Welcome to Owl Class
Welcome to Owl Class. We are Year 3 children (7-8 years). There are 13 children in our class and our teacher is Miss Robertson. We are taught in our single-aged class on a morning and then merge with Squirrel Class (Year 4) on an afternoon so we also work with Mrs Wheatley and Mrs Thompson.
To find out what we will be doing this year look at the Our Curriculum section of our website. To help us with our spelling and reading look at the phonics and reading section of our website. As we get older, we access the internet more and school wants us to stay safe online. To find out how you can support us in staying safe online, checkout the E-Safety section of our website.
Summer 2
I am so proud of how well Owl Class have coped over the last few months in lockdown. We will continue to work from home and stay safe. This term we are continuing our plant topic in Science and will be looking at the physical features of Earth in Geography.
Zoom Challenge: Miss Robertson challenged year 3 to build an object out of items around the house. The children could pick any object they wanted and use any materials they wanted BUT the object had to be big!!!
Summer 1
Coronavirus is not going to stop Owl Class from learning and having fun. Some of our topics for this term are: Fractions (Maths), Ancient Egypt (Geography/History) and Plants (Science). Please enjoy looking at the wonderful work we are completing whilst staying safe at home!
Home learning
A thank you to all the key workers:
Egyptian themed work:
Maths and English:
Plants:
Rocks and Soils:
Exercise:
Life skills:
PSHE/ French
Spring 2
This term we are going to use our Geography lessons to look at the countries within Europe including their maps, flags and populations. We will also be studying the following exciting topics: Landscape collages (Art), Rocks and Soils (Science) and Healthy Relationships (PSHE). We will also be continuing to read ‘Running on the Roof of the World’ by author Jess Butterworth before moving on to look at Meredith Hooper’s ‘The Pebble in my Pocket’. We will use these texts to inspire our reading, writing and speaking and listening skills. These texts also link to our science topic ‘Rocks and Soils’. In Maths we will be looking at money, statistics, length and perimeter and fractions. On top of that, we will continue to visit the library and go swimming.
Home learning
Due to the outbreak of Coronavirus we are now working from home. Here are some pictures sent in from owl class. They have definitely made me smile. We have had bug hunts, cupcake making and vegetable growing as well as lots of educational activities too. Keep up the good work owl class and stay safe.
French
On our last day together, for a little while, year 3 and 4 enjoyed learning about French food. We learned some new vocabulary and even tasted numerous different foods which are traditionally from France.
Hamsterley Forest
Yesterday, we visited Hamsterley Forest. We had a fantastic time! We developed our orienteering and map skills. We also got to explore the nature. We even saw rivers, waterfalls and streams which linked to our Geography topic in Spring Term 1. We even took photos of landscapes which we will use to inspire our artwork. Look at our photos below.
Collages
This term we are looking are creating landscape collages inspired by David Hockney. Look at what wr have produced so far.
Science
Spring 1
Hello, Owl Class wish you a very happy new year. This term we are going to use our Geography lessons to help us answer the question: ‘Is the UK the same everywhere?’ We will focus on physical geography including hills, coasts and rivers. We will be also studying the following exciting topics: Light and Shadows (Science), Dance (PE), Printing (Art) and we will be developing our map skills during Fantastic Friday lessons. In Maths we are continuing to look at Multiplication and Division. We will then move onto looking at money. In English we are using Jess Butterworth’s book ‘Running on the Roof of the World’ to inspire our reading, writing and speaking and listening skills. On top of that, we will continue to visit the library and go swimming.
Snow Day
We were supposed to visit Hamsterley Forest today but it was closed due to snow. Instead, we spent the day exploring the outdoors and playing in the snow. We had a snowman building competition and joined with Butterfly class to try and make a fire in our own forest. We also pretended we were characters in class text who are preparing to travel through the Himalayas. We finished our morning with biscuits and watching David Walliam’s ‘Billionaire Boy’.
Valentine’s Day Disco
We had so much at our Valentine’s Day disco.
Art
We have been inspired by Damien Hirst’s art work. We have been practising string printing and roller block printing.
