Year 3 Blogger – West Earlham Junior School

Into University Week

Last week, 6CD took part in a focus week, put on by the lovely people at Into University. We spent 3 days with them at the local community centre where we learnt about different icons in the creative arts area. We had a product designer called Ole Christiansen, a fashion designer called Stella Jean, a writer named Jacqueline Woodson and Bruno Reddy, who created the app Times Table Rock Stars. We worked together in our groups to make posters and presentations about our famous person. On Wednesday, we took a trip to the Sainsburys centre of visual arts to walk around the different galleries. We made our own zines (mini magazines) about the art we had seen but with different prompts to make our art unique. On Thursday, we spoke about the different university options available to us and where we would go when we are older. We learnt about lots of new courses we didn’t know existed or that we could study. On Friday, we got a tour around the University of East Anglia and the presented our new knowledge to parents and carers that came along. After this, we ‘graduated’ from our mini creative arts degree of the week.

Visit from Steve Skidmore

On Thursday the 5th of October, we were visited by our patron of reading, Steve Skidmore. Steve worked with us in the morning to talk through his re-telling of MacBeth, and helped us the understand the story a little better. We then took part in a Drama exercise with him, where we were in groups of 3 and got the chance to be the weird sisters (witches) in the story. We had a script to work from but got to add our own personal touches with how we delivered it. Some groups chose to put on voices, others used props and few added movement into their piece.

Meringue Making

As part of our food technology lessons, year 6 have been learning how to make meringue. We first of all looked at the type of eggs we can buy from the supermarket (the difference between caged, battery farm and free range) and then we had a go at making our own meringues. We learned how to properly separate an egg into the white and the yolk, whisk the white to stiff peaks, folding in the icing sugar and then spooning the mixture onto a baking tray. Once they had cooked for 90 minutes and had cooled, we then made some chantilly cream. For this, we mixed together double cream, vanilla and icing sugar. We then got the chance to eat our creations with fresh strawberries or jam.

Sainsbury Centre Visit

On Wednesday, the whole of year 6 took a visit to the Sainsbury Centre at the UEA to do some work based around our art topic of this term – Brutalism. Throughout the day we got to explore the art centre and look at the architecture as well as some of the pieces of art in the gallery. We were able to compare the buildings we looked at (such as the famous Ziggurats by Denys Lasdun) to the work we have been looking at by Zaha Hadid. We noticed lot of similarities such as the use of straight lines but also many differences which made their work unique. The other activity we took part in on the day was a workshop by some of the staff at the centre, where we got the chance to try out some new art techniques using Gel plate printing. Using the gel plates, ink and photographs of the buildings in the UEA, we were able to create pieces of printing art and then we folded and cut them to make buildings of our own.

The Wooden Horse

We looked at the Ancient Greek tale of the Fall of Troy and, in particular, the Greek victory using unconventional tactics. In the spirit of experimental archaeology in Year 3, we tried them out…it was a bit cramped!

Moving the henge stones

We discovered that the stones for Stone Henge came from quite far to get to the site. We looked at how they might have moved them, using only neolithic technology.

Butterfly Release

On Friday, before we went home for our weekends, we decided it was time to release our class butterflies. We have been watching them grow and change over the past 3 weeks from tiny caterpillars all the way to the beautiful butterflies we let go. We watched them through all the stages of change such as into chrysalis’s and then into butterflies.

Thetford Forest Trip

On Thursday, the whole of year 6 got to go on a trip to High Lodge in Thetford Forest. We got the chance to do 3 different activities throughout the day, The first was an orienteering walk around the forest, working together to decipher clues and find the hidden symbols in the woods. The next was a game of disc golf, where we had a frisbee in our group and worked to throw them into the chain bucket at the end. We managed to lose these a few times but by the end we were pros. Finally we had a chance to play on the large climbing equipment and go down the big slides in the play area. Overall we have a fun day exploring Thetford Forest with our friends.

Arctic Explorer – Adrian Hall

This week we have been visited by a real life explorer to help give us information on our terms inquiry question of ‘What drives people to embark on journeys which involve danger or uncertainty’. Adrian Hall came to speak with us about his experience of trekking through the arctic and to give us a lesson on map and compass reading. We began the day with a talk about his journey through the Arctic and everything it took to prepare. He also showed us what he had to pack in his bag and how he carried it along with the amazing things he saw such as polar bears and wolves. After break, we got to learn how to properly use and read a compass as well as how to measure a distance using only our feet. We then got the chance to use our skills we’d learnt by participating in a scavenger hunt where we were searching for little flags with letters on around our playground. By the end, we were able to read a map to accurately find the flags and give others clues