Year 3 have been really busy geologists this term looking at the three types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock. We have learnt that these are all natural rocks. We have used drama to learn how the rock cycle works which has been very fun. We had a very important task as scientists this week to do an experiment. We were investigating the properties of rocks like whether it was permeable or impermeable, whether the rocks floated or sunk due to their density. The most smelly experiment of them all was to check if they eroded and we used vinegar to see if any changes would happen. The sandstone rock started fizzing up straight away! It was so interesting.

​Year 3 got the opportunity to do some hot seating in class today.
Hot seating is a technique where you become a character from a book and you have to answer questions from the audience. The questions can be about anything they want to find out from the character. It is the character’s job to use their creativity and imagination to answer in as much detail as they can even if it was not clearly answered in the book.
We got into character and played Livia and Tranio that had become elders. We acted out the last page of ‘Escape from Pompeii’ when Tranio and Livia were both old and were looking back at how Pompeii had changed after the eruption many years later. It was a lot of fun to get into character and answer questions. The audience asked great questions and even questions that we had not been told about in the book.
“How did you feel when you could hear Mount Vesuvius rumbling?”
“How old were you when Mount Vesuvius erupted?”
“Who was the captain that rescued you?”
“Why did you run to the harbour?”
“Are you and Livia still best friends today?”
“How do you feel looking back at Pompeii after all these years?”
These were some of our very exciting questions that we asked the characters.
 

Year 3 have been looking at measuring length and height every Friday. We have familiarised ourselves with the difference between a ruler and a meter stick. We know that there are 100cm in 1 metre! Our teacher challenged us to measure our height using our giraffe height chart to see how tall we are. We got to measure each other’s height and to compare our height. It was a tricky task because we had to change the metres into cm but it was a lot of fun! We can't wait to see how much we have grown by the end of the year.

On Tuesday 12th October, year 3 had a very successful and enjoyable day out at the Natural History museum.  This coincided with the children’s science topic, rocks and soils and even our Geography topic, volcanoes.  On the morning of the trip, 24 very excited children and 3 very excited adults turned up at school! We were the first class at English Martyr's to be on our first adventure after the pandemic! 
 
As soon as we arrived at the stunning Natural History Museum building and visited the green zone. In the green zone, we learnt all about the ''fossil woman'' called Mary Anning who was a palaeontologist who discovered the skull of an ancient reptile called an icthyosaur (like the shape of a dolphin) at the age of 12 in the cliffs at Lyme Regis which is in Dorset. Later on in her life, she also found the skeleton of a marine reptile called a plesiosaur. We bumped into a ground sloth too from South America which we mistook for a dinosaur because of its size and shape, which is now extinct. Similarly, the dodo bird is also extinct and was also another fascinating bird that we learnt about. The dodo bird comes from Mauritius, and the dodo's natural habitat was almost completely destroyed once humans started settling on Mauritius. Pigs, cats, monkeys and rats were another big problem for dodo's because they started eating the dodo's and their eggs. Did you know that our chicken egg is the smaller than an ostrich's egg and an elephant's egg!

After lunch, we visited the red zone which was all about the earthquakes and volcanoes - a must for us and the zone we highly anticipated! The fifteen plate tectonics screen was so interesting because we got to locate some of the volcanoes that we have studied and even learn about where the earthquakes are around the world. We were able to see that most of the volcanoes and earthquakes are on the edges of the plate tectonics. Indonesia has the most active volcanoes, two of which are called Tambora and Krakatoa. Krakatoa is so famous because it was the first really gigantic volcano to explode where humans had technology to transmit accounts of what was happening! Volcanologists, who are geologist who study volcanoes, use a heat suit which looks like it is made of foil and can handle up to 1,000 degrees celsius which we also saw. We were fascinated by the phoenix bird that lives by volcanic ash. Last but not least, we experienced the Kobe earthquake in 1995 inside the Kobe Supermarket which we felt what it would be like to be in a real live earthquake and how terrifying it must be when the earth gets angry. We were able to imagine a glimpse of what Mount Vesuvius was like for the people living there and how La Palma must feel like currently. We even said a prayer for the people in La Palma and have kept them in our prayers.

By the end of the day, we were more than ready to make our way back after all the learning we had done.  The children chatted excitedly about the different experiences they had had on the day.  Overall it was a hugely successful trip, where once again, the children behaved beautifully throughout the day and made us teachers very proud.     
This trip was so rewarding and educational and helped us to bring our learning to life.​