Year 3 Team: Mrs L Houghton (Class Teacher) : Blog items
Date: 25th Nov 2022 @ 6:03pm
Another amazing, fun-filled week in Year 3!
During Collective Worship this week, we focused on how nature can be peaceful and we thought about our peaceful places.
In RE, the children thought about the impact Jesus had on people's lives who he met on Earth. Then, we discussed ways that Jesus has an impact on our lives today and how we live differently because of Him. Next week, we will complete our unit about "Christmas, God with Us" further exploring the impact of Jesus's birth on the world.
In English, with Miss Lucas, we have continued our work on Winter’s Child. We had a great discussion about a new character we have been introduced to in the story. The children made accurate predictions based on what they know from the text. Miss Lucas challenged us to explain how we knew, where the evidence was from for our thoughts and to ponder on questions and puzzling elements of the story. Excellent retrieval skills used to evidence opinions this week. We also focused on the use of conjunctions in our sentences and explored placing them at the start of sentences to vary sentence structure.
In Mrs McRae's writing group, the children have completed their hedgehog reports and will be bringing home their final versions to share with you today. A copy of their work will be in their books at school, but they were so proud of their reports that they wanted to share their good work with you. Next week, we will be starting a new Christmas-themed text.
In Maths, with Miss Lucas, we have concentrated on estimating, using inverse operations, compliments to 100 and discussing strategies we can use to ensure our working out is accurate. Every lesson, there are challenges for the children to complete. These can also be found on Google Classroom, if children want to explore these further at home. Each week, we will focus on our multiplication knowledge and linking this with the corresponding division facts.
In Mrs McRae's maths group, we worked on adding across tens by partitioning numbers. For instance, to add 36 + 9, we started with 36 + 4 to get to the next multiple of ten. After that, we added 40 + 5 to get our answer. It was tricky at first, but the children were more confident with this method by the end of the week. Next week, we will be focusing on adding and subtracting two 2-digit numbers. All of the work the children will be completing will be posted onto their Google Classroom.
Through the Young Writers company, we are entering another writing competition. (The results from the poetry competition will not be revealed until the new year.) The children are planning a descriptive story about entering through a magic door and finding a winter wonderland. We are still in the planning stage; but next week, we will begin writing after creating interesting sentence starters and star vocabulary.
With Dom, from Active Sefton, the children learned all about saturated and unsaturated fats. They sorted foods into the correct categories and found out there are 'good' and 'bad' fats for our bodies. Dom showed what can happen to our arteries over time if we eat too many saturated fats and the children learned that a balanced diet and exercise can help them be the healthiest version of themselves.
In Reading, we have completed our book ‘Blue’ and discussed themes throughout the book and made connections between the beginning and end of the book. We also tracked the character’s emotions throughout the book using an emotion chart. We zoned in further, focusing on wellbeing, by retrieving information from a non-fiction text based on strategies we can use if we find a friend is feeling blue. This was a nice follow up from Kindness Week.
In History, the children were eager to delve further into evidence from the Stone Age. We looked at when farming was introduced and using our thinking hats to make decisions about what elements were big changes, small changes and which feature of life stayed the same when farming was introduced. Lots of speaking and listening opportunities where apparent in this lesson.
In Spanish, we have continued our learning of vocabulary for animals. The children are becoming more confident with the different pronunciations used in the Spanish language.
Thursday and Friday afternoons were focused on our Art unit of work for this half term which focuses on the artist William Morris and his technique of printing. We investigated his work, used his ideas and adapted them to create our own printing tools to create wrapping paper designs just in time for Christmas.
We hope you have a lovely weekend; lots of families are already getting into the Christmas spirit!
We are looking forward to Monday already!
Reminders:
- Next Friday is the Christmas Extravaganza, and therefore, mufti.
- On Wednesday, children will have the opportunity to visit the present room. Please ensure you have requested this on school money.
- Don’t forget the book fair is still on next week.
Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 7:18pm
Smiles and laughter have warmed our heart this week during Kindness Week. This week, we raised awareness of Kindness Day, Children in Need and Anti-Bullying Week, alongside Road Safety Week. It has been wonderful to see children being extremely kind to their peers, teachers and staff around the school. We had lots of fun baking, creating posters, writing messages expressing love for our family and performing in front of our family members.
During Collective Worship this week, we had a lovely visit from Reverend Mark who helped us to think about the different definitions of the word ‘peace’. We all created our own recipes for peace on the symbol of a dove.
