Welcome To Our New Website!
Welcome To Our New Website!
Birchwood Primary School

Oak 3 2024-25

 
Welcome to Oak 3!
 
 
2024 - 2025
 
Mrs Oz/Mrs Bayliss - Class Teachers
Miss Watson-Burge - Student Teacher
Mrs Cook/Mrs Barber/Miss Alders - Teaching Assistants
 
Summer 2
 
Take One Author: Roald Dahl
Year 3 enjoyed a sunny afternoon for their Sport's Day.  Children enjoyed participating, spectating and cheering along their classmates.  This year's winners were MAPLE 3!
Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Sarah, James and Sean from CEVA, learning all about how to stay safe around lorries. They showed us the 4 blind spots and told us about the different lights and cameras on the lorry. We also got chance to sit in the cab and were given a goodie bag each.
On Tuesday morning some of our Year 3 students took part in something very exciting - a world record attempt! The record we were trying to break was for the largest cooking lesson ever. We joined Jamie Oliver live on zoom & together created our own tomato, basil and freshly made pasta dishes! The children had lots of fun and we were delighted when Birchwood were given a special shout-out! We are feeling confident that we will be record breakers once all the evidence from everyone taking part has been checked. Watch this space! 
Year 3 had a fantastic day out on Tuesday at the home of chocolate - Cadbury World. After learning about the origins of the cocoa bean from the Aztec Jungle, children were taught about the history of Cadburys, the infamous Dairy Milk bar, and how the factory came to be built in Bournville. Children then enjoyed a sweet cup of tasty chocolate before having a go at piping and tempering it themselves. A visit to the 4D Chocolate Adventure and a ride of the Chocolate Quest finished off the brilliant day nicely. 
We explored a range of boxes that are already on the market, to inspire our own designs for our own chocolate fruit creations.
 
Summer 1
 
Ancient Greece
Look at our fantastic pneumatic monsters made in DT.
Our Sponsored Run winners made some excellent choices in our reading vending machines.
Immersing ourselves in the life of an Athenian during a Spartan attack.
Oak 3 had a fantastic day of sporting activities, enjoying taking part in a cricket enrichment activity and a sponsored walk/run.
Oak 3 enjoyed creating pneumatic mythical creatures in DT.
During our Maths lessons, Oak created 2D shapes on digital geoboards which out partner had to guess and recreate using the mathematical properties we know to describe the shapes we had made.
An outstanding result for our outstanding writers! 
 
Last half term our Year 3 children visited Villa Park - after such a brilliant day, they were tasked with a writing project that encouraged them to write a persuasive advert for other schools to visit. Jack, our Villa coach, took the adverts back to the club where an AVFC representative chose 3 lucky winners from each class. Our winners, Erin, Euan and Eva (Oak 3) and Lucie, Archie and Amelie (Maple 3) were presented with some AVFC merchandise as well as tickets to the Aston Villa v Manchester City U18 Premier League final with the final result being 1-0 to Villa who finished top of the league.
 
Well done to all of our champions. 
As part of our maths learning on shape and measures,  we explored our classroom to see if we could identify any right angles. 
We started our new text ‘Starbird’ by hot seating in role as two of the main characters from the text and trying to persuade each other of our different viewpoints. Will the princess be able to convince her father to change his mind or will Starbird remain in his cage forever?
 
Spring 2
 
Volcanoes and Earthquakes

Year 3 had a fun-filled visit to Villa Park on Tuesday.  They took part in team games and multi-sports in AVFC's state-of-the-art training academy.  During the second part of the day, the children put their maths' skills to the test by budgeting and creating their own fantasy football teams, learning what makes for a strong growth mind-set and then had a great fun programming sphere-bolt robots to play football.

Year 3 had a fantastic time on World Book Day, here they are reading with a buddy from Year 6 and reading for pleasure during one of the ‘Drop everything and read!’ DEAR sessions.
Year 3 had an exciting Now Press Play adventure when they travelled back in time to discover all about the destruction of the ancient Roman City of Pompeii. Pompeii was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 and the children had to help guide the people living there to safety before it was too late. They will be using the experience as inspiration for writing their own escape from Pompeii adventure stories.
 
Spring 1
 
Forces, Magnets and Metals

Oak 3 had another fantastic Forest School session where we learned how to safely carry larger branches in pairs. We also learned how to use a bow saw in order to cut up branches to creature smaller pieces of wood. Our final session was to explore the Forest School area using all of the safety skills we had acquired over the half term.

