Christian Distinctiveness – Me and My Community Themed Week
At St James, this week is ‘me and my community’ themed week! With this in mind, our first day focussed on Christian distinctiveness here at St James’ CE Primary. Year 3 have worked really hard today and we covered four learning objectives – these are below and are supported by some fantastic learning.
LO: I know our school vision.
St James is a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.
In class, we discussed what it does and should look, sound and feel like to be happy and healthy. We also discussed our current achievements and what it feels like to believe in something. Year 3 were then tasked to create a poster to promote our school vision.
LO: I know what our school logo looks like.
As a class, we gathered ideas on what our school logo represents. This discussion sparked some brilliant ideas, and the children really thought deeply about their responses. We came up with a fantastic class poster for our classroom!
LO: I know who St James was.
The children took part in a reading activity, based on St James himself. St James, son of Zebedee, was a fisherman, along with his brother, John. When Jesus came to visit, both James and John were excited to become followers of Jesus and to become ‘fishers of men’. When James heard the stories that Jesus told, Jesus became the centre of everything he believed in. He dedicated his life following Jesus and became one of his three closest followers (along with John and Peter).
LO: I know the Christian Values at St James’ CE Primary.
Here at St James, we have six Christian Values:
- compassion
- forgiveness
- perseverance
- honesty
- peace
- courage
Year 3 read three bible stories. We had to decide and debate which Christian Value was shown the most in each story. Here are some quotes from the children:
‘Noah showed perseverance in The Flood Begins because it must have taken ages for him to build the boat.’ – Max
‘In The Good Samaritan, compassion was the main Christian value because the Samaritan showed care towards the dying man when the others before him didn’t.’ – Orianne
‘Zacchaeus showed forgiveness because he had to forgive himself for treating people badly and Jesus helped him do it’. – Isabella
‘Zacchaeus showed peace and honesty by admitting to his mistakes and Jesus helped people become peaceful in Jericho.’ – Bea
Living and Learning: I take part in democratic decisions.
This week, our living and learning statement is:
I take part in democratic decisions.
Over the half term, we’ve learnt lots about democracy already (through our history topic). We found that democracy originated in Athens during their Golden Age (800-500BC). We also know that democracy means ‘power to the people’ – a fitting name indeed!
In our country, we’re beginning to understand what voting means and how new laws are written. The children have understood that, when voting for a new prime minister, areas often vote for a leader to represent them.
Next week, our whole school will be taking part in a democratic vote to nominate new members for our Junior Leadership Team! In class we’ve spoken about what makes a good leader and some questions we might (and might not) ask to find out who to vote for. Here’s a few examples below:
Good examples:
Are you confident talking to lots of people?
Are you kind to everyone around you?
Are you a good listener and will you let everyone have a say?
Questions to avoid:
Who’s your favourite footballer?
What’s your favourite dinner?
Help at home:
Encourage your child to try out for a place on the Junior Leadership Team! Help your child create and practise a speech to persuade their classmates to vote for them. What characteristics someone might need to be a good leader? How could you show them off to your class?
MindMate – Self Esteem
Thursday was World Mental Health Day. We invited MindMate Support Team into school to deliver workshops to the children about self-esteem and how to get help if they’re feeling sad or have low mood. Year 3 responded to this learning really well – they learnt new ways to help tackle tricky feelings and how to turn them into positive ones. On Friday, the same team delivered a workshop to parents about supporting children with self-esteem and the feedback was positive.
Here are a few pictures from our class workshop:
Help at home:
Talk with your child about any feelings of sadness or low self-esteem that they may have experienced. Your child should have brought home their posters on self esteem – use this as a talking point to flip those feelings into positives.
Lotherton Hall trip!
Years 3 and 4 had a fantastic time on our first trip of the year to Lotherton Hall! The aim of this trip was to support our ongoing science learning about animals, their habitats and their bone structures.
Mr Freeman and Mrs Poole were very impressed with the responses from the children during the workshops – children could confidently talk about the following:
- 5 animal groups (mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians)
- characteristics of animals within each group (classifying)
- vertebrates and invertebrates
- animals with skeletons and exoskeletons
Outside of the workshop, the children had chance to explore the wide range of animals at Lotherton. We found some very interesting bird types with unique characteristics and also noticed lots of animal names had originated from Latin roots!
Here are some great pictures from our trip – enjoy!
Our learning journey this week
We have been extremely busy learners this week as the children continue to adapt well to life as key stage 2 pupils.
writing
We are well on the way with our first piece of writing and we’ve managed to complete paragraph one of our Athens recount. The children have made sure to include our R2s:
- adverbs
- prepositions
- past tense
Here are some examples of pupil paragraphs:
Poppy
Adam
Carter
Sophie
Elijah
Help at home:
Discuss and practise adverbs and prepositions as we have learnt them in class. If you’re unsure, use the guide below. Perhaps your child could write sentences with an adverb and a preposition?
