Friday 31st March
Design and Technology
Our project in Design and Technology this half term was to design and make a drawbridge to defend against a Viking invasion! We have been learning about Vikings in History, so there were lots of opportunities for cross-curricular learning.
After the design process and learning all about the different mechanisms that we can use to help us with our project, we were finally ready to build our drawbridge this week.
To help us to do this and to enable the drawbridge to go both up and down, we used a winding mechanism with a handle.
The children used a cereal box to act as the castle that we needed to defend from the Vikings and we used a straw and string to make the winding mechanism.
The children worked incredibly hard and they were so enthusiastic and proud of their work! Well done Northern Europe :)
Have a lovely Easter break everyone! I am looking forward to seeing you all after the break and hearing all about how you spent your holidays :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 24th March 2023
Enrichment Week
What a great, jam-packed week we have had this week! This week has been Enrichment Week with the focus being entrepreneurship, enterprise and teamwork. The children have worked in teams on various activities throughout the week, such as building a bridge out of paper and sellotape and also designing and making an eco-friendly toy out of recyclable materials. The children have shown fantastic teamwork skills; they have listened to each member of the team and negotiated and compromised with each other to reach a decision. They have worked incredibly hard!
In English all week, the children worked together in a team, created a business idea, wrote a persuasive pitch and then presented it to the class. There were some brilliant business ideas such as candles that could be made into any shape, slime with poppets inside of it and charity shops with food banks and cafes inside. It really was wonderful!
We also had a Forces Workshop and learnt about Sarah Goode who was the first African American entrepreneur who made a foldable bed. In our teams, we created sculptures with our bodies as we learnt about her. See all of the photos below.
Have a lovely weekend :) Mrs Graham
Friday 17th March 2023
Northern Europe have had a fantastic week this week! On Tuesday, we had out Marble Jar treat afternoon- a Pyjama and Movie party! We had cookies and sweets and watched Peter Rabbit 2. It was fabulous! I explained to the children that we were able to do this due their great behavior and earning the marbles. The marble jar is empty (ish) now but I have no doubt it will be full again soon and we can have another treat next term!
I also want to say a big well done to the children because I have noticed a renewed enthusiasm for Doodle Tables and this has been reflected in the children mastering some of them! Well done!
Have a lovely weekend :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 10th March 2023
Lazy Jack
In English, we have been focusing on a piece of text called ‘Lazy Jack’. The children have loved this, especially as Jack does lots of silly things!
We have been working really hard on learning to re-tell the story using actions. The children have shown so much enthusiasm and have put so much effort into this. I am so proud of them!
As well as learning to re-tell the story, we have also focused on using an apostrophe for omission and incorporated these words into our own poems. We have worked on our oracy skills and had a discussion about whether children should do the house work, as Jack in our text was very lazy and definitely didn’t do any chores! We have also worked on conjunctions and wrote some fantastic sentences using these.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 3rd March 2023
We have had a busy but lovely first week back after half-term! :)
We have had lots of exciting things going on! On Wednesday, half of the class attended Forest School with Mr Elliot where they took part in exciting outdoor activities, whilst the other half played their penny whistle with Mrs Hamilton. On Thursday, we received a visit from the lovely ladies from Gateshead Council to give us some pedestrian training (Ask your child to tell you all about the Green Cross Code!).
Perhaps most exciting of all however, was World Book Day on Thursday 3rd March. It was brilliant to see all of the children in their fabulous costumes; it was clear to see that they had all put so much thought and effort into their character! As part of our celebration of World Book Day, we all worked really hard and wrote a class story entitled ‘The Adventures of Percival the Persevering Peace Lily!’. The children had fun, silly and wonderful ideas for the story and it came out brilliantly! I am also so pleased to say that this story, including illustrations by children in the class, is going to be published into a book!
Have a lovely weekend. Mrs Graham :)
Friday 17th February 2023
Science- Magnet Maze Game
We have been learning all about forces and magnets this half-term and this week, we were able to put all of our learning into practice in a very fun and practical way!
The children were given a set of instructions and they had to read and follow them step by step with their partner. They did amazingly well and showed great team work and understanding!
By following the instructions correctly, the children designed and made a magnet maze game out of a cereal box. They made their own counter using cardboard and a paper clip, drew their maze and then used a magnet to bring their game to life.
The children were so excited and worked really hard. I was so proud of their reading and listening skills and loved looking at all of their fabulous creations! Well done Northern Europe!
Have a lovely weekend and I hope you all have a fabulous half term! Mrs Graham.
Friday 10th February
Adam Bushnell
We have all had another lovely week this week! We have had lots of fun things going on. You will see in the Newsletter that Year 3 have been very lucky this week and had a visit from the author Adam Bushnell.
Adam came into Northern Europe on Tuesday and we all learnt lots about Vikings. This is a topic that we are going to be covering later on in the term, so it was fantastic to get an early insight into it! Adam brought lots of Viking objects for us to look at including a horn, a helmet, chain mail and some Viking weaponry. We passed them around and held them, so we could really see them up close, it was very interesting!
As well as teaching us lots of facts about Vikings, Adam also focused on Viking themed writing. The children, inspired by Adam’s drawings and ideas, began to write their own story. They even made up their own character and drew them. Why don’t you ask your child about the ‘Frost Giant?’
We were very sad when it came for Adam to leave but we all had so much fun and I can’t wait to learn even more about Vikings in our History topic!
Have a lovely weekend :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 3rd February 2023
Forest School
We have all had another lovely week this week!
Northern Europe were also extremely lucky this week to take part in Forest School with Mr Elliot. They had so much fun taking part in lots of outdoor activities such as making dens with sticks and foliage, making bug hotels for the bugs of Emmaville and making swords or bow and arrows with sticks and wool! They also painted lovely patterns on wood and made mud faces on trees. They then ended the wonderful session with a nice hot chocolate!
We all had so much fun and learnt lots about the outdoor environment. We cannot wait for our next session!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend :)
Mrs Graham.
This week in English, we have been focusing on our new Pie Corbett text- Adventure at Sandy Cove. This is a finding tale whereby the two boys find a mysterious box whilst looking for shells in a rock pool!
We have had lots of fun creating a story map for the text and re-telling the story using some actions. An important element of a finding tale is ‘building suspense’. We have created a toolkit of all of the different techniques that writers can use to build suspense, including using ‘show don’t tell’ and using empty words such as ‘someone’ and ‘something’. We have also learnt how to punctuate speech and the children enjoyed writing and punctuating sentences.
Next week we are moving onto writing our own finding tale, which I am really looking forward to!
Have a lovely weekend! Mrs Graham :)
Friday 27th January 2023
This week, we have been focusing on measuring in our Maths and Science lessons and have had lots of opportunities to put our new learning into practise!
In Maths, we have been learning all about units of measurement such as centimeters, millimeters and metres, equivalent measurements and converting between metres and centimeters. The children were then tasked with finding items in the class that were shorter, longer or equivalent to one metre. They had lots of fun doing this and even measured me! They showed lots of enthusiasm during this activity and worked really hard!
The Science topic this half-term is focusing on forces and magnets and this week, we learnt all about gravity. In order to see the effects of gravity, we asked the children to conduct an experiment asking ‘How does the height at which we drop a ball effect how high it bounces?’ We dropped a tennis ball from different heights and then used our measuring skills to measure how high the ball bounced. Why don’t you ask your child what we found out? We all had lots of fun!
Have a lovely weekend :)
Mrs Graham.