell a wonderful story, so have fun looking through them.
Christmas Performance
Our Christmas performance this year was fantastic. It taught us all about the tradition of Christmas and how it has evolved over the centuries to become the Christmas we enjoy today. The children loved learning about all of the different periods that have had an influence on our festivities, but we all agreed that we need to remember to hold Jesus in our hearts.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
We would like to thank you all for your support in making such wonderful costumes and helping the children to learn their lines and songs.
Courageous Advocates – Save The Orangutan
This half term, we have been learning about the plight of the orangutans and the other animals, plants and people that live in the Indonesian Rain-forest. The Indonesian Rain-forest is a risk because of the devastation caused by companies growing palm trees for palm oil manufacture. To finish our learning the children designed posters and we held a march to raise awareness of the use of dirty palm oil.
PSHE – Risks
Today we looked at lots of different scenarios that present risks to us. The children acted out a range of scenarios like: being jostled and pushed on a train station platform, receiving a request to post a picture online, and getting up in the morning and being cold. Should you light the gas fire? The children were able to identify the risks, dangers, and hazards and say how these risks could be minimised.
Science – Muscles and Bones
Today we looked at chicken wings and compared them to human arms. We located the shoulder, elbow and wrist, and looked at how they were similar and different to ours. We dissected the wings to look at the muscle pairs and worked out how they work to make limbs move. The children were very sensible conducting this tricky investigation, but had lots of fun.
RE – Harvest
As part of our RE topic this half term, the children have learnt about the celebration of Harvest. We have explored the Christian celebration, and how this differs across the world. The children compared our school Harvest Festival with Christian celebrations in India, New Zealand, Germany and Italy. The children also thought about how people of other faiths celebrated harvest and were interested to discover that people of no faith also gave thanks and thought of less fortunate people at this time of year. They were very interested to learn about the Jewish festival of Sukkot, when people of this faith build a sukkah and live outdoors for 7 days to offer thanks to God for the gifts He provides them with. The children enjoyed building their own sukkahs in class and thought about what it would be like to sleep inside them.
Pebble Art
The focus in art was linked to our science topic about rocks and stones. We looked at the work of a range of artists who had all produced wonderful artwork of pebbles and stones. The children enjoyed looking at all of the different styles but chose the work of Ester Roi to use as a stimulus for their finished pieces.
Ester Roi uses a technique that uses pencils and a heated bed that we were unable to replicate, so we chose oil pastels for our artwork. We are extremely pleased with the results and have sent an invitation to Ester to view our work.
I sent a message to Ester Roi to share the wonderful work that the children have made. She replied with this very exciting response.
Science – Bones
Today we launched our new science topic which is all about bones and muscles. For a wow launch, the children were asked to build a group skeleton using bone shaped biscuits. We then named some of the bones and learnt why skeletons are important and that not all animals have the same type of skeleton.
Science – Which soil drains best?
We conducted our first fair test of the year to investigate water draining through a range of soil types. We enjoyed using the science equipment boxes and choosing which would be the best equipment to measure the water that had drained through the soil.
Westbrook Orchard
What an adventure we had today! We are so lucky to have such a fantastic space so close to our school, and we have thoroughly enjoyed our outdoor learning today. We were joined by Mary and Kev from the Land Trust who taught us all about the wonderful creatures and wild plants that live in the orchard. We thought about how different the orchard will look in different seasons and we are looking forward to returning in the summer.
Leaf Man
The stimulus for our poetry writing this week has been the book, Leaf Man. To spark our imagination we worked in groups to create our own leaf creatures which will be the focus of our poems this week, and our stories next week.
Stone Age Workshop
Today, we were fortunate to have a visit from a wonderful visitor from Warrington Museum who came to teach us about the Stone Age. We learnt about Stone Age tools and used a bow and drill to make holes in flint to wear as jewellery. Later on, we worked as a team to twist fabric and make our own rope. We were all surprised by how difficult all of these jobs were. Stone Age people had to work very hard.
Christian Values
Today, we thought about the rules that we all agree to live by and how these rules affect us and those around us. We wrote rules for our class and linked them to our Christian Values, and then a groups of children used drama to show what each of our values looks like as a freeze frame. The rest of the class found it really easy to guess which value was which.
Our Learning from Year 2
Library Visit
What a super time we had at the library! We all enjoyed finding books about things that we are interested in, which was lovely to see. Don’t forget to sign up for the Library’s Summer Reading Challenge!
Minibeast Hunt
We all enjoyed a mini-beast hunt around the school grounds, looking in lots of different micro-habitats. We found ants, butterflies and lots and lots of spiders! We then made a tally to see which mini-beast was the most common, and used this to create a pictogram.
Scooter Training
The children had lots of fun on their scooter training this week. We learnt all about how to stay safe when riding a scooter. Did you know that you should always get off your scooter when you cross the road? It’s much safer!
Planting seeds
We are really enjoying learning about plants this half term. We have been very busy planting seeds and writing instructions to help others if they would like to plant their own! Mrs Ryan thinks that we’ve all definitely got ‘green fingers!’
Westbrook Walk
The children had lots of fun on our Westbrook walk. They looked at different trees and plants, noticing similarities and differences, searched for different animals in different habitats, and used natural materials to create some artwork.