Adverb = adds information about a verb
I walked fiercely through the town.
Preposition = tells you where something is in relation to something else.
The soldier hid behind the market stall.
Our learning journey this week
PE
Year 3 have been learning lots of new skills in our current sport – hockey.
We have been talking a lot about the fundamental movement skills children learn in schools, from reception right up to the end of high school. The simple skills we learn in reception are constantly used and built upon, allowing our bodies to perform more complex skills. Here are the fundamental movement skills below:
This is a slap pass. Our hands should be together, nice and high on the stick.
Here is a drag pass. We need to be nice and low to the ground and drag the stick to make contact with the ball. This will allow us more power.
Here, we are practising dribbling with close control.
In hockey, we are only allowed to use the flat side of the stick. Therefore, we have to use our guider hand to turn the stick.
It’s important to learn techniques to stop the ball, as we are not allowed to use our feet in hockey.
Help at home:
Have a conversation with your child about these skills in school. Which ones are important when playing hockey? Do we use these skills in other areas of our lives? Does everyone know how to kick a ball like a professional, or is it a skill that needs regular practise and progression?
Writing
We are preparing ourselves for our first piece of writing – a recount walking through Athens in Ancient Greece! The children have been working hard on using verbs and adverbs to make our writing sound better. As a class, we’ve managed to create a huge bank of vocabulary ready to magpie into our writing next week! Here are some sentences made by the children with the adverbs in bold.
Ferociously, the statues protected the colossal temple. – Freddie
Eagles soared elegantly above the majestic temple. – Max
Dark clouds quickly suffocated the sky – whole class
Living and Learning: Rights and Responsibilities
Last week, Year 3 learnt about rights and responsibilities and consolidated this with a group circle time. In circle time, children were asked to share ideas on different rights they have and responsibilities that match. Below are some comments from our discussion:
I have the right to go to school and the responsibility to learn as much as I can.
I have the right to eat and have the responsibility not to waste food.
I have the right to eat and have the responsibility to maintain a balanced diet.
Here are our human rights:
Help at home:
Talk with your child about the rights they have, along with the responsibilities that accompany them. Ensure children understand what rights are (definition below).
Rights are things we are all entitled to in order to help us live.
Our learning journey this week
Topic
This week, Year 3 recapped our knowledge of historical periods using a timeline. The children had to use the clues of dates and pictures and organise periods of history in chronological order. Pupils remembered lots of facts about some history they’ve already learnt, and posed many new questions about history not yet covered. Here is a timeline showing our work:
Reading records
We have had a fantastic return on reading records so far this term – thanks again for working with your child at home and supporting their reading. The tasks set have been completed to a really high standard!
The vocabulary ninja task has really helped the children discover a new bank of vocabulary – this will really help them in writing our first narrative in the next couple of weeks. Here is an example of a word found at home, that is now on our word wall:
Help at home:
Please keep supporting your child with reading fluency/tasks at home. These tasks are designed to support your child with a range of subjects and upcoming learning. We can’t wait to use some of the vocabulary the children found!
Our learning journey this week
Year 3 have set off on lots of different learning paths this week. Here’s an overview of our learning:
Writing
We have started to recap our knowledge of nouns, proper nouns and verbs. This week, the children have done some sentence-based learning, making sure we can identify nouns and verbs correctly. We’ve been really careful to remember that proper nouns need capital letters! Here’s some learning below (and their creators!).
Our new language has been revealed…
Latin!
This year, our class will follow the story of Minimus the mouse, his family and their lives in Vindolanda. We’re learning Latin to understand the roots of our British language, to help us improve in our grammar skills, and to support other lessons, too (such as our current Ancient Greece history unit).
So far, we’ve learnt how to say hello and goodbye in Latin! Practice these with your child at home – the children were all super excited to learn!
hello (to one person) = salve (sal-way)
hello (to more than one person) = salvete (sal-way-tay)
goodbye (to one person) = vale (wa-lay)
goodbye (to more than one person) = valete (wa-lay-tay)
Reading
We have continued our Greek myth theme this week and done lots of learning around Pandora’s Box. The children had to use their inference skills to draw what they thought flew out the box when Pandora mischievously opened it! Here are some fantastic creations along with their illustrators.
Help at home:
Thanks so much for helping your child read at home and complete their reading records – we had such a good return this first week. Keep practising our three key areas as much as possible: spelling, reading and times tables.
Our new sensory space; The Den
Over the summer, Mrs Freeman has been busy creating a sensory themed room in school.
The Den is a safe space which aims to provide any child with the individualised sensory input they need to self-regulate so they can be better prepared for learning and interacting with others.
The Den offers a safe space for relaxation, exploration, independence, and social sessions. The resources in The Den can be used to stimulate, soothe, entertain and distract, depending on the child’s requirements.
We would like to say thank you to the school PTA for the contributions towards resources for this room.
We hope users of The Den benefit from the stimulating visual and tactile activities.