Week ending 23rd June 2017

This week year 3 has been working hard on their end of year projects about the European continent.

We have studied the first humans to have settled in Europe around 60,000 years ago which are known as neanderthals. These were replaced by humans much more similar to ourselves around 35,000 years ago, although the reason for the disappearance of the first settlers has not been established.

An early European settlers skull which shows the adaptations in the brow (for insulation) and jaw (for gripping meat).


A typical European Ice Age dwelling made from the bones of a Mammoth.

We have learned that the first settlers were immensely strong, had brains as big as (if not bigger than) our own, were well adapted to life in the cold, cared for one another when they were injured or sick and conducted burial rituals when there was a death in the group.


We have established the differences between political and physical maps

A physical map of Europe.


A political map of Europe



We have begun studying the world of Ancient Greece and now understand that so much of what we know and use today is a consequence of the work done by Greek thinkers around 3000 years ago.

Ancient Greek architecture which has been reproduced and has inspired architects throughout history.

We have learned about the Oracle at Delphi where people would travel in order to gain advice from the gods in exchange for expensive gifts which were given to the priests who in turn became very powerful.
 We have also seen the impact which The Greeks had on the world by developing political systems, mathematics, philosophy, sport, weaponry, theatre and science.

The Oracle at Delphi.

We hope you have enjoyed this weeks blog. Have a great weekend.

Week Ending 16/06/17

After our big concert last week, we have got straight back into our work again!

This week we have started our new topic, Europe and Russia. Europe is a continent which comprises fifty sovereign states, stretches from Iceland to the Western part of Russia ending at the Ural mountains.

Map of Europe

The Blue Lagoon in Iceland

The Ural Mountains in Russia

Europe has a population of 740 million people which is around 11% of the world's population. Europe is also the birthplace of Western civilisation, a concept that we have already explored with our investigations into the Ancient Romans who took their culture (before adapting it) from the Greeks. Greece was the birthplace for politics (how we run our countries), philosophy (how we think about life) and the arts (how we represent life and how we entertain).

Greece: the birthplace of Western civilisation

We will learn how Europe is a very diverse place from the rest of the world, with many influences and cultures. We will look at how Europe became geographically the shape that it is, splitting from Africa and becoming a separate piece of land mass. 

We will see that Europe has many different languages:

We will be looking at some certain things that you may not have first thought about in relation to countries and continents. We will be looking at the different forests of Europe:

We will be looking at different European cities: what makes them different? which city is the oldest and which city is the most modern? what are the differences in their architecture and how has this come to pass?

The City of Glasgow

The City of Venice

The City of Paris

The City of Moscow

Even though Europe has the Euro denomination of money, the banknotes change from country to country. We will learn about this as well as what countries have not got the Euro and what denomination they do have:

We will also look how modern Europe came to be, how after World War II (the Great Patriotic War) Europe was in a state of flux and continued to be until the formation of European Union in 1958:

We're very excited about our new Topic which we will be studying until the end of the term.

In English this week we looked at myths. A myth is a traditional story which usually contains events which are historical to explain a natural phenomenon in an interesting way. Myths were common in the past to explain parts of the world which man did not understand. They were also a way that storytellers used to explain virtues or actions or to give warning. We looked at the myth of Icarus. 

Icarus and his father Daedalus attempted to escape the island of Crete, by using wings that were fashioned from feathers that had fallen off birds flying overhead and wax to seal the feathers together. Daedalus explained to Icarus not to fly too close to the water as the wings could get wet and be damaged. He also told his son not to fly too close to the sun as the sun would melt the wax. Icarus was warned that to have too much pride to ignore nature and the gods, or to be too confident to fly towards the sun, that he would suffer a terrible fate. Once in flight though, Icarus choose to ignore his father and flew higher and higher, casting forth and away and heading towards the sun where, as his father said, the sun melted the wax used to bind the wings together causing Icarus to fall to his death!

Learning what a myth was, we then set out to write our own myths to explain something that our younger siblings and/or peers did not understand. We thought about what we have been studying over the course of our time in Year Three and took this as our cue for our writing exercise.