Geography
Geography
NSPCC
Geography
Autumn 2
This term we are studying the following exciting topics: Anglo-Saxons (History & Geography), Magnets and Forces (Science), Gymnastics (PE) and we are also learning how to play the ukulele in Music. In Maths we are moving on to Multiplication and Division. In English we are using ‘The Illustrated Tales of King Arthur’ to inspire our reading, writing and speaking and listening skills. On top of that we we will continue to visit the library and go swimming.
Visit
Our whole school visit was to the Discovery Museum this year. We had lots of fun exploring. We looked at a range of exhibits and took part in a Lights and Electricity workshop. This links to our new science topic in the spring term. We managed to make a light bulb glow by creating a circuit! Have a look at our photos below.
Anglo-Saxons
Mini-Medics
2019 General Election
Maths
In Maths, we have bee developing our multiplication and division skills. We have been multiplying and dividing by 3, 4 and 8. 
English
We recently read Roger McGough’s poem ‘The Reader of This Poem’ during story time. We really enjoyed reading this and were inspired to write our own versions. We decided the reader of the poem would be King Arthur from our class text. We performed our poems in front of the class. Please enjoy reading our wonderful work below!
Science
In Science, we are learning about magnets and forces. Today we decided to write as if we were scientists producing an informative report for people who don’t know what magnets are. We hope you can learn a lot from our work below.
Maths
We have just started our new unit of work in Maths – Multiplication and Division. We have began by making equal groups of a number. This helped us count up in multiples.
Autumn 1
This term we are studying the following exciting topics: Anglo-Saxons (History & Geography), The Human Body (Science), Coding (ICT), Orienteering (PE) and Ma Famille (French). On top of that we we will continue to visit the library and go swimming.
Halloween
We had lots of fun at our spooky Halloween disco. Look at our amazing costumes!
Science
In Science, we split into two groups and formed a debate. We debated the question ‘Is our school healthy enough?’ We used all of the facts we have learned over our unit of work to strengthen our arguments.
English
In English, we have been looking at using inverted commas for direct speech. We first worked in pairs to write a dialogue between Beowulf and the Sea-Hag and then we performed our dialogues to the rest of the class.
Educational Visit
To start our exciting topic ‘Anglo-Saxons’ we took a visit to Jarrow Hall with year 4. Here we learnt all about life during Anglo-Saxon times. We can’t wait to find out more about the Anglo-Saxons!
See below for academic year 2018-19
Summer Term 2 2018-19
This half term we have performed our rehearsed routine at the Dance Festival alongside other schools in the area. We have continued to learn about World War Two and have been enjoying reading the novel ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma Carroll in our English lessons. Our homework grid for this term continues with our WW2 theme and also has some exciting summer activities to complete! As a reward for all of our hard work across the school year, we visited Wallington Hall with the rest of the school. We walked the grounds and visited the house- the weather was glorious!
We have also been working hard towards our end of term performance in drumming after working hard with African drumming all term!
Summer Term 1 2018-19
This term, we are going to start a term-long topic looking at what the World War 2 homefront was like. In science, we will be exploring sound and continuing to develop our drumming skills through Samba Drumming. We will also be learning and rehearsing a dance routine to perform at The Empire Theatre later this term. Here is our homework grid for this term.
Year 3 and 4 children participated in a rounders tournament. They showed great sportsmanship, resilience and teamwork. We came second out of many other schools in the local area.
Spring Term 2 2018-19
This half term Year 3 and 4 spent a whole day exploring and developing pulleys, levers and bridges. As part of our STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) day we focused on themes such as; research, design, trial, create, evaluate and share.
To begin with we explored a range of construction kits. We looked at different ways to use our knowledge of strengthening our structures. We were then given the challenge to see which bridge could hold the most pencils.
We followed a set of instructions to create a pulley system. Creating and evaluating our pulley system gave us a good opportunity to practise skills we would need in our final product.
Finally, we made and evaluated a drawbridge with a pulley system. We found this difficult, however, we wrote some well thought out evaluations with some interesting improvements for next time.
