Goodness me – there’s been vertices, edges, corners, sides, angles, polygons, triangular prisms, cuboids, spheres and so very many more properties of shapes being bounded about in Year 3 this week. We have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes and looking at nets to make a variety of 3D shapes. The mathematicians have been undertaking a cube net investigation to see how many different nets they can make from differing combinations of 6 squares.
Our creative writing sessions have been a little dramatic this week. The childen were given a scenario of two men entering a rainforest – in groups they decided why they had done that then worked out a short sketch to demonstrate the saga. The narrators had the tricky task of producing the sounds as well as explaining the story. We are studying the story of the Great Kapok Tree. It is a story that really brings home the concerns around deforestation, not only the affect on the creatures within the rainforest, but the lack of oxegen, the great sadness within the baron landscape as the beauty is taken away. The children learnt just howmany animals rely on the tree being their home and hunting ground. They studied the animals and described their features using tremendous adjectives.
In art we have studied Henri Rousseau. His jungle pieces have influenced our own jungle pictures with the amazing tropical plants and foliage in the foreground. The children loved adding huge trees and vines in the background.
We took advantage of the weather and had a little trip to the dam. Shoes and socks were off – muddy feet and hands were then the order of the day!
We have been looking at the cocoa bean and coffee bean. In research teams, the children were charged with finding out how the beans became chocolate and coffee. Each team presented their findings to the rest of the class to teach them the process.
