Class 3

Mondrian paintings
This term our class has been looking at the art work of Piet Mondrian. He loved to use straight lines in his work and filled in the spaces they made with blocks of colour. The lines were always in black and varied in thickness. He only used the primary colours of blue, red and yellow with white and black. This resulted in the pictures having lots of squares and rectangles all over it. A great way of reinforcing 2D shape work from the maths lesson! We all made our own Mondrian designs using both the Dazzle program and poster paint, and discovered that it is not as easy as it sounds to create these patterns! Phoebe brought in a book all about Mondrian's paintings and designs, and she found out that when he started painting his favourite pictures were all about trees. It was really useful to see all the different designs and patterns he made ....... thank you Phoebe!
Florence Nightingale

We have been finding out about what makes people famous, with the focus on Florence Nightingale who lived over 150 years ago but her work has changed our lives today. As historians, we used a variety of resources for our research, including photos, pictures, books, letters, stories, videos and the Internet. Did you know that Florence Nightingale was one of the first people to be named after the place they were born? Paris Hilton isn't as special as she thought!!!! It was quite frightening to see what conditions were like in hospitals before Miss Nightingale came along, although the children revelled in the idea of toilet bins being in the middle of the rooms! The video of the little boy with his leg cut off and the rats running all over the place was also a great hit! It has been the only time the children have been allowed to talk about poo and pouring blood and cutting off limbs as part of a lesson! Mrs Noble came into her own as a Red Cross nurse when she explained to the children about present day equipment and techniques. Watching the children wrap bandages around each other's arms and legs, as well as putting on slings was a real treat! To get a real feel of life in the past, the children have all had a go at writing with a quill pen to make a list of all the equipment that Florence wanted. Many of them were surprised how difficult it was, and realised that it must have taken her a long time. The blots of ink over the page just added to the authentic look! Eva brought in some old ink pots for us to see which added to the feeling of writing in the past. Thank you Eva! Click here for the quiz ...... your child will help with the answers if you get stuck!!!!	Born 1820 Died 1910


RE
The focus this term has been on Christian beliefs and worship. The visit to church was a real treat, as it allowed the children to have hands on experiences of artefacts and places that they would normally not be allowed to do. Even the walk home in the snow did not dampen the enthusiasm! One of the special highlights was when Mr Hughes brought out the robes that he wears for special services and allowed the children to try them on. We were all surprised at how heavy they are, and the patterns and colours are amazing. Did you know ........ there are special colours for different times in the Christian year, and that purple is the colour for Easter. This is because the colour purple is associated with royalty and Easter celebrates Jesus as king of heaven and earth. We had great fun making pancakes to help us remember Shrove Tuesday this week. There are a lot of really good cooks among your children!
Class 3 have also been thinking about where we can find God in our world. We listened to music, looked at pictures of nature, studied the stars and shared our ideas. Then everyone drew, painted or made an image of their special place and wrote a caption about it. I was so impressed with the thoughtful ideas the children had and their use of language to describe it. Here are just a few for you to share. Edward thinks God is in plants because a small brown seed can turn into an amazing flower. Alix finds God in a rainbow because of all the colours together in an arc. Christopher finds God in all of nature and thinks we should all try our best to look after it for Him. Keiran thinks God is in flowers because of the way bees can crawl into them to get the nectar. James finds God in rainbows because they shine light across the whole world.


Great Fire of London 1666
Our history topic this term is the Great Fire of London ........ yet more disasters and destruction but without the blood and gore of Florence Nightingale!! The children were quite disappointed that only 8 people were killed in total after 4 days of destructive flames! We are also looking at the diary of Samuel Pepys and reading extracts from the original text. I was very impressed how much information the children were able to acquire from it. They were really interested to find out that he wrote about going to the toilet and what he wore in bed! We also had a long discussion about why the men wore such fancy wigs, and was it rude to be seen without one! Adam has written his own diary about going to the ceilidh and he included lots of details about his daily life too. I am trying to convince him that he doesn't need to bury it in the garden like Pepys did, as the chances of Holy Trinity bursting into flames are quite remote! Hopefully it will inspire other children in the class to write down their own memories too.