Butler Class (Year 3/4)
Welcome to Butler Class
Mrs Bravington and Mrs Killian
Newsletters
Welcome to Butler Class!
We hope you have all had a lovely summer with your family and friends and are ready for a busy and exciting year in Butler Class. Your teacher this year will be Mrs Bravington. We also have Mrs Killian who will be supporting us. We are looking forward to all the brilliant things we will be doing this term. We hope you continue to shine brightly!
Our Autumn Term whole school topic is "Where in the World Are We?" and we have lots of exciting things planned.
We will be investigating who the Mayans were and what impact they made on society. We will also be investigating our local area. We will be completing field work investigations as well as having the opportunity to develop our map skills. We will be carrying out field surveys and data collections and understand of the type of landmarks we see in different area.
In Computing, we'll be learning how digital devices work, including inputs, outputs, and processes. We will explore different devices, design our own and see how we use technology daily. We'll also look at how computers connect in networks and share information, learning about key parts like switches and servers.
In Art, we'll be exploring the work of Lucian Freud, focusing on portraits and self-portraits. We will learn about Freud’s life, analyse his art, and compare different works to understand his style. We’ll practice drawing techniques, such as shading and proportion, to create our own portraits. We will also reflect on our work and that of our peers, discussing what we like and how we can improve.
In DT, we will be exploring the use of mechanisms including levers and linkages. We will be exploring what levers and linkages are to design and create our very own moving picture.
Our PE lessons will be on a Tuesday afternoon. Please make sure you come into school wearing your PE kit (red t-shirt, black or blue shorts, trainers or plimsoles.) Long hair is to be tied up and earrings are to be removed. In PE this autumn, we will first work with an SSP coach in gymnastics to develop our own routines, focusing on coordination, control, and strength. Later in the term, we'll explore dance, where we will respond to different stimuli, create and perform dance phrases and work independently and with partners to express ideas through movement. We'll also learn to evaluate our work and set personal goals.
In RE, we'll be learning about Hindu beliefs and practices. We will explore Hindu gods, the concept of Brahman and how these ideas are shown through statues (murtis). We'll also look at how Hindus in Britain practice their faith at home and in their communities. Finally, we will think about how these beliefs relate to the value of rituals and how people are valued in the world today.
Remember to bring your reading book and Reading Together book to school every day. Books will be changed once children have finished their book and they have completed their Accelerated Reader Quiz.
As always, if you have any questions, please get in touch.
Mrs Bravington and Mrs Killian 
We were very excited today about our Pedestrian training. We had a brilliant time! The programme taught us the Green Cross Code and essential pedestrian safety skills including finding a safe place to cross, how to cross safely near a junction, and how to cross the ‘sneaky driveways’ if no other safe place is available.
We had a fantastic time with Liz Million, our local area famous illustrator. She shared some interesting information about her life, talent and career. She presented some drawing tips to us and we now know how to use them in our own artworks. We observed her sketching techniques and the process of adding more and more details. We created our own drawings in the style of Liz Million. What a fantastic work!
We have successfully completed our Hoopstarz session. We thoroughly enjoyed it and mastered the art of Hula Hooping. We were having so much fun with tricks, games, battles and challenges.
Wow! What an exciting afternoon! We finally completed our DT unit and made our own delicious biscuits. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of carefully thinking about the history of biscuits, designing them, making them and then evaluating our completed products.
In Art today, we have been learning about layered print technique. We followed appropriate steps and created amazing prints.
Dojo Parties. We enjoyed both of these!
Due to wet weather, we enjoyed some indoor break times!
Comic Relief Day
We marked comic relief day by wearing our own clothes, red and coming in with 'crazy hair'! We looked at the stories behind some of the children who benefit from comic relief and talked about the importance of charities.
World Book Day!
World Book Day!
We enjoyed celebrating by dressing up and creating our own front cover to tempt other children to read our favourite book.
Durham Cathedral trip
Science. We investigated how water travels through a plant by seeing how the red dye in the water affected the white flowers over time.
PE mapping out funny faces using equipment, testing our team building skills.
In computing we have been creating our own branching databases.
Just look at all the hard work that has gone into gaining all those badges! We have very talented members of Year 3.
Gymnastics. Mirroring our partner’s moves using the theme of ‘side by side’.
Computing. We have been learning how to create our own branching databases which we used to sort objects into groups using ‘Yes and No’ questions.
We love to read in Year 3! Here we are enjoying looking through some comics and magazines which were kindly donated to our class.
Multi Sports Festival at Maiden Castle. We had a fantastic time trying out all sorts of fun new games at the Year 3 event run by the Durham Sports Partnership.
Gymnastics. This term we are continuing to work on our balancing and rolling skills. This time we worked in pairs to create our sequences.
Science. Here we are investigating the type of soil we have on our school grounds. We discovered it is peat by identify its colour, texture and water content.
PE Gymnastics. This term we are creating sequences using balances, rolls and jumps. We are taking inspiration from the world class gymnast Simone Biles. We watched her floor routines and thought she was amazing!
In Science we have been looking at the difference between igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. We have explored the processes involved in their formation and represented this in class by making our own rocks!
Autumn Term 2023
We have marked significant days in Year 3 this half term, including Interfaith Day when we thought about peace, Remembrance day when we reflected on all we have and Hannukah.
In Year 3 this half term, we were lucky enough to have lost of different PE activities including an online PE lesson!
We raised money for different charities this half term. We really enjoyed Children in Need day.
We loved tasting foods from around the world in our Chartwell Food session. We really enjoyed Mexico!
In Art, we enjoyed developing our portrait skills and created self-portraits in the style of Frida Kahlo.
Christingle Service. We made our class Christingle together and discussed what all the different parts represented. We really enjoyed taking part in the service led by Father John.
In PE we created a dance routine on the theme of ‘Time’.
PSHE. We have been learning about Human Rights and discussing the difference between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. We have learnt some of the rights that we are all entitled to by being part of our community.
Peace Chains. We have been thinking about how to show kindness, love and respect to everyone. We wrote down our ideas about how we can do this on strips of paper and linked them to form a chain.
Computing. This term we have been learning about different text layouts for different purposes. We have learnt how to edit various texts , changing font size, style and colour.
Science. We have been studying the topic of ‘Light’ this term, and we experimented with light and shadows.
Performance Poetry. We acted out scenes from the poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’. Our audience had to guess which parts of the poem we were representing!
English. We have been reading Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in our English lessons. We decided to invent our own chocolate bar and use lots of imperative verbs to describe how we made it.
PE. We have been learning different throwing and catching skills. Our techniques have really improved and we are using our skills to play games involving defending and attacking targets.
Year 3 September 2022 - July 2023
We had lots of fun exploring animal bones during our Captain Chemistry session.
We celebrated RSE Day 2023 - Let's Launch into Kindness. The children wrote kindness thoughts and ideas on heart-shaped pieces of paper and we put them in a Kindness jar.
