Time Travelling with Professor McGinty!

We had an extremely exciting afternoon in 3V owing to a visit from the famous time travelling detective, Professor McGinty, who came to share his knowledge of the Roman Empire with us!

The eccentric Professor kept us all on the edge of our seats with his anecdotes and fascinating insight into the world of the Romans.  The children learnt all about the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43, handling Celtic and Roman artefacts and finding out all about how the Romans dressed, dined, fought and lived 2000 years ago.

The children had a wonderful time and learnt an awful lot about the 'Rotten Romans.'

The larger-than-life Professor McGinty made quite an entrance!

Prof. McGinty explained that he and his pet owl, Dr Hoot ("don't laugh, it's his name!") travelled back in time to visit the Romans.

What could the mysterious message mean?

Prof. McGinty showed us a variety of Celtic and Roman artefacts.  These mosaics formed part of a decorative floor design.  The Romans even had underfloor heating!

The mosaics were beautiful

One of the children was promoted to Centurion!

Prof. McGinty demonstrated the reason for the metal neck protection on the Centurion's helmet!

The Centurion fought back!

The full Roman uniform looked impressive, but it was very heavy!

The Roman coins were fascinating.

Each coin showed a different Emperor

We learnt all about Roman personal hygiene...

Posh Romans dined on delicious stuffed dormice!  Snails were a popular choice with Romans of all classes.

A Roman lady would have worn an outfit just like this one.

Only Roman Emperors could afford to wear purple clothes, because purple dye was incredibly expensive.

Prof. McGinty's mysterious sidekick quizzed the children on what they had learnt.

At the end of the session, the children could decode the mysterious Roman message.

Everyone had an amazing time watching the eccentric Professor at work!

Coin Conundrums

In our maths lessons this week, 3V are learning all about money matters.  We've been looking at all the different coins and notes to make sure we are familiar with their values.

This morning, we have been looking at all the different combinations of coins that could be used to make up different amounts.  Working together, we found 11 different ways of making 10p using different combinations of coins.

The children's final challenge was to see how many different ways there are to make 85p.  We found over 50 ways, but we think there are probably hundreds of different combinations.  

How many different ways can you find? 

Dry Bones...

In 3V this afternoon, we have been continuing our scientific studies of humans and animals by looking in more detail at the human skeleton.

All the children enjoyed working in teams to try and build their own skeletons from a 'self-assembly' kit, before taking part in a treasure hunt in the classroom to find all the scientific names for key human bones, in order to label their finished skeletons.  We looked at all the different bones and found out what each one does.

We finished with a thrilling game of Bones Bingo, to reinforce the children's learning of the different scientific names for human bones.  

Maths Day

We've been enjoying a Maths-themed day at Swan Lane today, with every class taking part in maths activities linked to the story '365 Penguins' by Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet.

In 3V, we have been trying to solve a fiendish puzzle involving six-sided Hexominoes.  Children worked in pairs to try and create a perfect rectangle using a set of seven differently shaped Hexominoes.  It was far trickier than it sounds!  There was some great teamwork from all the children as they tried to solve the puzzle, and plenty of resilience shown when it didn't quite work out as planned.  

In the end, we managed to find one solution - there may very well be more!