We are so proud of this young man. He has created two amazing paragraphs over the last couple of days. His effective word choice is particularly impressive. However, the reason I felt the need to blog this today was because of his expressive reading. We have been working on our fluency skills and today, Henry today demonstrated excellence in this.
Today I spotted Alissia’s beautiful home learning. She has clearly taken alot of time, to ensure that the work in which she produced was of high quality. At XP Trust, we call this Craftsmanship and Quality. Alissia is a fabulous role model to all. We are so proud of the girl you are Alissia.
Today 5 pupils from both year 3 and year 4 headed out for the afternoon to compete in a football tournament. They were one of 10 teams, unfortunately we didn’t place in the top 3 but I was so impressed with the children’s efforts, resilience and sportsmanship. Out of the 10 teams, which was over 100 children in total, one of our year 4 pupils was given a medal for his stand out sportsmanship. We were all so proud of him, what a great achievement! Here’s a few photos to showcase our fantastic afternoon!
Today in life skills they worked together to make pasta bolognese. They loved helping each other and then serving it to their table.
Last week in crew they did the cup challenge. They had an elastic band with string tied to it. The children had to pull on the string to stretch the elastic band and put it over a cup. They did this with each cup to make a pyramid.
We have moved on to our next computing unit which is understanding an algorithm. An algorithm is a clear set of instructions that we give to a computer to fulfil a task that we need it to do. Unfortunately, if the instructions aren’t clear then the computer will become confused. To help with their understanding, the children had to help Miss Shields make a jam sandwich but unfortunately this didn’t go to plan. The instructions Miss Shields received resulted in questionable jam sandwiches.
First, she was told to spread the butter on the bread then spread the jam on the bread. So children were quite surprised when this happened.
Another set of instructions was to get out the bread, get out the butter and get out the jam but children weren’t happy when I plopped these on the table and not the actual bread.
After a couple of failed attempts, children refined their instructions, however, they forgot to tell Miss Shields to use a knife so they were quite surprised when she spread the butter and jam with her hand. They then remembered to tell me that I needed to use a knife.
By following the unclear instructions, children were able to start understanding that an algorithm has to be clear instructions so that a computer knows exactly what to do and doesn’t get confused.
This week, Crew McLoughlin became young scientists as they learned how to classify different plants. They looked closely at leaves, stems, and flowers – they even got to touch and feel many of the plants to notice their textures and features (but not the cactus, of course)! The crew loved comparing what they found and talking about how scientists group plants based on their characteristics.
Today Crew McLoughlin have been working extra hard on their text marking in reading. While using their highlighters and pencils, they identified key ideas, annotated tricky words and added extra detail to show their understanding. Everyone showed great focus and teamwork, discussing their ideas and supporting one another. Well done, Crew McLoughlin – your reading skills are getting stronger every day!
Today in Crew, we beautifully demonstrated our Be Kind HoWL. We took time to share what we appreciate about each other and celebrate what makes every member of our Crew special. Sharni-Mae even suggested choosing our HoWL heroes at the end of the day and writing them postcards to praise their kindness. It was lovely to hear Crew members speaking so thoughtfully and kindly about one another.
In computing, Year 3 have continued to explore scratch by creating an animation. Children used a variety of blocks to make their sprite move, spin or make a noise. Some children even started to add some dialogue to it. This lesson will support children ahead of the next lesson which will be where they start telling a story using code. Before we finished the lesson, some children shared their animation to the board and what their idea was.
