To enhance our learning about the Romans Year 3 -4 visited St Alban's Abbey on Friday 18^th September.

Starting at the Verulamium museum car park we walked to the Hypocaust to learn how the Romans enjoyed underfloor heating as well as decorating their floors with stunning small tiles called mosaics.

We then walked through the rain to the Abbey on the hill to be met by Abbey staff.

After hanging our things up to dry the children we were shown some Roman armour. Charlie got to try on the helmet which fortunately had a soft padded cap to protect his head.

Can you spot Immy? She was holding a Roman shield.

   

   

We were then split into two groups to learn about the story behind Alban and how in Roman times he helped a Christian, and then became one himself.

Caden is the magistrate along with Charlie his slave and Jayden his soldier.

Owen looks very important as a Roman soldier.

The story carries on with several people being interviewed as to whether they have seen the Christian. Eleanor and Nancy (play rich Roman

s) Finley and Sonny (Alban) are waiting to see what the magistrate decides to do.

In our final photograph. Alban is meeting his fate even though several soldiers refused to behead him.

During Collective worship today we discovered how long our Queen has been on the throne. Using paper, it took almost the whole room to show her 63 plus years of reign.

As we went through the decades we talked about significant dates too. For example, when the man landed on the moon in 1969, the Olympics in 2012 etc.

Here are some pictures of us holding the enormous timeline.

Great Gaddesden Bake Off!

Today yr 3/4 5/6 had a Great Gaddesden bake off, we were put into groups and asked to make 12 cupcakes and 1 big fridge cake to cut up. We gave Miss Williams an ingredients list for her to go out and buy. After Miss Williams gave us our ingredients we got to bake our cakes. Some groups went for the fruity option and some the more sweet version. Most groups used butter cream (which was really nice) and fruit. When we'd finished we went into the hall to have our cakes judged by: Mrs Woodage, Mrs Kirby (our neighbour) and Governors Mrs Rudd and Mrs Edwards. The prize of best cupcake went to group 2: Ollie, Bradley , Meadow , Simeon , Andrew and Evangeline. And winners of best fridge cake went to group 4: Neive, Max, Caden, Eleanor, Grace. We all got to try our cakes and had cakes and ice tea. We had an amazing time (especially EATING our cakes) 

from yr 3/4 5/6

Also, Year 3 and 4 took part in a session learning about plants that give us good vitamins! We made delicious fruit and vegetable kebabs as well as a scrumptious smoothie! 

Pictures to follow! 

India!

Today we have been learning all about the country India.  For the first half of the morning we studied the Geography of India as well as looking at Rangoli art. 

We learnt that Rangoli are is used during the celebration of Diwali. They create beautiful patterns with rice, flour and colourings in the entrance of their homes to welcome the Goddess of Wealth into their lives. 

We also made a vegetable curry today! We cut onions, courgettes and potatoes and boiled rice. It was delicious! 

This afternoon we were learning Indian Bollywood Dancing! Ambur from Bollywood Vibes came into school to teach us Bollywood dance moves! We also wore traditional Indian Clothes to encourage us to get into the spirit! 

Year 3 - 4 Viking Day

On Wednesday 10^th June Year 3-4 enjoyed a day of discovering more about the violent Vikings. We began by designing a shield adding the intricate detail, colours and shapes observed from various resources. 

Whilst some children continued with this half the class went to make bread. The children loved the gooey mixture. The groups swopped over so that all children had a turn at kneading the dough as well as completing the designs.

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After break the serious business began of making the shields from materials such as metallic paint, silver and gold card, jewels, foil and a polysterene semi-sphere to make the boss (the metal part in the middle).

As the shields dried we then learnt about Viking writing called Runes. The children discovered that all the Viking alphabet was made with straight lines as they use a chisel or straight edge to curve the shapes.

After lunch, the children learnt that dragons were an important part of the Viking long boats. We observed, carefully and drew some magnificent dragon heads.

To complete the day, the children sat in pairs as they would on a long boat wearing their helmets and shields eating Viking stew and their bread.

How do our eyes work?

Today for Science we were investigating how our eyes worked. We wanted to know how we saw things. 

We did a little experiment to understand what happens to our pupils to help us see. 

In partners, one of us covered our eyes, and after 10 seconds we uncovered our eyes and our partner looked at our eyes to see what happened.  We saw that our pupils got bigger or smaller depending on how much light our eyes needed. 

Then, we drew a labelled a diagram of our eyes. 

Below are some pieces of work from today's lesson. 

Shadow puppets!

Our topic in Science is Light and shadows and today we were' discussing properties of materials to make excellent shadow puppets.

First, we looked at the different materials available and discussed their properties. We decided that to make a good shadow puppet we needed to use a material that was opaque (To block out the light) and stiff so that our puppets stood up.

Here are some pictures of us making our puppets and next week we will be creating our own shadow puppet show.