Year 3 - Fairtrade, stilt dancing and pictograms

This is often the time of year when everything starts to come together and the pace picks up in every year group. Year 3 are no exception to that, though we battle coughs and colds, we still have made the time to finish off our Caribbean topic with a real carnival bang!

“That’s not fair.” “You were quite mean in that lesson!” some students exclaimed after they had to draw identical bananas against the clock in a class competition. Any that weren’t fit for selling would be thrown. The outrage was obviously planned, particularly when simulated crop failures, and pestilence resulted in some groups unfairly losing equipment! Finally, they could see the importance of fair trade in our global network and how we are linked to the produce of the Caribbean in our everyday choices. After learning all about the journey of the humble banana, many inquisitive Year 3 students have brought in various parts of packaging depicting fair trade. From chocolate wrappers to fruit stickers, our students were seeing where they came from in a new light.

Ever practised the ancient art of Moko Jumbies stilt dancing? No? Year 3 came up with their own dance routines inspired by professional Moko Jumbies dancers for our class play. Keep your eyes peeled for their dances when set to Parang Soca music!

We haven’t just stopped there, as we’ve been delving into the history of pirates. Blackbeard, instruments of torture and famous female pirates are all areas we’ve been researching ready to create our own non-fiction books!

Furthermore, we have created our own (graphically detailed) digestive system stop motion animations in our Science lessons. A child’s face lights up when they realise they can describe the creation of poo in such scientific detail! Additionally, we created our own Early World Stories, describing how the Turtle got its cracked shell, whilst learning about complex sentence structures. Finally, we designed our own pictograms and bar charts in Computing, to give clear feedback to the Food Council on our favourite meals.