Spring Term 1 2018-19
This term we will be learning about The Rainforest, States of matter, Christian symbols and beliefs, the use of watercolours and samba drumming in music.
Please see below for our creative homework grid.
This term saw the finale of our Street Trees Project. We mapped out the area of our school grounds and decided which plot would be best. Helen from OASES showed us how to dig the hole, plant the trees and how to take care of them in the future.
Autumn Term 2
This term, we will be continuing to develop our swimming skills and beginning a new topic of Dance. We will be learning about human nutrition and continuing with the Romans through our topic work.
This term year 3 and 4 attended an athletics tournament against other local schools. The children enjoyed taking part in a range of activities such as javelin, chest pass test, long jump and races. Our school came third in the tournament. Well done Y3/4!
In Design Technology this term we have been working on a Roman weaponry Project. We have researched, designed, created and evaluated different pieces of Roman weaponry. We looked at joining and attaching techniques and made prototypes.
Autumn Term 1
This Term we will be learning about The Romans. The Romans are well known for their army and their huge empire which covered most of Europe, what is now Turkey and parts of north Africa, however the Romans were much more than great fighters. According to Roman legend the city of Rome was founded by the brothers Romulus and Remus in about 750 BC, however the Roman Legend isn’t very well known for being factually correct. In fact when they invade an area they will steal some of their gods and add them to their own religion. We will also be studying Electricity in Science; how important it is, how to conduct electricity and how it can be generated.
For our homework grid for this term please see below:
Our Year 3/4 class have been enjoying their electricity topic. We have discussed mains electricity and battery powered electricity. We have researched how electricity is generated through the use of renewable and non-renewable energy sources. This week we have been exploring wires, batteries and bulbs. We were are able to identify a complete and an incomplete circuit.
See below for academic year 2017-18
Summer Term 2: Aspirations Week!
In school this term, we were lucky to have a whole week where lots of different people visited us to tell us about their jobs. We met a veterinary nurse, a hairdresser, a football referee, a flight attendant, the Army, radiographers, scientists, Kev, Craig and Erin from the Foundation of Light, A Navy officer, PCSO’s and police dogs, a midwife, and workers from Northumbrian Water! We had a fantastic week learning about the world of work, and it has inspired us to think about what we want to be when we grow up, and what we need to do to achieve this.
Summer Term 1: What have we been up to?
In science, we have been investigating what plants need to grow strong and healthy. We had previously learned how important water is in the growth of healthy, strong plants, so we wanted to find out how water is transported through plants. We placed flowers and celery (as we know this is the stem of a plant) in cups of water we had coloured with food dye. We left it for a few days, and then when we went back to it, we cut the celery and stem of the flower to reveal tiny tubes, which had been stained by the coloured water! We could see that this was one of the ways water is transported in plants.
Spring Term 2:
March 2018 Update: What have we been up to?
We have had a really busy half term! Firstly, have had some excellent pieces of homework which we would like to thank the children and the parents/carers for!
We had a fantastic time on our trip to Durham Cathedral and we really enjoyed it when the outreach team came to school and helped us to create some fantastic art work based on close up images of leaves, and some bright bird boxes for our forest!
We also enjoyed World Book Day, as you can see from our fabulous costumes!
Take a look at some of the photos below:
Spring Term 2:
New Topics:
Our new topics include, “How do plants grow well?” in science, “What do Christians remember on Psalm Sunday?” in RE, “Map Skills, Mountains, Rivers and Coasts” in topic and “En famille” in French.
Here is a new homework grid which will take us up to Easter- Click the link.
Spring Term 1:
February 2018 Update: What have we been up to?
The start to spring term has been really busy and packed full of learning already!
In maths we have now learned to multiply a 2 digit number by a 1 digit number, with exchanging!
We have also been dividing- we can exchange and even divide with remainders! Ask us to solve
67÷6 or 34 x 6 !
Check us out using place value counters to help us:
In English we have been thinking about up-leveling our sentences so that our vocabulary is amazing!
We don’t use words like ‘nice’ to describe a story setting – we use words like ‘awe-inspiring’, ‘breathtaking’ and ‘spectacular’.