In RE this week, the children assessed their learning from the Harvest Unit and began learning about their new unit: "Christmas, God with Us." During our introduction to this topic, the children learned that Jesus is always present and we discussed ways that we can feel his presence. Moving on to the Christmas story, the retelling focused on the angels' and the shepherds' point of view and the part they played when Jesus was born. To summarise our learning for RE on Tuesday, the children created a poster of pictures, words and phrases surrounding the word "Emmanuel" which means God with us. They listened to a guided meditation to imagine what it would have been like to be in Bethlehem the night Jesus was born to help plan which pictures and words to use.
In most English and Maths lessons this week, the children have been completing their autumn assessments. They have all given their best efforts and demonstrated excellent focus. Next week, Mrs McRae’s groups will return to lessons as before: in English, we will complete our hedgehog reports and in Maths, we will continue our work with addition and subtraction. Next week, Miss Lucas’ group will be continuing our work on Winter’s Child in English and developing our addition and subtraction methods further in Maths.
On Wednesday, we had another educational session with Dom from Active Sefton; this time focusing on the sugar content in some of our most popular drinks. The children were astonished to see the exact amount of sugar in each drink bottle. There were lots of surprised faces and excellent discussions taking place throughout the session. We linked this nicely to our science work all about the body.
On Friday morning, we spent time within our Houses; Mark, Matthew, Luke or John to prepare Christmas crafts ready to be sold on our TSP stall at the Formby Christmas Lights. It was lovely to see the whole school working together and taking care of one another getting into the Christmas spirit.
Have a wonderful weekend. We wonder if anyone will be putting up their Christmas trees?See you on Monday!
Reminders:
- Next week the Read Write Inc Spelling programme will commence
- Please remember to bring a healthy snack for morning break
- We are learning about the Stone Age in History, if anyone has any interesting topic books at home they would like to share with the class please bring them in
Date: 11th Nov 2022 @ 5:04pm
What a busy week we have had in Year 3! It was a precious moment on Friday afternoon as the whole school gathered in the hall to watch the premier of our kindness video. Every face had a beaming smile on it as they watched pupils and staff dancing and having fun.
All of the Year 3 team were extremely proud of the children’s maturity on Friday as we laid our poppy wreath in the church grounds and observed two minutes of silence. Our Collective Worship, linked with Remembrance Day, as we thought about the sacrifices soldiers made to try and regain peace in the world.
In RE this week, the children worked very hard to finish their unit about the Harvest. They discussed why Christians celebrate the Harvest and what this special celebration can teach us about Christian beliefs. Secondly, we researched how the Harvest is celebrated around the world by people of different faiths and none. The children created a poster of four harvest celebrations that they found most interesting. Lastly, to further our learning about other faiths, we read about Sukkot (the Jewish harvest). Everyone designed their version of a sukkah and wrote facts about this celebration. Next week, we will begin our Christmas unit in RE.
In Mrs. McRae's English group, the children have finished reading Hello, Hedgehog, written more facts and even created their own quiz which they used to test their friends at playtime. Our learning outcome for this unit is a non-chronological report. The children planned their paragraphs on Thursday and began writing their reports today. Our learning goals are focusing on the following: using present-tense verbiage, using different sentence starters, using the conjunction "and" and using full stops and question marks correctly.
In Miss Lucas’ English group, the children planned and wrote a diary entry in the role of Tom, who is the young boy in the story ‘Winter’s Child’. The children included lots of grammatical features such as paragraphs, adjectives, time adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. Dictionaries and thesauruses were used during the editing process.
In Mrs. McRae's Maths group, we have been working on making bonds to ten to add, adding ones, and learning bonds to 100. All of the work from our maths lessons this week can be found on the Google Classroom so if you would like to review our learning goals, then please look on your child's "Classwork" tab. Next week, we will be learning about adding three 1-digit numbers, adding to the next 10 and adding and subtracting across a 10. All of our work for next week will be posted on Google Classroom, too.
In Miss Lucas’ Maths group, we have been using column subtraction, exchanging across the hundreds column. Some problems required us to exchange twice! Then, we looked at adding a 2 digit number to a 3 digit number to solve word problems, with the extra task of setting out the column addition accurately so the digits lined up in the correct columns. Next week, we will be focusing on subtracting a 2 digit number from a 3 digit number and compliments to 100.
