The children have been exploring lots of different techniques for drawing and painting these past few weeks. They practiced mixing white to find different ‘hues’ of a colour. They then looked at Vincent Van Gogh and practiced his ‘impasto’ technique (creating textures with thick paint), as well as ‘tonking’ (blotting with paper to create texture), and sgraffito (scratching through one layer to reveal another). They put some of these techniques into practice to create a made up monster with pastels. There were some scary creations!

The children also lucked out with some good weather before the rain in forest schools this week and from all the things they brought into class, it seems like they had a very productive and creative time.

Year 3 had a busy day experiencing life in Neolithic Britain. The amazing team at Gressenhall put on a series of activities to help the children understand some of the tools the people in the Stone Age used, some of the resources they would have survived on, and finally, the thing that changed human civilisation forever… farming. 

The children looked at Palaeolithic tools made from the all-important flint stone and whittled some wood with a small piece themselves to see what it was like. They then found out what they might have hunted and gathered and practised hunting a (pretend) wild boar. After lunch, they used their collaborative skills and practiced making shelters as the hunter gatherers would have done. They finally had a go at farming – the major change in the Neolithic era that meant humans could create a surplus of resources and stay in one place!

Thank you to our fantastic Browick Road Friends for helping to fund our coach.

The children have been learning about rhythm and playing along with the chime bars to RnB song, Let Your Spirit Fly. It’s beginning to sound really great when combined with their voices in a song all about singing and playing and having fun. 

In art, the children explored the natural shapes in rocks and fossils and then created their own uniquely abstract image of contrasting patterns. 

And finally, the children demonstrated some amazing control in PE while learning the skills of dribbling in hockey.

We have had a fun and busy start to our year. We began the journey with some team building and the children showed great teamwork to build the tallest tower using their shoes and ordering themselves based on different characteristics in silence before demonstrating their creativity by making a portrait of Mrs Riccobena or Mr Bamford using found resources. The results were an uncanny resemblance!

We’ve kicked off lots of our learning topics this year such as exploring rocks in science, and trying to explain why the crayons have quit in English. Our art has begun by learning about Spanish artists Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso. The former, a surrealist painter, whose style we copied to create striking sketch book covers. The latter, a cubist artist, whose style we have pinched to create self-portraits for one of our displays. 

Well done on a great first full week year 3!