Welcome to Chestnut Class!

Chestnut class is fun, friendly and fabulous! This year your teachers are Mrs Trim and Mrs Slade. We are really looking forward to sharing some fantastic learning, with everyone trying their best. In Chestnut class, we are always willing to ‘have a go’ at our learning, celebrating marvellous mistakes as they help us to learn. We respect everybody, making the class a welcoming and happy place for everyone.

There are a few things we need to remember this year:

• PE kit: your full (named) PE kit needs to be in school every day;
• Reading: daily reading at home is strongly encouraged and progress with this will be celebrated in class. Please listen to your child read regularly and record this in the back of their orange Learning Destination (Homework book);
• Spellings and maths homework will be set on Monday each week and are due in on Friday.

I am really looking forward to getting to know all the children in Chestnut class this year and I’m sure we’re going to have an amazing time in year 3.

Egyptian bread

Today Chestnut class baked Egyptian bread. We had a very messy, fun time creating the dough! The ingredients needed were wholemeal flour; a tablespoon of honey; chopped dates and figs; warm water; a pinch of salt and baking powder. We used our maths skills to weigh out the flour and measure the water. The dough was incredibly sticky because of the honey and sticky dates.

Winnie: “It was so much fun, I really enjoyed it.”

Jack: “I loved kneading the dough with my hands.”

Abigail: “ My favourite part was shaping the dough ready for cooking.”
Charlie: “ I enjoyed chopping/ dicing the dates and figs.”

Thomas: “ I enjoyed shaping the dough into a circle to create my loaf.”

Foteini: “ We created a well in the dough and mixed the dried ingredients into it to form a dough.”

Mummifying fruit

Today we have recreated the mummification process using fruit! The children created a substance (used to be known as natron in ancient Egyptian times) using salt and baking soda and have poured it over one piece of apple/tomato. They will monitor whether or not the salty substance preserves the fruit and stops it from going mouldy. They had great fun removing the insides (organs!) of the tomatoes.

Wessex Water 

Yesterday Sam from Wessex Water visited us. We learnt so much about what should and shouldn’t be put down the drain!

Have a look at some of the things we found out.

Spectacular Science Show!

Today, Chestnut class were lucky enough to visit a spectacular science show at Clarendon secondary school. The exciting show was run by two of Clarendon’s science teachers and had us laughing, cheering and also gasping! Some of the experiments that we were shown involved things exploding, which was awesome! The first experiment was called rockets and some of us went up to the front to mix together sterilising tablets with a chemical -  this caused a huge force and the lids were blown from the containers.

One of our favourite experiments was when they created ‘Elephant’s Toothpaste’. It is called this because the chemical reaction creates a huge flume of what looks like toothpaste -  it shot out from the bottle and went very high!

Winnie: “I liked the chemicals that changed colour when they were shaken.”

Jack: “ I liked the part when I had to gently move the hoop along the metal strip without it beeping.”

Teddy: The most exciting part of the show was when there were explosions and also the fire at the end.”

Rose:  “The funniest part was when the assistant was messing around (part of the show!) with the equipment and accidently added too much of the hydrogen peroxide and potassium which resulted in a massive explosion!”

Art

Chestnut have been making their final pieces of art work for this term. They have chosen a Monet painting to inspire them and used mixed media. Can you spot the different types of media used in their work?

Claude Monet

Look at our amazing Monet inspired pictures. We have used mixed-media to create these and show different textures. The pictures were created using water colours and oil pastels (they were a little messy but fun!). I am sure you will agree that they look amazing. Monet would be very impressed!

Claude Monet

Chestnut Class have been learning about Claude Monet this term.

As part of our learning, we have been creating waterlily-stained glass ponds. First, the children had to use their cutting skills to cut up different shades of blue, green and pink tissue paper. They then carefully layered the pieces and washed over them with PVA glue. When the tissue paper is fully dry, the children will peel their ponds off from the plastic background and this will create a stained-glass effect. Keep your eyes peeled for more pictures!

Next week, we will also be writing instructions for this process so if you fancy having a go at home, instructions will follow from the children. Well done, Chestnut class, it was a very messy, yet enjoyable afternoon.

Tennis Competition

Earlier this month, Chestnut had a great day out at the town park celebrating the new King’s Coronation by playing tennis. They showed excellent resilience and played exceptionally well!

World Maths Day

Wow! What an exciting week we have had. On Wednesday we celebrate World Maths day and learnt how to play 3 in a row. The children had to use strategic thinking to create two digit numbers and decide whether to switch the digits to block their opponent. It was a lot of fun! You can also see here in the pictures, an example of our beautiful colour work in our sketchbooks where the children practised colour mixing to create secondary colours. Finally, here is part of our stained glass waterlily display -  Monet inspired, ponds that look beautiful in our classroom window with the light seeping through. Well done Chestnut, another busy week!

World Maths Day

Today we have been creating our numbers posters as it is World Maths Day! Take a look at how we think we will use numbers in the future.

Wednesday 8th March Home Learning 

Foodies

In Chestnut class we had the wonderful opportunity to do Foodies where we learnt all about pumpkins. We know that pumpkins are a part of the cucurbitaceae family and that there are over 150 varieties. We had so much fun cooking and eating our soup and soda bread! 

Electricity

In DT, we explored what electricity is and how we can use a battery, switch, wires and bulb to create a circuit. With this knowledge, the children then researched, designed and created their own lights.  We thought about who they were making the lights for and what materials would be best for their projects. We were able to solve problems that arose during the creation of their projects by working together.  We had so much fun creating our projects and testing them out at the end!

Harvest

Chestnut class celebrated harvest by creating a collage of many different fruits and vegetables. It took great concentration and skill to carefully select the correct colours and to tear the paper into shapes. How many vegetables can you spot? How many fruits can you spot? Can you name them all?