Welcome back Year 3!- 6.1.23

Happy New Year to Year 3 and your families! This week, we have got to know each other and introduced this term's topic of The Ancient Egyptians. We started our day on Wednesday investigating some papyrus paintings of Egyptian Gods and hieroglyphic writing. We then learnt how papyrus was made back in Egyptian times and then made our own version. We also learnt that the Egyptians were very fond of cats and learnt that they thought they were very important and even magical! We then looked at different cats and sketched our own. Year 3 – we were so impressed with your creations. We then added a background wash of colour using water colours and after looking at different cat hair patterns, chose our own to add to our cats using oil pastels.

We continued our big art lessons on Thursday with clay! We learnt about cartouches, what they were and where they could be found in Ancient Egyptian times. Once you had looked at photos and papyrus paintings of different cartouches, you created your own and even added your own initials in hieroglyphics.

In our history lesson, you looked at where the Egyptians fit on the timeline of history. We were particularly interested to know if they were around before or after the Romans. You also worked in partners to think of what you want to find out about the Egyptians this term. You came up with some great questions and we can't wait to find out the answers with you over the term.

In maths, you practised our times tables and did your first times table test of the new year. You all showed a great learning attitude and approach to your times tables.

Today, you had this term's first Heartsmart lesson where the focus was 'too much selfie isn't healthy' and you discussed if it is better to give or receive gifts, love and friendship. You thought about how these things make you feel and shared your thoughts with your class team.

For our first music lesson of this half-term, we began learning about Ancient Egyptian music, and which instruments they used to play. We learnt that Hathor – the goddess of beauty, music and dancing, was worshipped as a mother figure of celebration and love. The Ancient Egyptians played percussion instruments such as rattles, bells, hand drums and castanets. They played wind instruments similar to a flute and a clarinet as well as string instruments called – a lyre, harp and a lute which were plucked rather than played with a bow. A percussion instrument called a sistrum was used at dances and religious ceremonies and in the worship of Hathor and Bastet. We will be making our own sistrum instrument over the coming weeks.

In other news, we had lots of friendship pebbles given out this week to children showing kindness, thoughtfulness and being a helpful friend and we enjoyed reading time with our teddy reading buddies. We are already looking forward to next week!

Miss McCurrie and Mrs Jenkins