Yummy Yorkshire Puddings!

Part of our topic work this week has been looking at what Yorkshire is famous for and the people, places and foods from Yorkshire. One of the most famous things from Yorkshire has to be the Yorkshire pudding!

We made the Yorkshire puddings in our table groups and looked at the recipe to follow whilst we made them. This also linked into our literacy work this week of writing instructions so we made sure we wrote the instructions up carefully to follow when making the Yorkshire puddings.

Take a look at us making our delicious Yorkshire puddings!

 

Roman feast day

Welcome to the land of Ancient Rome…where the pizza is truly outstanding!!!

That’s right, we stuck on our best toga, straightened the laurel wreathes and headed to Birdwell Primary School for our end-of-topic celebration!!!

 

We had gladiatorial games!  A Roman-style feast and (my favourite) a slave auction (kind of like Blind Date but with Mr Swallow as Cilla!)

” slave number 1, if you were a pizza topping, what would you be and why?”…Brilliant!

Boat building

We have used Google Sketch Up to design our own boats in 3D.  We based our designs on classic designs from around the world, throughout history:

  • the American Indian canoe
  • the Ancient Greek trirene
  • the Viking longboat
  • the Tudor galleon

To make sure our boats will be built to last, we are learning joining construction techniques…

Paper Aeroplane Pilots

Our week learning about flight ended in a paper plane distance competition!  Which style of plane would travel the furthest?

Check out these car videos from home!!!

Click the links to see the brilliant videos!

Anna

 

Perfect Pancakes

Your challenge was to make a pancake that looked like a teacher!  Let’s just hope you still want to eat it if you succeed!

P did a great job of…ME!  Check out the white beard.  Maybe I should consider adding sprinkles to my eyebrows!

S made Mr. Mathieson.  (He looks sad because he is a Wednesday fan!!!)

L made this highly-realistic version of Miss Housley.  He certainly got the beard just right!

 

D made me.  Look at how she captured the vacant expression and goofy features just right!

C made this cute-looking chap.  He looks particularly delicious!  (So it can’t be me!)

F made this pancake of me…check out the designer stubble (and slightly cross-eyes)

Snowman competition is ON!!!!!

Look at the size of this one from P&S!!!!

I think it’s taller than Snowlaff, who we built!

F and her mum built this cracker…

Meet Mr Football head!  I think we could have all guessed who made this even if he wasn’t in the picture!

F made this cute snow ghost…what a great cheesy grin from them both!!!

J & E made this “cool” dude (see what I did there?) Great teamwork you two and well done to Mum for chipping in the hat!

I made a birthday snowman and treated herself to DDs!  Happy Birthday from all of us!

D made this happy looking chappy!  Absolutely fantastic!

L K built this little chap in the dark and it only took him 5 mins!  That is some swift building Mr. K!

O made this incredibly cute little fella:

The children in school decided to help Neil the Caretaker to clear the playground!

 

 

Our model volcanoes!

These look as if they are going to cause a ‘disaster’ in lots of homes!!!

 

Here are our contributions from in class:

 

Earthquake proof building challenge

Jorja took several attempts to reach this masterpiece!  She kept finding ways to strengthen and reinforce the structure.  Well done Jorja!  This is ace.

Check out this lovely design.  That’s a pretty tall tower to say you used such slender materials and I understand that it passed all the tests…including you dancing around it like a lunatic!  Well done!

 

Riley made this tough-looking castle to withstand an earthquake

Lewis used marshmallows to join his structure together. It looks fab AND passed all 3 tests.  Well done!

Chloe was VERY frustrated building this masterpiece, BUT she didn’t give up!  Great resilience Chloe.  I love your choice of materials!  I would say that earthquake you simulated would have topped the Richter scale too!!!

(Video to follow)

This is a very solid looking structure from blocks.  Check back soon becasue there are 2 great TEST videos that go with it!

This one made me laught a lot!  The message that came with it says, “we tried, we failed, we had a lot of fun!”  The pictures say it all really!  Fantastic effort guys!

 😁👍Brilliant!!!

 

DIY death masks

We recreated the elegant masks used to cover the faces of the pharaohs when they died.  Mr Baikley wouldn’t pay for us to use real gold but we did a good job of making them look convincing…

Bread fit for a Pharaoh?

Well, I hope so as my classroom certainly wasn’t after whole-class bread making!  We had lots of fun and the bread looked surprisingly delicious:

We used traditional ingredients such as pistachio nuts and honey but we left out the sand! (Ask your children why they used to use sand in their bread making and what problem it caused!)  As always in my class, the children did all of the recipe reading, measuring ingredients and baking themselves…if they got the recipe wrong it got made wrong!  But luckily, we all seemed to enjoy our creations…

 

Our class model

I’m sure you all guessed correctly that our class model was intact a replica of the journey that the river Nile takes through Egypt…obviously!!!

We are using the model to map out where geographical features of Egypt belong, such as the Red Sea, the deserts, the mountains, human settlements and the archeological sites like the pyramids.  (They will be added as we cover them)

However, our model has also allowed us to examine and show how the water cycle works in Egypt…

1. Evaporation.  The water is turned to vapour in the heat of the sun and rises up into the air

2.  Condensation.  The vapour cools & collects into clouds. As soon as the cooling vapour touches something solid (such as sand or dust particles in the air) In turns back into water

3.  Precipitation.  When the water gets too heavy for the clouds to hold, it falls back to Earth as rain. This tends to happen in cooler places such as mountains as the colder air makes more vapour condense.

