Newsletter- week ending 26th June
Dear parents/carers,
I am still in the middle of report writing so it’s just a quick update this week.
Our recent English film projects are now finished and have been entered into the Oxfordshire ICT team GRAFTAs competition. The children did a fantastic job and the results were very impressive indeed.
Our play rehearsals are in full swing, and the children have worked very hard to learn their lines and songwords. Next week we will need the children to have their costumes, and we’ll be practicing frequently in order to make it even more polished. This does mean that our schedule has to become rather flexible, but normal service will be resumed afterwards.
There are a number of other things happening next week- Thursday morning is our “Icebreaker Morning”, where your children will spend some time getting to know their new teacher. Friday evening is our Sports Evening, which all children must attend.
It was lovely to see so many parents and grandparents at the Open Day yesterday, I hope that you enjoyed seeing a selection of the children’s work. They really have worked very hard this year and I am immensely proud of them all.
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 What do you like best about being in the play?
2 What did you do in your film project?
3 How can you use a spinner to investigate friction?
Newsletter- week ending 12th June
Dear parents/carers,
In our English lessons this week the children have been devising and writing their own short scripts, as part of our work on dialogue and plays. Their ideas are very imaginative! We’ve looked at the features of a playscript and the children have been using these to write their own scripts. Next week we will be filming the plays and editing them, with a view to entering the short films into the ICT Team “Graftas” competition. This has given the children’s work a real purpose, which I think has encouraged them to create some brilliant scripts.
In our maths lessons this week we’ve been looking at measuring length and mass. The children have estimated in metres, centimetres, grams and kilograms, and compared their estimates with measures to see how accurate they were. The children found it most difficult to estimate heavier weights, but they were very competent on the whole with length. Next week we will be continuing with measuring by looking at measuring liquids in litres and millilitres, and then we will be looking at solving some measures based problems.
In science this week the children have planned their own investigation into how friction affects surfaces. Next week we will be carrying out the investigation, and I look forward to seeing the results!
I’m really pleased with how well our topic work is going. The children are working in groups on some wonderful Aboriginal Australian style paintings, each of which tell a story that they have devised themselves. The quality of work is really high, but I’ve been most impressed at how well the children have worked together on this project. I’m hoping that we will finish the paintings this week. We’ll be doing some more art when our visiting artist comes into school next week.
Rehearsals for the school play have started and are going to continue over the next couple of weeks. We’re very lucky this year as all of my year 3 children have a speaking part, so please encourage your children to learn not only their lines, but the cue line that comes before it. Soon we’ll be sending out letters about costumes, so please keep an eye on book bags for that information.
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 What does a kg feel like?
2 Is it more difficult to write a story or a script? Why?
3 How do Aboriginal style paintings tell a story?
Newsletter- week ending 5th June
Dear parents/carers,
In English this week we have been looking at different ways of writing dialogue. We’ve explored speech bubbles, speech in prose using speech marks, and also looked briefly at play scripts. This work has culminated in the children writing their own chapters of “The Twits”. Next week we will be starting a project to write and record our own play scripts. The children will be able to film and edit their scripts, and then enter the completed films into the local ICT team competition. We’ve already have a bit of a think about what we could do, and the children are coming up with some fantastic ideas!
In maths we’ve been looking at charts and graphs, particularly interpreting the information on graphs and asking questions about the information. The children have also used Excel to make their own graphs. Next week we will be looking at measuring, including reading scales and looking at the relationship between different units.
In science we’ve started a new topic on friction. This week I asked the children to tell me what they already knew about friction, which they generally found difficult. Next week we will be doing some experiments to try and work out what friction actually is and how different surfaces affect friction.
I was really thrilled to be awarded a distinction in my category at the Teaching Awards this week. As I am still a very new teacher I wasn’t even expecting to get that far, so to also receive a distinction was a real honour. I’d like to say a big thank you to Mr and Mrs Tyack for nominating me. The gentleman who won had been nominated by a colleague at a software company, so to be nominated by a parent was really special. Thank you also to everyone for your congratulations.
Next week is going to be very busy. We start rehearsals for the school play, as well as continuing to perfect our May/Junepole dance for the performance on Thursday afternoon. I’m hoping that the weather improves before then, or else we shall be very soggy!
I’m also pleased to say that our guitar lessons have restarted. These will be taking place on a Tuesday morning for about half an hour.
Mrs B
Three things to ask your child this week:
1 How is speech in a playscript different to speech in a story?
2 Why are graphs useful?
3 What are you going to draw in your aboriginal art project?