We took it back to the 90s in our PE lesson this week, as we completed a circuit full of energetic exercises. We were surprised how fast our hearts were beating and how pink our cheeks were. We discussed the importance of staying hydrated and exercising safely.
In History, we were introduced to our new topic ‘From Stone Age to Iron Age’. We had an incredible discussion about how we have the gained information about the past today. We looked closely at a timeline and investigated by finding clues about the Stone Age period from a picture. The children used excellent retrieval and inference skills to work out what life was like in the Stone Age. We also analysed whether ‘The Flintstones’ cartoon was a true representation of life in Stone Age times and shared reasons as to why the makers of the cartoon added fictional elements for the intended audience. We discussed the need to query whether evidence is true and reliable.
In Spanish, we learnt the names of animals and looked at whether it was a masculine word or a feminine word and applied the given rules.
In Music, we were very excited to play the glockenspiels and learnt the key ‘E’. Next week, we will learn more keys with our aim of being able to play a piece of music on the glockenspiel.
Next week, we have Kindness Week and we cannot wait to celebrate with you.
Have a lovely weekend and see you on Monday.
Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 5:30pm
What a fabulous week we have had in Year 3. We have had so much fun, especially when filming dance clips for our whole school Kindness music video. Everyone has shone with their dance moves and we cannot wait for you to see us!
During Collective Worship this week we have been discussing the definition of the word ‘peace’. Children worked in pairs to consider how they would describe the word and we had lots of ideas such as a calm place, being relaxed, no war in the world, getting along with everyone and having harmony.
On Monday, we became artists and worked with line, pattern and colour to create our own vibrant pumpkin pictures using pencil, pen and oil pastels.
For RE this week, we continued learning about Harvest traditions. We used our laptops to research words and phrases that are said at the Harvest church service every year by looking at the hymn titles and lyrics and analysing the Epistle and Gospel readings. Most of the words and phrases the children found in common amongst all of their research related to 'gathering,' 'fruit,' 'grain,' 'thankful' and 'giving praises.'
In Mrs. McRae's English writing group, the children have started a new book called Hello, Hedgehog by Laura Buller. This text is to support our non-chronological report unit. We have been learning about hedgehogs this week so that we could write sentences about them in the present-tense, using different sentence starters, and using the conjunction "and" to add detail.
In Miss Lucas’ English writing group, the children were introduced to our focus text ‘Winter’s Child’. We have been describing the setting using adjectives and prepositions and investigating the relationships between the characters. The children loved using drama techniques to role play a conversation between the characters ‘Tom’ and ‘Mum’. Then, they wrote their conversations down focusing on inverted commas and alternative words for said. Miss Lucas has been very impressed with the effort and focus demonstrated this week.
In Mrs. McRae's maths group, we have been working on number bonds to ten and using those facts to help solve equations with larger numbers. For instance, if we know that 3 + 7 = 10, then we know that 30 + 70 = 100. Our group has also been figuring out what fact families are and how to write number sentences for addition and subtraction fact families.
In Miss Lucas’ maths group, we have focused on column subtraction where exchanges have been needed to enable us to calculate accurately using this method. This week, we concentrated on exchanging across the tens, next week we will move on to exchanging across the hundreds. The children were excited to use ‘Learning by Question’ to review their place value knowledge on their laptops. Some children have even said they are going to practise their maths at home this weekend – dedication at its finest!
In Reading, we have begun our new text ‘Blue’. Blue is a lonely bird, who lives in the deepest, darkest part of the forest and the other birds do not visit him anymore. We considered how different colours can represent our feelings and emotions. We have now been introduced to a new character called ‘Yellow’ and we made some predictions for the storyline.
We were very lucky on Wednesday to have a visit from Dom who works for Active Sefton. He taught us all about the different food groups that make a balanced diet. Dom was very impressed with the adventurous food choices we shared with him!
In Science, we continued to focus on animals and food and designed a menu for an animal. We had to consider whether our animals were a carnivore, a herbivore or an omnivore and then try to include food from the various food groups. We also made bird feeders to hang outside in our playground to feed the birds during the winter months.
TSP’s Sports Ambassadors visited us on Thursday and announced the football teams we will support in the World Cup. Cheers were heard from our classroom as it was revealed that we will be supporting Costa Rica, Germany, Brazil and England!
We hope you have an enjoyable weekend and cannot wait to see you again on Monday.
Reminders
-Donations for poppies can still be brought in next week.
- Please can children ensure they bring a warm coat to school with them every day.
