Year 3 travel the globe in a fantastic fanfare of stories, singing, dancing and live music.

This term Year 3 has been studying different countries as part of their ‘World Cruise’ topic and last week they put together a stupendously good extended assembly to demonstrate all the new skills they have learnt.

Each class chose a story from a different part of the world. First off were Class 3I with ‘Possum Magic’, a tale from Australia that tells of a worried Grandmother Possum who turns her grandchildren invisible to protect them from the dangers of the Australian bush. 3I even added traditional Australian music to give this beautiful story even more feeling.

Next were Class 3T with ‘The Great Kapok Tree’, a powerful story from the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil that reminds us of the importance of respecting nature. 3T have rehearsed an amazing dance where they all work together co-operatively with scarves.

Then Class 3R keep up the environmental theme with ‘Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain’, a traditional story from Kenya about how Ka-Pit brings a belated wet season to a drought riddled area. 3R very impressively created the sound of rain with musical instruments.

Finally Class 3S travelled to Ancient Greece to recreate brave Odysseus beating the one-eyed monster-giant, the Cyclops. 3S ended with energetic traditional Greek dancing that involved lots of carefully co-ordinated high speed movement followed by flowers thrown to the crowd.

All of Year 3 appeared together on stage at the end of the performance to sing the classic ‘It’s a Small World’. They sang this with great concentration and focus. I know that the many staff who worked with the enthusiastic seven and eight year olds are incredibly proud of how all the effort put in by the children has shined so brightly.