How clean are our teeth?

This term we have been studying how to look after our teeth.
We used disclosing tablets, which dyed the children's mouths showing any food particles or plaque on their teeth. Their teeth weren't really as dirty as they appear, the dye needed to be rinsed off before they could see where the food or plaque remained. This will make them clean their teeth well in future!

Continuing Focus Week

On Wednesday the children looked at Pakistan. They discovered some of it's history and produced textile designs using a wax resist method. After all their hard work, unfortunately there are no photographs to show you.
The last country to be studied was Italy. The children became experts on pasta, recognising different types. They also made masks for a masquerade ball - anyone care to dance?

During the shared assembly on Friday, each country was portrayed by the children displaying their works of art, knowledge and dances. A good time was had by all, as well as a valuable experience of each of these countries.
On Friday, the country they studied was Italy

Focus week

Tuesday was spent studying Spain. The children made Spanish flags after an introduction to Spain. This was followed by singing songs, one about colours, in Spanish.
The girls then tried their hand at Flamenco dancing, whilst the boys pretended to be matadors.
After lunch, the children were told the story of Picasso, and then made their own Picasso style portraits.


Each day this week the children will study a different country. On Monday Year 3 started with India. They were given an introduction to India, and learned about the festival of Diwali. They made Diva lamps and designed Mendhi patterns to decorate hands. They also made Diwali sweets, which some enjoyed more than others!

George Chapman painting

We looked at the painting, 'The motorway', by Welsh artist, George Chapman. The children then tried mixing colours to match those in the painting. Next, they chose a small section of the picture which they thought looked interesting and traced it. From this they made a print using a polystyrene tile to etch the image onto. We were all very pleased with their results.

Our hedgehog models

Year 3 are reading the book, 'The Hodgeheg'. They created their own hedgehog models using clay, straws and beads. Don't they look good!

Testing forces

The children tested the force produced by an elastic band. They achieved this by pulling back a toy car with the elastic to a measured distance, and measuring the distance that the car travelled.
The greater the tension on the elastic band, the greater the distance the car travelled.

Harvest Festival

For our school Harvest Festival, the children donated all their loose change, which they placed carefully to outline our Harvest Festival picture. All the proceeds went to a local charity.

All about magnets

Year 3 learned about magnets.To understand the polarity of magnets, the children demonstrated how like poles repel and opposite poles attract.

We went to Welsh Water at Cilfynydd to see how we recycle our water. We learnt that it is important to look after our water, as the whole world can only use about 2% of the total water available- not a lot for us all to share!

Here we are being scientists. We put lots of things in the water to see what we actually put down our drains and toilets. We put in shampoo, cotton wool, toothpaste, shaving foam, milk, bits of cereal, oil and food from a fried breakfast and much more. The water soon got very dirty and smelly!
We were encouraged to stop putting food down the drain as it all ends up in the sewers, and makes everything more difficult to process. Surprisingly, cotton buds are a BIG problem.

Here we are looking for clues.

We were asked to think about water saving alternatives- should we use a hose pipe or a bucket to clean the car?

We took part in an experiment to see how many litres of water can be wasted if you have a dripping tap.

We timed how much is lost in a minute.

Then we recorded our results.

We were surprised to see that a lot of water can be wasted, so remember to FIX IT!

Off we go to see where the water and waste from our drains goes to.

We went in groups to see where the water enters the water works from the sewers.

The water is forced through narrow gaps to try to trap any rubbish.

This machine acts like a sieve and gathers any rubbish out of the water.

All the rubbish goes into a skip, ready to be taken away.

Here's J1- they've fainted because of the smell! Luckily there's someone with the first aid!

Here the water is skimmed.

The water in this tank is filled with oxygen and micro organisms digest any waste left.















Cameron is explaining the final cleaning process.

This is the clean water in the last tank.

This is the size of the tanks in the ground. We couldn't believe how big they are!

This is where the clean water comes out into the river.

The clean water in the river is ready to go back to the sea and will once again be part of the water cycle.

We all had a fascinating day. Thank you Dwr Cymru!

Bollywood comes to Pontyclun!

As part of our RE topic, we had a visitor who came to share dance, language and answer questions.













Here we are dancing.

The children enjoyed the whole experience and learnt something about another culture.