- In the Spring term, we will be learning all about the Egyptians. With this in mind, the Atkinson in Southport are currently holding an exhibition if you would like to visit whilst it is still on.
Date: 20th Oct 2022 @ 5:36pm
Congratulations to all of our students (and parents) for finishing their first half-term of the school year!
In RE this week, we began a new unit all about Harvest. Everyone was surprised to learn that the Harvest is mentioned several times throughout the Old Testament and that it has always been a time to give thanks to God for all that He provides. We learned about the different ways the Harvest was celebrated throughout history and asked our learning partners discussion questions. For our next RE lesson, we will be exploring how St. Peter's Church celebrates the Harvest Festival by looking at the readings and hymns used at the service each year.
The topic of conversation in both PSHE and Collective Worship went hand-in-hand because the children had to think about their talents and gifts and who gave them these gifts. They also discussed how they should use what they have been given and why they should be thankful for their natural talents.
In Mrs. McRae's English group this week, the students learned how to plan and write a friendly letter using paragraphs, prepositions, conjunctions, the correct use of "a" and "an," and rich vocabulary. The children pretended to be the main character from our story, Seal Surfer by Michael Foreman, and wrote in his 'voice' to a friend about events from the book.
For Miss Patten's group in English, the children read the book Where the Poppies Now Grow by Hilary Robinson. They worked on building their vocabulary with dictionary work, sequencing the story and using their senses to write a description.
In Mrs. McRae's maths group this week, everyone worked very hard on the formal written method of column addition and subtraction. We began with calculations that did not require adding 'across a ten' and then by the end of the week, we gave it a try and challenged ourselves to see if we could figure out what to do when there are more than nine ones in the ones column. It proved to be a bit tricky, so if you would like to see the work we have done in class and review it at home, then please look at the tasks posted in your student's Google Classroom account.
The children in Miss Patten's maths group have been working on fractions using shapes, multiplication skills and describing position and movement of shapes. They have also taken skills tests to assess their progress over the past half-term.
On Wednesday, the students attended a Martial Arts/Self-Defence Day with Unite Formby. The children enjoyed learning how to defend themselves and showed respect and care for their learning partner during the process.
In art, the children completed their Rangoli patterns using coloured salt and foam sand. Their designs turned out beautifully and have added lovely decoration to our classroom this week.
In science with Miss Patten, the students researched another type of soil and decided on the rules they would follow in order to keep their test fair and consistent (to align with last week's test). They drew the different equipment they used and also completed a science report about their findings, comparing their first soil sample to their second.
For PE, two units were completed this week: gymnastics and netball. During their last lesson of gymnastics, the children learned how to incorporate a hoop into their routines and also added in new balances and travels. The final lesson of netball was today and everyone put their netball skills to the test as they participated in team games.
This week, we completed the 2022 Virgin Money Giving Mini London Marathon which meant that the children ran a total of 13 laps of the field over three weeks. Every child will receive a commemorative pin badge for all of their hard work.
And finally, I would like to say that it is truly a pleasure to teach all of your children and I sincerely appreciate all that you do at home to support our work in school.
Have a fantastic half-term break!
Reminders:
Spelling books will be coming home in bags on Fridays so please review any misspellings and send your child's red spelling book back in with them the following week.
PE days for Autumn term 2 will be Mondays and Fridays (the same as Autumn term 1).
If you would like to access Miss Lucas's or Mrs. McRae's Virtual Classrooms at home, then you may follow the links below:
Date: 14th Oct 2022 @ 12:14am
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We have wrapped-up another week full of learning and having fun in Year 3!
On Monday, we started by designing flags with encouraging messages for World Mental Health Day in support of the "Hello Yellow" campaign. The flags were used to line our 'mindfulness walk' in the afternoon and the children took time to read the cheerful messages.
In RE this week, we have thought about how Prophets are called by God for a mission. People who work for charities such as OM Ships and HMS Mission shared their stories. As a class, we discussed a message we would like to share with the world. Also, we talked about how we can be inspired by others to give our time, love and kindness to others.
Our art lesson has been mesmerizing this week as we researched beautiful Rangoli patterns. Everyone designed their own Rangoli pattern after being inspired by the culture of India. They thought carefully about symmetrical patterns and the use of bright colours. We are making our own medium for next week's artwork out of table salt and paint so that we can bring our designs to life.
In science, we have looked at different types of soils. By being scientists, we can look at the colour, texture and location of soil, which all give clues to the quality of soil. In class, we investigated a 'mystery soil' to see if it was a mix of sand, clay and/or silt.
