Welcome to Cedar Class, Year 3  2024-2025.

Cedar Class has 30 children.  The Cedar team are  Mrs Giles (Mon-Thurs),  Mrs Downs (Fri),  Mrs Hall (full time), Mrs Johansen and Miss Lucas (both part-time in our class). Making learning fun is our speciality!  There are so many fun things  to look forward to in the year ahead.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you ever have any queries or concerns. 

Term 5 PE is on Tuesday and Thursday.   Please wear your PE kit to school on these days and bring  extra warm layers for cold days.  

Please bring a coat to school everyday. Children need fresh air and exercise so they can learn best and we do go out in light rain. Remember  a water bottle every day.  A piece of fruit at playtime really helps children to concentrate on learning up to lunch time.   Many thanks.

Useful Information and Links

Term 5

Term 4

Term 3

Term 2

Dance with Emma Seymour.

The children talked about what they knew about the Stone Age, then they thought about  movements for Hunter Gatherers.

In the lesson they  learnt what a 'gesture' movement  was and explored working at different levels. It was great  fun and  revealed that  there are many talented dancers in our class!

Non-chronological report writing

When learning to write features of different types of text, we often  learn and practise vocabulary.  For non-chronological text features  we have looked at  interesting sentence starters, causal conjunctions, generalisers, and the language of comparison.

Interestingly,    Surprisingly,     Amazingly,    Intriguingly, 

These are all examples of interesting sentence starters which hook the reader in and keep the  text exciting.  We  learn that each of these words  would have a comma after it when used at the start of a sentence.

most     all      some    many    a few    usually    occasionally       the vast majority

These are all examples of generalisers. They often tell us more information  such as how many  and how often. These types of words are useful in report writing to aid understanding.

caused by    results in        so       so that        because       therefore

These are examples of  causal conjunctions.  They are words  or phrases that give reasons or explanations for something in  a sentence.

like     unlike     similar to      related to       differs from

These are examples of language of comparison.  By comparing  and contrasting people can learn about similarities and differences and understand subjects better. 

We rehearse sentences orally using many examples before we begin to write them down. The more we practise, the more confident we get.

We looked at this picture and were able to  zoom in and look at things closely to inspect the finer detail. 

We noticed the feelings of all the different people within the picture.  It differed greatly from person to person and their perspective of things!

The clothing of the people was quite a talking  point and helped us to place this picture in history.

We supposed the professions of people and family relationships and what the interests of people were.

We discussed the light and dark within the picture and how it made us feel.  The tiny moon through the window was observed.

The more we looked, the more we saw!  We had great discussions and everybody noticed many different things.

How good is your superpower of looking!

Some of the facts we have read about Stonehenge

Stonehenge is the world's most famous stone circle.

It is in Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire which is about 2 hours from London.

The land is flat. 

Early British people settled here.

Some people believed the stones had special powers.

The bluestones at Stonehenge come from Wales and they are not actually blue, they are grey!

Some of the sandstones used are 4-7metres high and weigh as much as eight female elephants!

Some of the stones have fallen. Some are missing. Others have been damaged by the weather.

Nowadays, many tourists travel to England to see the  stones.

French

Bonjour! Salut! Since the beginning of the academic year, we have been learning the French letters of the alphabet  and several phonic sounds.

At the time of writing we have learnt these phonics; ch, oi, ou, on, i, ique, ille and in.   We have looked at examples of words containing these phonemes such as;  cinq (5), six (6), cheval (horse), oisseau (bird), famille (family), musique (music) and  cochon (pig) . French accents are coming on really well within the class.  

Below is some of the work completed in the last academic year to give you a flavour of what we get up to in Year 3.

Term 6 -The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Plants

We have been writing our own  beginning of The Tempest story. We have explored ‘ninja’ vocabulary through work with a thesaurus and generated similes, personification and more! We couldn’t be more proud of the  work ALL the children in writing and the progress they are making. 

