Year 3 - Spring 1 - Week 3
Date: 20th Jan 2023 @ 5:10pm
During Collective worship, we read the Christian story ‘The Good Samaritan’ and discussed the qualities the Good Samaritan showed. We thought about how we ‘love our neighbour’ and how we can show this more often.
On Tuesday in RE, we considered the question, "What happens when Jesus changes a person's life?" In the Bible, we discovered that when people decided to follow Jesus, then they left everything behind to start a new life with Christ. We looked at St Peter's life and how he lived differently when he became a Disciple. Next week, we will continue to look at people's decisions to follow Jesus and leave their old ways of living behind; however, we will be looking at modern-day saints and how they answered the call of Jesus in today's world.
In Miss Lucas’ English group, we have investigated topic specific and technical vocabulary found in ‘The Stone Age Boy’. We used dictionaries to discover meanings, made links to the word and the topic and finally thought of creative ways to remember what the words mean. We also looked at the features of a non-fiction text, focusing on headings, sub-headings and captions.
In Mrs McRae's English group, everyone continued writing their under-the-sea stories inspired by the folktale The Mitten. For each page of their story, the children must use at least one noun phrase, one conjunction and either an exclamation mark or question mark. As an added challenge for their writing, they have to choose different adjectives and conjunctions for each page (to avoid repetition and to expand vocabulary). Their stories should be finished next week and you will get to see the end product complete with illustrations!
In Miss Lucas’ Maths group, we have focused on multiplying and dividing by 3. The children were able to represent multiplications by using a bar model, repeated addition, an array and a multiplication sentence. Please continue to practise multiplying and dividing by 3 at home. Next week, we will be moving on to multiplying and dividing by 4.
In Mrs McRae's Maths group, we have been learning about making equal groups by sharing and the 2 times-table (both multiplying and dividing by 2). Please access the games, such as TT Rockstars, on the Virtual Classroom to practise times-tables at home. Once the 2 times-table is mastered (being able to answer any question within 6 seconds), the next steps will be to learn the 5 and 10 times-tables. Next week, we will be focusing on doubling and halving, odd and even numbers and the 10 times-table.
In our reading lessons we have used the skill of ‘skimming’ to retrieve answers to questions in the text. It has been wonderful to discover some children also have this text at home.
We were very lucky this week to have a large box of books arrive for our end-of-the-day story time. Our hardworking Reading Ambassadors chose books for our class and held a presentation to explain their choices. The first book we read from the box was The Moonlight Zoo by Maudie Powell-Tuck. This book has wonderful illustrations with cut-outs that make it fun to predict what will be on the next page. The Moonlight Zoo is about a little girl named Eva who has lost her cat and has to go on a journey to a magical place to find her before dawn. Ask your child what they thought of this story and it may be one you could borrow from the library to read together at home.
During History, we have focused on ‘The Iron Age’ and compared and contrasted life in the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Next Friday, we will transform into Stone Age people and experience some of the daily jobs from prehistory.
In Science this week, we discussed the different light sources we know and learnt how light enters our eyes enabling us to see objects. We participated in an investigation to find out whether shiny or dull surfaces were best at reflecting light. We concluded that shiny surfaces were more effective. Next week, we will move on to investigating shadows!
With Formby High School, we practised our throwing and aiming techniques and thoroughly enjoyed some competitive dodgeball games. With Miss Lucas, we used teamwork to play a game of ‘domes and dishes’, tried to create different alphabet shapes using our bodies and practised our speaking and listening skills to give clear instructions to direct our partner to a location.
Thunder, thunder, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, splash! Drumming was a hit this week as we all got to play different rhythms on the drums. We have been challenged to practise a rhythm at home for next week.
In Art, we used our creative skills to mix our own colours and paint in the style of Vincent Van Gough.
Friday afternoon was full of smiles as we celebrated Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit. Miss Lucas showed the children a video from one of her past pupils whom she taught in Shanghai. In the video, William shared with us lots of information about Chinese New Year and even taught us some Mandarin. Concentration was key when using chopsticks to sample traditional Chinese food. We hope you like the ‘Hong baos’ (red packets) we made for you.
Enjoy the weekend!
Reminders:
- Stone Age Day (Friday 27th January 2023) – Children are allowed to come to school in a Stone Age costume. Please remember to wear a warm layer underneath and wear appropriate footwear.
- Parent-Teacher Meetings will take place in the hall on Wednesday. Please arrive early in order to have time before your appointment to take a look at your child’s books.
- Spelling logs come into school every Wednesday and your child will record new focus words to bring home to learn.