For English, both groups have continued working on up-levelling their sentences. In Mrs. McRae's group, we planned and wrote a diary entry and a narrative using rich vocabulary, a range of conjunctions, prepositions, "a" and "an," and paragraphs. In Miss Patten's group, the children have been sequencing and planning a well-known and using their plans to retell a story in their own words using paragraphs, inverted commas and interesting adjectives. All of the children have also been working on their spelling, punctuation and grammar skills in the morning during their "SPaG 4-A-Day" time.
Both groups have been working on various maths objectives relating to addition and subtraction. Their classwork is uploaded to Google Classroom; so in order to see what your child is working on specifically, then please look at their maths materials each week. Many of you kindly said that you would like to work on maths at home so the best way to do this would be to view their work on Google Classroom or the Virtual Classroom to find maths games to practise their skills.
Today, the children dressed in pajamas in support of the Alder Hey Children's Hospital. I overheard some children talking to each other at playtime about how they want to donate their money to 'help the babies who are ill in hospital.' We have such thoughtful, kind children in our class who, even during their break times, are thinking of others.
And finally, thank you all for your attendance in this week's parent-teacher meetings. It has been wonderful getting to know your students better through you and to discuss their progress so far in Year 3. I appreciate all that you do at home to support our work in school!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Reminders:
Our PE days are Mondays and Fridays and will continue to be for Autumn Term 2.
Your child will now bring their spelling book home on a Friday (after their spelling test) so that you can view their progress. After looking over their spelling test, please return their books in their bags the following week.
Date: 7th Oct 2022 @ 5:31am
What a wonderful week of learning and growing in Year 3 it has been!
In RE this week, we went on a learning journey about a great lady’s life: her name was Mary Seacole and besides being a believer of Jesus, she did some fantastic work to help others. The students used various websites to learn more about Seacole and from her actions, inferred how she showed she was a follower of Christ. Ask your child this weekend what they learned about Mary Seacole and what they think it means to be “called by God.”
The children were really impressive during music class this week because they were able to sing using a 2-part harmony! Using our song for this term, Let Your Spirit Fly, everyone got a chance to practise singing the ‘background vocals’ to harmonise with the melody. We added “2-part,” “melody” and “harmony” to our musical Star Vocabulary.
In PSHE, we learned about the importance of connecting with others and calming ourselves for a few minutes of quiet. The children played a game in a large circle and when they heard a statement, such as “I love to draw and paint in my free-time,” then they swapped places with another child in the circle. Whilst swapping over, the students took a mental note of who else they saw in the middle before they sat down. At the end, they discussed what they learned about their classmates and how they could use this knowledge to ‘connect’ with someone new this week. After our fun game outside, we went back into the classroom to practise some calming breathing techniques. The children learned that they could use these techniques whenever they need a quiet moment during the day at school or at home.
During English this week, the children learned how to use inverted commas and make sensible choices for their reported clause following direct speech. For instance, they created choices such as ‘whispered,’ ‘replied’ and ‘exclaimed.’ We discussed when all of these would be appropriate to use in our writing, depending upon how the character was speaking. As for the reading lessons in English, our focus was on the layout of a non-fiction text and answering retrieval questions. We looked at how the author chose to present her headings, subheadings, technical language, and diagrams in The Sea Book. We also used this book to retrieve answers to questions about the information presented.
We finalised our work with number and place value this week in maths as the children completed their number line work and counted in steps of 2s, 5s, 10s and/or 50s. Later in the week, we moved on to addition and subtraction learning goals. Our focus was on finding patterns in number sequences, adding 1s across a 10 and adding 10s across 100. Next week, the learning will focus on subtracting 1s and 10s and adding and subtracting without exchanging.
The class had a wonderful time this week in science as we explored the formation of fossils. There was a great group discussion as we tried to sequence the steps of how a fossil is made and put the order into our ‘own words.’ If you have discovered any fossils and would like to send a photograph of them (or the fossil itself) in to help enhance our science lessons, then please do! The children would love to examine fossils more closely. On Thursday, we also had a Mad Science assembly in the hall all about how sound is made. It was very entertaining and the children were hanging on the scientist’s every word. Ask your child what they enjoyed most about the presentation and check their bag for information about how to join the Mad Science after-school club.