A strong hurricane was erupting over the island. Palm trees were cut, ripped and sliced.  The gale hissed and slashed off their  branches which sent them falling through the air uncontrollably.   

On a sandy beach, not far from the mouth of his cave,  stood Prospero, the king wizard, his white lily hair and white lily beard streamed out in the hissing wind. His jet black robes flapped around.

By Esme 

Long, long away there was an island perished by a devilish storm. Hurricanes, gales and tornadoes, cracked and thundered. The heavy wind blew and sliced the poor palm trees. They rotated like dancers doing great backflips.  The gales squealed as loud as ten thousand lions roaring at the same time.  The palm trees that slouched were already in the distance.   The storm, which screeched and howled, got heavier and heavier.

On a wet, miserable beach stood mute Prospero, the hairy, wrinkly wizard.  Raging, wild weather yelled into the ears on the wizard.  In the dark, blood-curdling cave, his raven black robe fluttered furiously.

By Milan 

An aggressive, violent, horrific and torturous storm was raging over the island. Palm trees arched and the branches were crooked. They twisted and turned as flew through the air.

On a stormy beach, not far away from the mouth of the cave, Prospero, the evil wizard, was positioned with his  snowy white hair and beard streaming out in the wind. His charcoal robes were flapping around him.

By Ryan

Term 5 -Take One Tale and Amazing Bodies

Collective class thoughts on  what could be the odd one out.

Snake

• only one that doesn't have legs/feet/only one that moves by slithering
• only one that is a reptile
• has a very flexible spine and can coil right up
• it's spine is made up of many bones (between 200-400 vertebrae)
• it  may have more bones than the others

Elephant (or is it a woolly mammoth?)

• it has tusks
• only mammal
• it has the biggest, strongest, heaviest bone
• it is the only one with  4 legs/ it is the only quadruped
• it has teeth
• could be the only one extinct now if it is a woolly mammoth
• maybe it has the least number of it's species left in the world 
• it is the only one that doesn't lay eggs
• only one with ears on the outside

Bird

• only one that would have had feathers
• it cold fly
• only one with a beak/wings
• it has small bones
• birds have hollow bones
• it has claws
• it has 2 feet/ is a biped

What else could we have added?

Term 4 - 'May the Force Be With You' and  Robots

"Maybe the odd one out is the third one because 1 and 2 have humans involved. No-one is touching anything in number 3.

"Could it be the drawer because  it is the only one that has a push and pull?"

"It's the one with the magnet because it is the only one with a magnetic force."

What other reasons could there be?

Term 3 Take One Piece and Romans

Give it a title

We had to create the best name for the music that we had heard.   We had no idea what it was actually called. Why not listen to Anna Meredith's 'Connect It' and  see which you think  suits it best from the suggestions below.  In class we talked about everyone  having a different and individual response to what we had heard, therefore no suggestions are wrong!  We talked about  the need for capitalisation of the title and the possibility of using  alliteration to make it catchy. We agreed that  a short title would be more  memorable than a long  choice of words. 

Puffy Penguins

Banging Sticks

The Terrible War Goes On

Roman Fight

Banging Fireworks

Kicking Rockstar

Bang Go Intrigued Indians

Roman Battle

Banging Romans

Dance Along

Battle Brothers

Loud Lane

Tango Dancing

Titanium Hero

Sound Wave

Battle Of Shipwrecked Boats

Cavemen Singing of Torture

Banging Drums

Clap Stomp Clank Boom

People Who Kill

Music of the Beat

Noise From the Jungle

Raging Fireworks

Over several days, we read 'War Game' and reflected on what it was like in  WW1.  From the excitement of signing up to the army thinking that an adventure lay before them, to the angst of  their parents watching their children leave, to fear in battle,  camaraderie, trauma of losing loved ones  and much more.  A football game brings people together despite everything.  There is so much to reflect on in this wonderful book.