4.  The rain runs into valleys, streams and rivers where it returns to the sea so the whole cycle can start again.

 

Ask your child to tell you about the different parts of the cycle, use the photos and terminology to help.  Try to encourage them to use the correct vocabulary:

  • evaporation, condensation,  precipitation
  • water vapour
  • rises/falls
  • clouds, sea, rivers

Here is a couple of links to help you discuss it (See if you can make your mind out which narrator has the most annoying voice, I’m struggling to decide!)

Egyptian Artifacts

We have been very busy this morning making our own (extremely authentic-looking) Egyptian neck-piece.  The children GOT THEIR OWN EQUIPMENT from our shelves, then COVERED THE TABLE THEMSELVES and finally, GOT THEIR OWN PAINTS AND CRAFT MATERIALS!

That’s how grown up we are in Year 3!

However, that is not the most impressive aspect of our lesson!  We also tidied up ourselves!  I didn’t help AT ALL!  The kids put all of the resources away and tidied up the rubbish themselves.  Take a look at our classroom after a full lesson of painting, sticking and glitter…

So, when they make one of these for their homework, they’ll be able to do the same at home!

 

Well done kids, I’m very proud of you all!

Can you tell what it is yet?

…Don’t worry, we won’t blame you if you can’t tell just yet!

Year 3 are busy crafting something strange out of wood, card, tape and plaster!  Can any of our grown ups guess what it is and leave their guess as a comment on here?  (No cheating and asking your kids!)

What is Stonehenge?

Stonehenge | English Heritage

Here is a very nice video resource from the BBC, telling you about this famous site.  Read the page before you watch the video.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z82hsbk/articles/zg8q2hv

Can you design your own Stone circle?  You could make it from craft or building materials.

At Mr Swallow’s house, Syd went for wooden blocks and Lego. He was fascinated with lining his models up to the sun outside!!!

You could even use Minecraft!!!?  (Clarke!!!)

 

Topic challenge: Weapon making

This week’s topic challenge is to create your own Stone Age weapon! Below is a brilliant video covering the Stone Age era, can you pick out any important information about the weapons?

During the Stone Age, people used sharpened sticks for hunting and protection purposes, they were vital for survival in the Stone Age. They were also used to hunt certain animals like wolves, foxes, bears, deer, hyena and much more.

Check out the weapons that have already been made… maybe you could do something similar?

Cave Art Comes Alive! | Stone age activities, Stone age tools ...Stone Age Tools – Hillside Primary School | Baddeley Green ...Stone Age Craft - How to make a Paper Axe - Red Ted Art - Make ...

 

 

You could design your Stone Age weapon on paper first, labelling the key parts of it. Next, you could manufacture the weapon by using cardboard, sticks, string, rocks or any other household items – just get your parents permission first!

I’m looking forward to seeing them!

Mr Mathieson x

 

 

 

Cave painting

Cavemen decorated their caves and shelters with pictures of the animals they saw, the friends they lived with and hand-prints that can still be seen by us all of these thousands of years later.

I would like you guys to have a go at your own cave paintings.  I have posted some links to sites online that have examples.  There are lots of different ways of doing authentic-looking ones, including; working on old cardboard boxes, using hands in mud and painting with brushes.  (So we don’t have to destroy your mum’s lovely wall paper!!!)  As always, let me see what you get up to, I’ll be having a go at this with Syd today so I’ll do the same!

Household tips

I find cave painting so fascinating, there’s a special reason why the cavemen painted animals on the cave walls, can any of you find out why they did it?

Here’s a quick and easy tip that will make your cave art replicate the real thing…

  • Once you have drawn your picture, leave it to dry and spray over it with hairspray (don’t worry, you won’t use the full can so you’ll have plenty left to do your hair!)
  • After the hairspray has dried you need to cover it by using a tea bag. Here’s the trick – ASK A PARENT TO OVERSEE (I don’t want any burnt hands or tea stains in the house). Leave the teabag in hot water, let it cool down and then gently ‘pinch’ the teabag out and dab it over the artwork. Dip the teabag back into the water as it will start to dry when applying it to your artwork.
  • Leave the artwork to dry and you’ll have your very own cave art.

We can’t wait to see your finished outcomes.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/176273772894827401/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/571042427743842940/

https://learningparade.typepad.co.uk/learning_parade/2010/04/off-the-wall-cave-painting-.html

Mr Mathieson and Mr Swallow.

Our masks!

We have created our own Egyptian masks. Mr Bailey has even put them on display outside of his office!

Roman workshop

Yesterday, Andrew from the Leeds museum came to talk about the Romans. He brought so many different artefacts that his museum had found in Yorkshire and explained what each of them was used for. He even showed us some real Roman coins that were around 2000 years old!

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Team Speedster have learned some amazing joinery skills 😳

We want to make our car really strong and well made so that it beats all of the other cars in the class. To do this, we had to learn some joining skills

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We had to learn measuring skills to make sure we cut our wood correctly. You have to always start at zero on the ruler, not at the end.

We also learned how to make a strong and straight frame for our car by using joining triangles in the corners…

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