In geography, we continued working on our educational posters about the mountains of India. The children presented their work to other groups and gave feedback to each other about facts that they chose to include and the layout of their work (relating to our learning goals in reading). We began talking about the rivers in India, and next week, the children will complete activities on this topic.
On Monday, the children worked on creating balances and transitions from one balance to the next in PE. This gymnastics lesson ended with a mini-presentation as the children performed in pairs to show the class their ‘show’ of at least three balances and two transitions (different forms of travel). Today, the children furthered their netball skills by learning how to defend an opponent and win the ball. Moreover, we tried to learn more about working collaboratively with others. The children’s teamwork skills have been improving over the term, but this is still an area that we will continue working on as a class; once this skill is sharpened, our PE lessons will run even better and we will have more time for fun games.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful weekend!
Reminders:
Remember to reserve a time for a Parent-Teacher meeting for either this coming Wednesday or Thursday.
Please access our virtual classroom if you would like to see what the children have been working on in school. This will help you if you are looking for ideas for extra homework to complete (in the areas of maths, spelling, punctuation and grammar, etc.).
Check your child’s bag for information about Mad Science and the new after-school club.
Date: 29th Sep 2022 @ 4:05pm
It has been another fun and productive week in Year 3!
We began the week with a more reflective tone as we went to St Peter's Church for a Harvest service led by the Year 5 students. It was heartwarming to see all of the donations that the children brought in so that they could help others who are in need in our community. Hopefully, this kind act of giving will inspire them as they get older to continue to be charitable and to think of the needs of others. If you were in attendance, then I am sure that you would agree their behaviour and their singing were impeccable!
Our focus in RE this week was the Prophet Jonah. We revisited his story from the Bible and learned about his journey of listening to God's call and his struggle to do what God asked at the beginning. Using key events from his story, the children created a book cover--including a title, an illustration and a blurb--that summarised what would be in a book about his life. Next week, we will be creating and annotating a memory board about Jonah and using this to retell his Bible story.
As we wrapped-up our Collective Worship services for September, we had one last lesson together that taught us about having respect for others. We wrote a poem with ideas for how we can show respect at our school and the children created kind, thoughtful ideas for how they would like to be treated and how they want to behave towards others. In October, our Collective Worship lessons will be all about generosity.
In our English lessons, the students have been learning how to use a richer vocabulary and how to extend their sentences using words they have found in their texts. Next week, we will be asking questions to improve our understanding of texts and drawing inferences from characters' actions and speech.
During maths, the students have been practising flexible partitioning as we approach the end of our place value unit. We are going to finish our last lessons for this unit which will include number line work and estimation. Next week, we will move onto addition and subtraction lessons. Our first few sessions will address adding and subtracting ones, tens and hundreds; any extra practice you can complete at home with this topic will be helpful to our work in class.
In Science this week, the students really enjoyed learning about the three different types of rocks. First, the children all researched features of these rocks using their laptops and recorded what they found independently. Then, we used chocolate to learn about the formation of Igneous rocks and various food cupboard items to make our own Sedimentary rocks. (Please ask your child at home to give you more details about the formation of these rocks and explain what they learned.) Next week, we will be continuing our study of rocks and we will be finding out how fossils are formed.
We are continuing our study of the landscape of India in geography. This week, the children looked at a few of the major mountain ranges in India and created an educational poster that highlighted their significant features. Next week, we will be exploring some of the major rivers in India. If any of you have been to India and have any photographs or stories to share with the class, then please send them in to enhance our discussion in geography lessons.
This week in PE, the children developed more of their gymnastics and netball skills. In gymnastics, they learned about the straight, barrel and forward rolls. In netball, we worked on our movement skills in order to lose a defender. Next week, the children will be learning how to transition smoothly into and out of balances in gymnastics and in netball, they will learn how to defend an opponent and try to win the ball.
And finally, during our D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) time, we started a new chapter book which the children are really loving. It's the first in a series called Little Legends by Tom Percival. I've even heard audible laughter which doesn't happen with every class read-aloud! So, if you are looking for a great bedtime story to share together, then you may want to check out this series at the library.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful weekend!
Reminders:
Please do not bring any football cards into school.
Remember to reserve a time for a Parent-Teacher meeting.
Date: 23rd Sep 2022 @ 3:24pm
We have had a wonderful week in Year 3.