Here is a photograph of us working in teams, and using word mats and thesaurus to help us to improve our sentences:
Spring Term 1:
January 2018 Update: What have we been up to so far?
Art
Here are a few photographs showing our artistic skills and talent.They were each given a small part of one of Monets paintings from his ‘River Thames’ series. The children worked hard to mix the correct shades using a palette of water colours and a range of brushes.
At the start of this term, Year 3&4 were excited to join the UK’s biggest classroom for a live interactive shared learning experience. BBC Learning’s Live Lessons bring the curriculum to life with leading experts and access to the BBC’s biggest brands and talent. This literacy lesson gave us top tips for writing great stories and gave us some great ideas! We had lots of ideas for a story within our class, including mermaids, an alien president and a zombie invasion of our school!
The idea behind this live lesson was to inspire children to participate in Chris Evans’ 500 Words competition, which is one of the most successful story writing competitions for kids in the world and is open to every 5-13 year old in the UK. Its mission is to get children excited about reading and writing, regardless of their ability.
If you would like to enter or to find out more, head over to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4h26FXFQ4KfMV7VVSbJxY3g/500-words-2018
Spring:
January 2018 Update- What are we doing this term?
This term we will be studying the topic ‘What makes the Earth angry?’ This topic is a creative and interactive topic spread across six blocks.
In Science we will be examining different types of rocks, soils and fossils. We will research where they are found and why.
In Geography we will be studying the journey of the river from the source to the sea, the water cycle, industry on the river, mountains and volcanoes.
In ICT we will be learning how to use both hands to type and how to send an email.
In French we are studying Unit 2 Je Presente.
Our Homework grid for this term can be found below:
Spring Term 2018 Homework Grid
Autumn:
October 2017 Update- What have we been doing this term?
We are computer programmers!
This half term we have been using a new computing website called ‘Purple Mash’. We have used ‘Purple Mash’ to design and write a program that simulates a physical system.
We created a program which included at least three vehicles, and we made them travel at different speeds. Our challenge was to make at least one vehicle should change angle. We talked about what Object, Action, Output, Control and Event are when used in computer programming.
Take a look at our coding!
If your child would like to access Purple Mash from home, they can do so using a computer/laptop/IPad/tablet which has access to the internet.
If you would like your child’s username and password so they can use this at home, please email l.arnell300@durhamlearning.net and I will send home a letter explaining how to access this.
We are mathematicians!
In maths this half term, we have been thinking about place value. We have been able to identify what each digit represents in a 3-digit number. We have recently moved on to adding numbers to a 3-digit number and we have started to think about ‘exchanging’. We used place value counters to help us to understand that 10 one counters are equal to 1 ten counter, and that 10 ten counters are equal to 1 hundred counter.
ASK US!
If you ask us, we can tell you how many one counters would be equal to 2 ten counters, or how we could make 200 using ten counters only!
We now understand how to solve calculations such as 367+5, as we know that 7+5=12, so we need to exchange 10 of the 12 ones we now have, for 1 ten. This ten is then added to the 6 tens in 367, to make 7 tens, and leaves us with 2 ones. Therefore, we know that the answer is 372.
Here is a great website you could use to help your child to understand ‘exchanging’ (sometimes known as ‘carrying’, but we have been using the word ‘exchanging’ as we have been exchanging 10 ones for 1 ten or 10 tens for 1 hundred) in addition and subtraction:
http://blog.happynumbers.com/teaching-why-not-just-how-column-addition-and-subtraction/
Here we are using some of the place value equipment:
Autum 1 Topic: Were the Anglo Saxons really smashing?
To find out about our homework for the first half of the autumn term click on the link:
Owl Class Homework Grid Autumn 1 2017
This Term we will be learning about The Anglo Saxons.
This topic is a creative and interactive topic spread across six blocks. It will develop children’s knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons and help them understand how this important group fits into the chronology of Britain.
We will contextualise the Anglo-Saxon period with a timeline of Britain. Through discussion, children will understand the terms ‘invaders’ and ‘settlers’ and discuss motivations for emigration. They will gain historical insight into the lives of Anglo-Saxon and British people.
