Base 3 weekly update

A very busy week for Base 3!!!

In Literacy this week, we have been working on writing diaries from the point of view of Will from our class text, 'Running Wild'. We had to jump into Will's shoes and become him for the week. We have looked at the difference between formal and informal language, we discovered that we would use informal language when we are talking with our friends and people we know well. Whereas we would use formal language when we are talking to people we may not know or in a professional manner (during an interview for example). We have also worked on contractions, ensuring we are placing the apostrophe correctly for contracted words, due to writing a diary which requires informal language, we could therefore use contractions as these can be used with informal language. I have seen a good improvement in our writing especially with our handwriting and making sure our sentences make sense. Next week we are going to be writing all about our trip to Delamere Forest, focusing on key vocabulary to be used and writing in chronological order.

In Maths, we have started working on fractions, I have so far been very impressed with the children remembering skills they learnt last year and applying them to other concepts and activities We have worked on finding unit fraction of amounts using counters to support us, whilst others have on a method that utilises times tables instead of counters. Next week we will be developing this skills through problem solving and reasoning and some of us will move onto non-unit fractions of amounts.

We have worked very hard to complete another piece of work ready for our topic books, we have been improving our volcanoes writing, labelling a diagram of a volcano use technical vocabulary and sketching an erupting volcano. These will be stuck in and should look very good!

On Wednesday we had a very exciting day out to Delamere forest, we only got a little bit wet in a short down pour, but the clouds blew over and the sun made an appearance, allowing us to remain dry for the rest of the day. It was lovely to have Base 2 join us for the day too. When we arrived at Delamere we were greeted by a very nice Forest Explorer Ranger called Ben, who looked after us all for the day. After finding the classroom to store our belongings, Base 2 set off on the Gruffalo trail whilst we remained with Ben in part of the Forest to investigate different animal homes. We all learnt lots of new facts about the woodland animals and their habitats. We then had a go at creating a habitat for an animal of our choice, we split into groups and created habitats for birds, woodlice, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes and squirrels. We had a lot of fun find the right materials to create the habitats. Following our investigation of animal homes, we had an extra animal habitat to look at which was home to the pipistrelle bat and is one of the smallest bats. After a very interesting morning, we thought we would stretch our legs and follow the Gruffalo trail, the checkpoints were very tricky to spot but our map-reading skills were pretty good. Along the way we stopped and had a look at the leaves and use a tree identifier to work out what kind of trees the leaves had come from. Mostly the trees were oak trees, but as we got further into the forest we came across sweet chestnut trees. We even found some sweet chestnuts on the floor still in the prickly shells. We eventually found the Gruffalo, without getting lost! We all had a lot of fun and learnt a lot of new facts about woodlands and animals. We will be creating fact cards to be put onto a page in our topic book to display what we learnt.

It was lovely to see all of the parents who attended parents evening on Tuesday, a great opportunity for me to get to know you and share your child's progress with you. Thank you for all of your support.

A good week Base 3, keep up the hard work for next week! Don't forget to be practising spellings and times tables!!