In Collective Worship, we discussed our monthly values of ‘Dignity and Respect’. We thoroughly enjoyed watching a clip of Rose and Giovanni on Strictly Come Dancing. Rose is deaf and feels the vibration of music. Within the clip, we experience the dance through Rose’s perspective and the music is silenced. The children thought this was amazing and shared their views on how we should respect others and ensure everyone in our community feels included. We celebrated the increasing diversity shown on television today. We also delved more into what ‘genes’ are for Genes for Jeans awareness day.
In RE, we continued learning about what it means to be 'called by God.' Everyone enjoyed watching video clips of the following Prophets from the Old Testament: Moses, Elijah, Samuel, Abraham, Jonah and Isaiah. After each video clip, the children brainstormed questions that they wished they could have asked the Prophets after God spoke to them. Next week, the class will choose a Prophet to study more about and the children will work in groups to create a memory board for their chosen Prophet.
In our Tuesday reading and writing lesson as a whole class, we read poetry and found interesting verbs to describe the movement of water. We then created our own list of verbs to describe the movement of the wind. The children learned about a question-and-answer style poem and used their new vocabulary from their reading lesson to write a poem entitled "What is a breeze?" Over the next few weeks, we will be reading more poetry so that we can enter the Young Writers Poetry Stars Competition in October.
In music this week, the children learned more about their singing posture and breathing from their diaphragm to increase their air supply and enhance their volume. They sounded like a choir when they sang their song, Let Your Spirit Fly! Next week, we will try to sing without reading the lyrics from the screen.
Place value has continued to be our focus in Maths delving deeper into the value of digits in a three digit number. With Miss Lucas the children have been using Base 10 to make 3 digit numbers and learning how zero is a place holder. With Mrs McRae the children have been using the number line to estimate numbers and figuring out the intervals on number lines with missing labels proved to be very tricky.
During our reading lessons we have been focusing on ‘The Sea Book’ which is a non-fiction text. We have investigated the roles of a ‘contents’ page and an ‘index’ page. The children also practised their dictionary skills to see if they could find definitions of words within the text.
In Science, we were introduced to the three types of rocks; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. In Art, we continued our learning of Indian art by focusing on the art during Indian elephant festival. We then set to work to design our own elephant art using a variety of colour, patterns and features.
Netball has been a highlight of this week, with some phenomenal throwing and catching skills. We have extended our range of passes to now include chest pass, bounce pass and over arm pass. The challenge now is trying to land, pivot and throw in a very short space of time! On Friday, we also joined the fantastic Dame Darcey Bussell for a virtual dance along in support of National Fitness Week. Our dance movers were certainly enough to rival the Strictly Come Dancing dancers.
Enjoy your weekend, Year 3. See you on Monday!
Reminders:
- Our Read-a-thon takes place next Monday and Tuesday, in class.
- Weekly spellings can be found on Google Classroom.
- Children should return their reading book to school every week on their Reading day.
Date: 16th Sep 2022 @ 4:02pm
During collective worship assembly this week, we met Gordon from St Peter’s church and spent some time reflecting on the Queen. We enjoyed learning and singing the hymn ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’. In RE, we began our unit "Called by God." Our aim in this unit is to consider what it means to be called by God and the responses people have made to that call. All of the children thought of ways they are asked to do things in their everyday lives. Many of their answers included chores at home or helping with younger siblings. A new star vocabulary word was introduced, as well: Prophet. Next week, we will be studying about different Prophets from the Old Testament and creating questions we would like to ask them.
In Science, we have begun to explore rocks in our first unit ‘What is a rock?’. This week the children sorted rocks into natural rocks and human-made rocks. The children were excited to share stories about rocks they have found, some even with crystals inside! Next week we will start to group rocks based on appearance and physical properties. In Geography, we used atlases to locate India and discovered interesting facts about the country to begin our ‘Where Is India’ topic. Our Art lesson linked nicely as we observed some Indian art, using view finders to focus in on the details of the paintings. We used our sketching skills to try and replicate some of the patterns and designs into our sketch books.
In PE, we used our creative skills to show a variety of balances in gymnastics. We focused on the difference between a ‘point’ balance and a ‘patch’ balance using different body parts. As well as gymnastics, we are learning skills through netball. We particularly enjoyed learning how to pivot and use chest past.
On Tuesday, we celebrated Roald Dahl Day by reading and writing about one of his most famous texts, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We focused primarily on the imagery that Dahl created when Charlie first entered the Chocolate Room and saw the river of chocolate. Everyone used this scene as inspiration to create their own room that could be found in Willy Wonka's factory and they also spent time making illustrations to match their ideas.
