Year 3- Science- Making A Shadow Puppet Show
This afternoon, Year 3 scientists continued their lesson about shadows and experimented with creating their shadow puppets. They discovered how the distance between the light source and the object and between the object and the surface where the shadow was cast affected the size of the shadows. They created their puppet show and wanted to make it even better. In our next lesson, we will continue our exploration of shadows and provide them with another opportunity to improve their performances.
Year 3- R.E- Comparing harvest festivals around the world
In RE today, Year 3 learned about how harvest is celebrated around the world. We watched a short clip and explored images and text from different countries like India, Italy, America, and China. It was fascinating to see how people celebrate this important time in different ways. India celebrates it with fireworks, lights and sweets, while America often has a roast dinner with family and friends, In China they eat mooncakes, a traditional pastry and in Italy they have parades.
Whole School Celebration Worship
Today, we started our celebration worship by thanking everyone for their very generous Macmillan Coffee Morning donations last Friday. The heads and deputies will be announcing the final amount later today. We also lit a candle for gratefulness to say thank you for all of the wonderful things that we have in our lives including our loved ones and the beautiful nature around us. We then presented Ava, Isabella, Callie and Mila in EYFS and KS1 and Martha, Carmen, Edward and Will in KS2 as our individual value award winners. Well done to these children for working extremely hard across the curriculum and always demonstrating our Barny’s 4Bs (being ready, being safe, being kind and being respectful) and our school Christian values. We also congratulated Walter and Alice in Year 4 for gaining their pen licenses, all of the children who have achieved their ‘WOW’ badges this month for walking to or from school at least once a week, Year 1 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week and River Darwen as the value award winners this week with 549 points. We gave our girls football team a huge round of applause for their three amazing wins last night and particularly congratulated our Year 4 members of the team who stepped up into the Year 5/6 team. Finally, we congratulated our out of school achievers. Well done to Beau, Jack and Lyla for completing the Summer Reading challenge, Darcy for being awarded Star of the Week at gymnastics, James and Grace for gaining their Stage 5 swimming certificates, Leonora and Desmond for their fantastic swimming whilst competing for Blackburn Centurions, Isaac for being awarded Soccer HQ Player of the Day for demonstrating fantastic football skills, Daisy for being awarded 3 medals in the Paris Olympic Competition at gymnastics, Harriet for swimming 100m in her swimming, Fletcher for celebrating his uncle, Charlie for being a super football star, Laila for being the Player’s Player of the Match at football and Brooke for being awarded the Opposition Player’s Player of the Match. Finally, we had some beautiful prayers from, Renee, Callie and Mason and sang ‘If I was a Butterfly’ in celebration of ‘World Animal Day.’ We thank all those who could attend celebration worship and we said an extended thank you to the rest of our school family for all of your continued support. We wish you all a lovely and restful weekend.
Rev Ben’s Collective Worship
In today’s collective worship, Rev. Ben began by engaging the children in an interactive challenge, where three children had to use two pieces of paper as stepping stones to cross the hall. This activity set the stage for the theme of the session: perseverance and trust in challenging times. Rev. Ben then shared the Bible story of Moses and the Israelites' long journey through the desert, highlighting the struggles and faith they experienced along the way. After listening to the story, the children were encouraged to reflect and discuss key questions: 'What did God's people do during their journey through the desert?' and 'What are some positive alternatives to complaining when things get tough?' These discussions helped the children connect the story to their own lives, exploring how patience, gratitude, and faith can guide them through difficult situations.
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Year 3- Class Worship-How important is it to know about the author behind the book?
During our class worship, Year 3 explored a story from Picture News about a book vending machine at Linlithgow Academy in Scotland. The machine offers children access to a diverse selection of over seventy books. The children discussed their preferred books and authors and why they liked them, with suggestions including humorous books, books that enhance vocabulary, and books that provide insights into historical events. We thanked God for allowing us to read books and learn from them, including the Bible and books written by other people.
Year 3- Science- Investigating how shadows are created and change size.
Year 3 scientists had planned to conduct a shadow experiment outdoors using natural sunlight, but the weather turned overcast. Instead, they used a torch as an artificial light source in the classroom. The children recorded their findings using simple scientific language and drawings. They observed that the size of shadows changed when they moved the torch. They noticed that the shadows were smaller when the flashlight was closer to the object and larger when it was further away.
Whole School Worship: What is Spirituality?
In our Tuesday worship, the theme was spirituality and what it means to us. Mrs Ham talked about things that we can see (physical/ material things) and things that we just feel (spiritual things). We played a fun game where we had to put on a pretend pair of binoculars if it was something physical/ material that we can see or cover our eyes if it was something spiritual that we can't see. We had things like connecting with nature, a big house', money, connecting with friends, inner peace and believing in a God. She introduced the ‘windows’ looking out on the world and how we should take time to learn, to gaze, to wonder and admire and ask ‘why?’ We looked at some of the ways we can live life in all its fullness and today we particularly focused on being 'grateful' for all of God's creations. We also explored how taking notice is one of our five ways to wellbeing too. We looked at some of God’s creations in a video and discussed our favourite ones with our partner. There were lots of 'WOWs' and 'aahhs' at some of God's amazing creations. We finished with a prayer thanking God for all of his creations and sang 'If I were a butterfly' to sing thank you to God. Across this academic year, we will continue to further explore what spirituality means to us at St Barnabas.
Year 3- Music- Playing "Ghostbusters" at full speed using the interactive class jam video.
Today in music, the young musicians from Year 3 reviewed what they learned last session and looked at keywords like melody, harmony, major, and minor. They listened to a piano playing the harmony to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Then, put their new knowledge to work by playing "Ghostbusters" at full speed using the interactive class jam video.
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Year 3- Maths- Partitioning 3 digit numbers using place value counters
Today, Year 3 were introduced to place value counters for the first time. They compared them to familiar resources like base 10 blocks and learned to represent numbers using the counters. By breaking down numbers like 253 into 2 hundreds, 5 tens, and 3 ones, the children started to understand place value concepts more easily. They also learned about the hundreds column on a place value chart. It was great to see them supporting each other and using the place value chart to visualise the numbers and their place values.
Singing Worship- Harvest
What a joyous way to start a new week at St Barnabas! We first discussed why we sing and we had some wonderful answers such as : to communicate with God, to learn new words and vocabulary, to learn new sign language so we can communicate with those who can't speak or hear, to have fun and to say thank you to God. Today some of our fabulous volunteers taught Reception class some of the signs and actions for some of our Harvest songs that we will be singing in our Harvest Festival on Thursday 17th October. We sang 'If I were a butterfly' and 'Sing a song of Harvest' to thank God for all of the wonderful living things he created such as animals, plants and trees.
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Year 3- P.E- To catch a ball
In PE today, Year 3 started with a challenging throwing and catching game! They practiced throwing the ball in the air and catching it with either their right or left hand, depending on the variation. Then, they were challenged to work in small groups and catch two softballs simultaneously. This activity required speed and coordination as they aimed to catch both balls before they hit the ground. Great teamwork and effort from all.
After-School Club- Foodie Friends- Making Rice Krispies cupcakes
Year 3 and 4 had fun making rice Krispies cupcakes today. Although they might have gone a little overboard with the rice Krispies, it was clear that everyone had a lot of fun. They worked together to chop butter into small pieces, add syrup, and melt chocolate on a small pan using an electric hob. To finish off , they sprinkled some sweet decorations on top to make them look pretty.