What would happen if we didn't have mirrors?  What impact would it have on lives as we know it?

We couldn’t see what we look like. Keira

We could never see our faces and whole body. Talitha and Theo

We wouldn’t have angles. Sienna (reflection)

People wouldn’t be able to do make up themselves. Eva

No-one could see to put their hair up. Keira

People couldn’t play mirror mazes. Sienna

We need mirrors to look at and fix the underneath of cars. Margot

Mirrors are needed when brushing teeth to check you have cleaned them properly. Juliette

We couldn’t reverse properly in cars - we would crash! Tristan

Dentists use mirrors to look at the back of your teeth. Nieva

We wouldn’t have kaleidoscopes.   Talitha

We thoroughly enjoyed the door challenge in Cedar Class!

The class wanted leaves, lots of different coloured leaves on an autumnal tree with  some wildlife. 

We set about making sewn leaves, embellished  with beads and buttons. to further develop  our sewing skills. Children chose autumnal coloured threads and accessories.  Every child made a sewn leaf.

To generate even more leaves we did leaf rubbings with crayons and pastels.   There were exclamations of, "It's magic, it really is!" going around the class.  These leaves were cut with an emphasis on professional cutting.  Some people even looked closely at the leaves, especially the veins, and created observational drawings.

The finishing touch was an owl sat in the tree. Thank you Holly!

We really enjoyed the collaboration in this project.  We have received lots of  praise  from other  children and staff  for how colourful and attractive it looks.

Have a look at the Arts web page to see all the doors from across the school.

In the story of Rama and Sita, light symbolises the victory of good over evil when King Rama defeated  Ravana.  Rows of clay lamps lit their way home.

What does light mean for you? We discussed how light makes some of us feel safe and warm.  It gives some people hope.

People from the Stone Age are thought to be the first humans to wear clothes. They made things like trousers, tunics and cloaks. Animal skins
were stretched out and scraped clean. The clothes were cut out from hide and holes were made around the edges of each piece so that it could
be sewn together using a bone needle. Later in the Stone Age, people started weaving cloth which was coloured using natural dyes such as flowers,
bark, seeds and leaves. This led us to have a go at dyeing some muslin cloth. We used a hammer to  press down to extract the colour - we could hear a slight 'crunching' sound and then quickly saw that the dye had been pressed onto our cloth.  We removed any  residue of leaves and berries and then rinsed it in cold water. It was then left to dry.   Some leaves and berries were more effective more than others because of their vibrant colours  and due to their texture  and moisture content.
 

In our first forest session with Lizzy today, we were introduced to 3 important ideas.

We must look after ourselves, each other, and the forest and it's inhabitants.

We were given a tour of the different forest areas - fire  circle, mud kitchen, screen or performance area, music area, mud pit, and two camp making areas.

We were shown how to carry sticks and much larger logs and palettes safely.  We were asked to only please get mud for the mud kitchen from the  mud pit, otherwise digging holes on the paths could make them dangerous. Also, no gun play please in the forest!

The groups were given free time to explore the area for themselves. The mud kitchen was particularly popular with all sorts of potions, soups and medicines being concocted!

Circle Time

In a circle time activity on Friday afternoon, Cedar Class were asked what they wanted their class to feel like and be like for the entire year ahead.

Below are some of the many answers they gave.

Children coming to school and going home with a smile on their faces!

Happy

Quiet

Calm

Time to think

Like home/Like a family

Safe

Cool

Caring

Focussed

Respectful

Happy

Fun

Energetic/bouncy

Colourful

“Feel like fizzy sweets” (feeling lots of energy)

Lots to discover/excitement

Challenges

“Delicious learning”

Extra plays (for hard word)

Children will be brave/confident

Everyone will show kindness

Trying their best

Making mistakes

We are confident that we will achieve all of the above.

Which three words or phrases do you think are the most important and why? What further ideas might we add as time goes on?

Below are some of the photos and learning from previous academic years.