For the final week before half-term, Year 3 have been busy in the kitchen cooking our seasonal tarts which we have spent the last few weeks planning. We successfully demonstrated the safe technique for chopping peeling and grating our in-season veg. The tarts came out looking absolutely delicious and the children were rightly proud of their creations. They also got an opportunity to try and evaluate each other's tarts, and we can safely say that each class went home with a full belly at the end of their cooking day. Thank you to all the parents for sending their child to school with the necessary ingredients. 

This week, Year 3 have been pushing ahead on our science unit on movement and feeding. We've been learning all about the function of bones and muscles within the human body and carried out an investigation into the relationship between different body parts and our ability to successfully perform certain activities. We got a jar full of sweets (and they were definitely filled with sweets not marbles) , measured the size of each other's hands and then recorded how many sweets we could each grab from the jar. We then recorded our results on a scatter graph (linking with our statistics unit in maths from a couple of months ago) and evaluated the results. Next week , we'll be finishing our food tech unit, and we can't wait to cook (and eat!) our healthy seasonal tart which we planned this week. 

This week, Year 3 got busy preparing for their seasonal tart which they will be making in the next few weeks. This started by safely practising the key skills involved in making a vegetable tart such as peeling and chopping. We learned all about whether a vegetable should be peeled or chopped and how to use a peeler and a knife safely and properly in a kitchen environment. We then got an opportunity to taste some of the ingredients making sure that we were only using seasonal ingredients, such as radishes or cucumbers. The children loved trying such a wide variety of vegetables.

This week, Year 3 have been putting themselves in the shoes of Hannah – the main character of our focus text Gorilla. Different members of the class got to sit in the hot seat and pretend to be Hannah and take question from the rest of the class. We have also been practising properly punctuating speech in preparation for our big write this week, where we re-wrote the conversation between Hannah and Hannah’s dad at the breakfast table.

We have also started our new Food tech unit by learning about seasonality and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of imported and exported food, which has led to some pretty lively debate and discussion.

This week, Year 3 had the fabulous opportunity to visit Whipsnade zoo which links to our science unit on movement and feeding as well as our Geography work on rainforest habitats. We observed penguins having a medical examination, tigers prowling back and forth only a couple of a feet away from us and chimpanzees having a morning grooming session. We also had a fantastic workshop where we learned all about adaptations in the wild and how animals have adapted to the circumstances of their habitats. Despite the thousands of steps travelled, we all whole-heartedly agreed it was one of the best trips of the year. Thank you to the all the parents who helped out on the trip - you were superstars!

For our first week, back Year 3 have jumped straight into our new focus text Gorilla. We have had particular focus on the amazing illustrations of author and illustrator Anthony Brown; using our inference skills that we have cultivated from our Guided Reading learning to figure out how the characters from the text are feeling just by looking at the illustrations. We also got an opportunity to hone our acting skills by imagining a conversation between the main character Hannah and her father using just the illustrations.  

In Science we began our new topic on movement and feeding, focusing on what a balanced and healthy diet should look like and designing our own healthy plate.