Year 3 looked at how the Eatwell Plate can help us to select foods so that we have a healthy and balanced diet. We also learned about different types of cereals and where in the world some of the grains are grown. We discovered that many shop bought cereals can contain added sugar, so we created our own healthy breakfast pots by layering fruit, yoghurt and cereal. Delicious! 

In our science lessons this half term we have been learning about forces. We learned about friction and made predictions about which surfaces we thought had the most friction. We then conducted fair tests by rolling cars down ramps covered in different materials to see which surface allowed the car to travel the furthest. We knew the further the car travelled the less friction there must be. 
Today, Year 3 read the story ‘The Great Pet Sale’ by Mike Inkpen. Then we got into role as the character in the book and bought our own pets. We looked at finding different possibilities to pay for the pets with coins, how much change we would get when buying 2 pets and when the ‘sale’ was over, we worked out the cost of buying 2 or more pets using decimalisation and column addition.
Ten gymnasts from Year 3 competed in the Warwickshire competition hosted by Hurley Primary School.  After completing 7 skills on a floor routine and a vault jump, our team came an amazing second in their heat. We are awaiting for all heats to be completed before finding out our final position. It was Birchwood’s first time entering this competition but you wouldn’t have known by the skills shown by the gymnasts. A particular mention should go to Grace who achieved the highest score on the vault, Eva who gained the most points her superb floor routine and Bella for gaining the outstanding participation award.  Well done team!
On Tuesday, Year 3 presented their class assemblies on the theme of staying safe online to the rest of the school. The children thought about our weekly theme of honesty and recognised that not everyone online is being honest. They looked at the SMART rules of staying safe online by not sharing personal information or meeting up with strangers, only accepting messages from people you know, checking if things are reliable and telling a trusted adult if you ever felt unsafe online. They hope they have made you stop and think about how to be safe online. On February 11th it is safer internet day, so look out for more top tips then! 
 
Autumn 2
 
Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age
Year 3 enjoyed taking part in a PSHE Now Press Play experience linked to friendships and feeling left out. We thought about how it would make us feel if we were in that situation and also solutions to help others who might be feeling excluded or lonely at times. 
Year 3 had a wonderful day at The Think Tank in Birmingham where they got the chance to explore all the wonderful interactive areas and exhibits. They enjoyed learning about technology in the past and then looking ahead to how technology might help us in the future. They also learned more about how the human body works. A favourite area was the outdoor science garden where they discovered how forces work and had lots of fun testing out things with their friends. 
Year 3 have been mixing tints and shades to create backgrounds for our cave paintings. We then experimented using different techniques to add texture to our work. We also used natural materials such as charcoal to create own designs showing what life was life for people in the Stone Age.
Year 3 made a wonderful start to their new theme by taking part in a Stone Age day. We went outside searching for things to help us survive, tried flint knapping (with soap), made Stone Age style pinch pots and even took part in a Now Press Play experience. 
 
Autumn 1
 
Road Trip USA!
Year 3 have been making American style burgers this week! First they learned about the protein beef and the importance of hygiene when preparing raw meat. They used the claw and bridge technique to carefully chop onion and parsley, which was then combined into the beef mince to make deliciously tasty burger patties. After cooking the patties in the oven, the children assembled their burgers with bread buns, lettuce and their choice of relish before eating them all up. The verdict - delicious! 
Year 3 have been busy making their bridges and testing them out. They discovered that triangle frameworks are stronger than other shapes so used triangulation within their designs to strengthen their bridges.
Year 3 had a wonderful time working in groups with artist Darrell Wakelam to create one of their favourite book characters. The children used a range of different techniques in order to bring Paddington Bear to life. Look out for Paddington Bear next time you are walking around school!
In DT Year 3 investigated different types of frames to see which were stronger to help us with our bridge structures. We worked together and discovered triangular frameworks were the strongest. We added diagonals to our cubes to create triangles which reinforced them. We now plan to use these ideas in our bridge designs. 
In PSHE we learned about the importance of road safety and how to cross the road correctly. We discussed the new zebra crossing outside our school and the different types of crossings. We also discussed why some places are unsafe places to cross. Then we had a go at crossing the road safely using the crossing marked out on the playground.
Year 3 have had an excellent start to their Key Stage 2 journey.
 
On Day 1 of Year 3, we took a Road Trip to USA and learned about the Geography of the USA including some states, the continent it belongs to and some of the major cities.
 
We read our new key text 'Snow White in New York' and compared it to the traditional tale.  Children created freeze frames of the key points in the text and had great fun becoming the evil Queen of the Underworld, or the poor little rich girl, Snow.
 
Welcome to Juniper 2!