Plants
We had a super, sunny day starting our new Science topic, ‘Plants.’ We started off by looking at different flowers, naming their parts. We then discussed their function and created our own labelled diagram. Taking advantage of the beautiful weather, we took our learning outside, drawing and labeling trees on our school grounds.
Finger Puppets
Take a look at some of our super finger puppets! We designed them from our favourite Indian animals and worked really hard to sew very carefully. All of the adults who helped us were very impressed with our sewing skills!
India
Our topic for this half term is ‘India,’ and we have enjoyed learning all about the country and it’s culture. This week we have been extremely lucky as Mrs Sen came in to our class to tell us all about India, the country that she grew up in!
British Science Week
British Science Week is always a fun-packed week, full of exciting Science learning, and this week has been no different! Our week started with a visit from the ‘Science Boffins.’ We had a super assembly, where we were shown lots of exciting experiments and investigations. We were then lucky enough to have a workshop with the Science Boffins, where we learnt all about filtering water, food chains and keeping our environment clean and healthy.
To continue our Science learning, we started to think of our own questions and investigations that we could complete. Using some milk, food colouring and washing up liquid, we enjoyed testing and predicting what would happen when we put all of the liquids together. When we used a pipette to put the food colouring and fairy liquid in the milk, there was an array of ‘WOWs’ around the classroom!
We then chose to find out the answer to the question: Do the children with the longest legs jump the furthest?
We created our own table for recording and using a tape measure we set out to try to find an answer to our question!
World Book Day
It is always lovely to see all of the children sharing and enjoying their love of books on World Book Day. There were some fantastic outfits, and the children all enjoyed discussing their favourite characters and their favourite books. Our day involved lots of reading, a trip to our new library to enjoy a bedtime story, and using our art skills to create alternative front covers for our favourite books. Take a look at some of our fantastic outfits!
Fun in the Snow
The snowy weather meant that we all enjoyed some time making snowballs and snowmen. You can tell by the big grins on our faces that we all had so much fun!
Which sweet makes the best brick?
This half term our focus in Science has been materials. Today we completed a fair test to see which was the best sweet to use to make bricks. We chose to test fudge, marshmallows and chocolate buttons. After thinking about the properties a brick needed, we used our cement (icing sugar) to create our wall. We made sure to keep the number of sweets we used and the ball used to test the strength the same, in order to keep it a fair test. We found out that the fudge pieces were best for stacking, and that they held up in our strength test. They were also opaque, solid and not bendy!
Astronaut Food
As our topic is ‘Space’ this half term, this week we have had the chance to try something very exciting – astronaut food! Using our senses, we described how the food looked, felt, smelt and then finally we got to taste it! Most of us thought it was very delicious but a little strange looking!
Library Visit
I was very much looking forward to taking the children to the library because they are so enthusiastic about books! Of course, on our visit it was no different. The children were respectful of the library and other people and they behaved impeccably. They loved nothing more than choosing a great book and sharing it with a friend! We definitely have some authors of the future in our midst! Linking to our current project, we looked for non-fiction books about space. The children could identify a variety of non-fiction features, including contents pages, index pages and glossaries.
Making Healthy Drinks
This week is ‘Health Week.’ Throughout this week, our learning will concentrate on looking at how to keep our bodies and minds healthy. Today, we started with how to keep our bodies healthy by recapping our learning about healthy eating. We remembered the ‘Eat-Well Plate,’ and how important it is to have a balanced diet. From this, we enjoyed creating and making our own healthy drinks!
We started this by trying lots of different fruit juices: orange, pineapple, cranberry and apple, thinking about what we liked and didn’t like about the juices. We then chose two juices to mix together, measuring our juices exactly using a measuring jug! Using our knife skills, we finished our drinks with fruit that we chopped carefully using a knife. They tasted delicious!
Space Day
On Tuesday we all had lots of fun during our ‘space’ themed day. Firstly, the children enjoyed a workshop all about Space, in a fantastic Space Dome which was huge!
We learnt lots of exciting, new things about Space. We were amazed to see a sea of shooting stars in the sky, called a meteor shower. Did you know this only happens around every 100 years? We also learnt about the moon’s phases and why the moon looks like it is a different shape each night. The children and teachers had a fabulous time!
We then went back to the classroom to complete a science experiment – what is the best material to make a space suit? We had lots of fun testing the different materials to find an answer to our question.
Finally, we ended the day looking at artist, Peter Thorpe, who paints pictures of rockets. We had a go at creating our own artwork, in his style. A fantastic day was had by all!
Christmas Party
The children had lots of fun at their Christmas party. We enjoyed pulling crackers, playing pass the parcel and dancing to our favourite songs. Have a lovely Christmas break – Merry Christmas everyone!
Junk Modelling
Our topic this half term has been called ‘Lively Liverpool.’ Throughout our Geography lessons, we have been learning all about the differences between Liverpool and Westbrook. To follow on from this learning, we used junk to create a small-scale model of Liverpool’s waterfront, and of Westbrook. We explored different ways of joining materials, and learnt to join materials using tabs. Take a look! Can you guess which buildings we have re-created?
Our Christmas Play
The children have been working extremely hard, practising for their Christmas play, and WOW, wasn’t it fantastic? From our dancers to our elves, each and