We had lots of fun celebrating World Poetry Day in our crew session this week! Each mini crew worked together, chotting down interesting words and creative phrases to capture the meaning of our crew.
We then used AI as a creative tool to help bring our words and phrases together into a beautiful poem. We were amazed and rather impressed with what we created!
After reading our poem, we gave it some thoughtful critique and made improvements together. Our finished poem is now proudly displayed on our Crew Wall for everyone to enjoy and read. 📖✨
We are so proud of the fantastic progress we have made with our handwriting in Year 3! We enjoyed a gallery walk, looking at each other’s work and celebrating our improvements. We also gave each other kind and helpful critique, recognising what we are doing well and what we can continue to practise. It was wonderful to see how much our handwriting has improved in just 6 week – well done Crew McLoughlin! 🌟
In year 3 and 4, we have been learning about God’s covenants that appear in the bible.
First, we looked at the story of Noah and the Ark. Noah was asked by God to build an ark that would accommodate his family and 2 of each animal. God informed Noah that he was going to send a flood because the people on earth were evil and didn’t listen to God. Despite being laughed at, Noah built the ark and was ready when the rain came. The rain flooded the earth and killed everyone outside of the ark. When the flood was finally over, God told Noah that a rainbow would appear in the sky as a symbol to his people that he would never flood the earth again.
Next we learned about the story of Abraham and his wife Sarah. God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. However, Abraham had no children and was considerable old. Despite this Abraham and his wife kept their faith in God. Eventually after many years, Sarah fell pregnant and later had a son and God fulfilled his convenant with Abraham.
Then we learned about Moses and the Israelites who wandered the desert for 40 years. Moses freed the Israelites from slavery after God inflicted 10 plagues on the Pharoah and the Egyptians. They left Egypt and went to the desert in search for the promised land. God told Moses that if he freed the Israelites that he would provide for them which he did. He protected them from the Pharoah, provided food when they were hungry and provided water when they were thristy. Noah had faith that God would fulfill his promise.
To follow on from the Moses story, we learned about Pesach which is the celebration of Passover. A time that Jewish people remember the story of Moses and him saving the Israelites from slavery. We learned about the Seder meal where each part retells the story of Moses. For example, they dip herbs in salt water to represent the tears of the slaves, the apple, cinnamon and walnut paste represents the mortar used by the slaves on the pyramids and the egg represents a new beginning.
As part of our writing unit, the children have been exploring the story The Lion and the Unicorn. We have been developing their narrative writing skills by creating our own sentences.
This week, we have been focusing on fronted adverbials. The children have been learning how to use these at the beginning of sentences to explain when or where an action takes place. They have enjoyed experimenting with different fronted adverbials and using them to add detail and variety to their writing.
We are looking forward to seeing the children apply these grammar skills as they continue developing their own narratives!
To celebrate an absolutely amazing start to the school year, we have decided to have a little bit of fun on Thursday 1st October.
Children are invited to come to school in their brightest outfits with wacky hair!
The afternoon, will be an afternoon of fun and games!
At lunchtime, Relish have organised a party packed lunch for us to enjoy. All children who have a school dinner on that day will receive a raffle ticket, entering them into a prize draw with prizes to be won!
Year 3 had an exciting day stepping back in time as we began our new World War Two topic!
Some of us got into the spirit of the day by dressing up, helping us imagine what life might have been like during the 1940s. We certainly looked the part!
We started our morning by watching the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This helped us to understand what it might have felt like for children who were evacuated from their homes during the war. We then put ourselves in the shoes of an evacuee and wrote our own WW2 diary entries, imagining what it would have been like to leave our families and travel somewhere unfamiliar.
But our day wasn’t finished there! Suddenly, an air raid siren sounded, alerting us to danger. We had to think about how people would have felt hearing this sound during the war. We also had the chance to listen carefully to Morse code and work out the hidden messages being sent.
Then it was our turn to become secret codebreakers! We learned how messages could be communicated secretly and created our own secretmessages for others to unpick.
It was a fantastic day of learning, imagining and investigating,and we can’t wait to find out more about WorldWarTwo as our expedition continues!
We took our crew learning outside of the classroom and challenged ourselves on the apparatus. For some of us, this meant stepping outside of our comfort zone and trying something that felt a little bit scary or unfamiliar.
We talked about how courage isn’t about never feeling frightened or worried. Courage is about having a go, even when we feel unsure. We supported one another, encouraged our friends and celebrated each other’s successes.
It was wonderful to see children showing courage in different ways — from taking their first step onto the apparatus, to trying something new, to encouraging a friend who needed a little extra confidence.
Our session reminded us that being courageous can help us to grow, learn and discover things we didn’t think we could do.
Well done, Year 3, for showing such wonderful courage! ⭐
What a fantastic start we have had to our first week back in Crew McLoughlin! And we’re only part way through the week! 😄
We have been busy getting back into the swing of school, reconnecting with our friends and beginning to explore our crew guiding question:
How can we work together to achieve an end goal?
Miss McLoughlin was super impressed this morning when some of the children could already remember our guiding question! We have been discovering that reaching an end goal takes teamwork, perseverance, listening, concentration and sometimes a few attempts before we get there.
🍬 The Jelly Baby Challenge
We completed our Jelly Baby Challenge and the children were SO excited! Their challenge was to work together to keep their jelly babies safe while resisting the temptation to eat them. Amazingly, our jelly babies survived… although there were definitely a few very suspicious sniffs and licks! 😂
🎶 Copycat Orchestra
We put our listening and attention skills to the test with Copycat Orchestra. The children had to listen carefully, concentrate and copy the sounds and actions. It was lots of fun and a great way to practise the skills we need when working effectively as a crew.
➕ Maths Board Game
We have also been developing our arithmetic skills through a maths board game. The children tackled challenges, shared their thinking and enjoyed a little bit of friendly competition along the way!
Fun at Break
There has been plenty of time for fun too! The toy cars and playing on the tyres have been a big favourite, alongside lots of imaginative games of mums and dads. It has been lovely to see the children settling back into routines, enjoying their play and reconnecting with one another.
📖 Who Are We?
We read My Name Is Not Refugee and used it as a starting point to think about identity and what makes each of us unique. The children then created their own identity portraits, using adjectives to describe themselves. It was wonderful to see the range of thoughtful and positive words they chose!
🎢 Marble Run Rollercoasters
Our marble run rollercoasters have really tested our teamwork skills! Working successfully as mini crews was trickier than we thought and we definitely discovered that achieving an end goal doesn’t always happen straight away. But we’re not giving up! After our debrief, we’ll be having another go tomorrow. We’ll think about what worked, what didn’t and what we can change to make our teamwork even stronger.
And this is only so far… there is still plenty more to come this week! We can’t wait to see what else Crew McLoughlin can achieve together. 💪🌟