In music this week, the children all enjoyed playing rhythm games to warm-up. It was tricky to keep a beat--especially with a slower tempo--but this is something that we will continue working on this term. We are learning to sing the song Let Your Spirit Fly. Our star vocabulary for music this week included verse, chorus and rest.
In Maths, both groups have been focusing on place value. With Mrs McRae, the children have been looking closely at the hundreds, tens and ones places. Our learning goals focused on partitioning and also representing different 3-digit numbers using Base-10 pictures. With Miss Lucas we have deepened our understanding of tens and ones using base 10, place value charts and the part – part – whole representation. We have represented numbers on a number line and looked at partitioning numbers into tens and ones and then partitioning numbers.
During our writing sessions, the children have looked at the book Seal Surfer. We have focused on punctuation and grammar, making sure our sentences make sense and have capital letters and full stops. The children have been encouraged to improve their sentences and edit their writing.
We hope you have a lovely, restful weekend.
Reminders:
- Please ensure all uniform is labelled, so it can be returned if lost.
- Spelling lists will be found on Google Classroom.
- Reading records and books to come into school each day next week. A reading day will be assigned to your child for the following week.
Date: 9th Sep 2022 @ 3:34pm
Welcome back! It has been wonderful having everyone back together again. We have had an amazing week settling back into school. This week we have been focusing on our SHINE school values through the stimulus ‘Encanto’. The children have been exploring how the characters in the film demonstrate our school’s vision and values. We have focused lots of our work on our gifts and how each and every one of us is special and has hidden gifts that make the world a better place. The children thought of wonderful ideas such as being friendly, being a good listener, being able to cheer others up and being good at inventing games on the playground.
With Mrs McCrae the children have enjoyed PSHE, reading and art activities linked to our school's visions and values—and, to the ‘Encanto’ film. Everyone enjoyed crafting their family trees and choosing unique adjectives for each special person in their family. We also discussed the text ‘The Little Engine that Could’. With the repeated phrase, "I think I can," we were inspired to create our own messages of encouragement which we wrote inside a lift-the-flap style card. These cards will be available to all students throughout the year to access when they find themselves in the 'Learning Curve.' For our reading tasks, everyone was asked questions of how characters and themes in the film could help us to better understand our SHINE message. They showed great maturity and consideration while listening to others' ideas and took time to reflect upon the group's responses.
With Miss Lucas, the children were introduced to their first Spanish lesson of the year where we learnt key vocabulary for the names of people in our family. The children were able to form sentences to identify family members. We also produced some creative writing based on Antonio’s gift. We imagined walking through Antonio’s door and described the room using our senses. In PE, we tried out some yoga poses and focused on our breathing.
‘It has truly been a pleasure to meet all of the Year 3 students this week. All of the children are kind, well-mannered and thoughtful. I am so happy to be able to help Miss Lucas teach this year! Lastly, I would like to say that the children have all shown resiliency and determination in all of their tasks and I am excited to see what the next few weeks will bring!’ - Mrs McRae
A poster containing 100 recommended reads for Year 3 children has been attached to this blog. By providing 100 quality texts at an age appropriate level, this list may be useful when choosing your child's next book. We hope it inspires the children to continue on in their reading journeys whilst further encouraging a lifelong love of books and stories.
We hope you have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday!
Reminder:
-Please remember to provide a healthy snack each day for your child.
-PE days are Monday and Friday
- Reading books and spellings will go home next week
Date: 14th Jul 2022 @ 10:45pm
Where has that year gone?
Our final week in Year 3 has been as exciting as ever, packed full of exciting and investigative learning opportunities. It truly has been a week to remember.
We took full advantage of the weather this week, and where possible, we were outside enjoying the sunshine and playing co-operative games together. Rounders has been a highlight this week and will be firm favourite for future PE lessons. Talking of PE, we loved our final week in the pool ending our Year 3 lessons by having a fun session involving floats, games, and laughter. Roll on next year when we will learn new skills!
To celebrate our fantastic year together, on Wednesday morning we had a golden time session, bringing in our own games to share with our friends. The children have certainly earnt this time, working so hard over the past year to achieve their full potential.
We completed our DT project on Tuesday, creating our own lightboxes using a range of resources as well as circuits! We started by exploring a range of light box designs before carefully crafting our own silhouettes using card and tracing paper. Once our box had been designed and carefully crafted, we used our circuits to make light! We were amazed with how good they looked, don’t believe us? Take a look at our twitter page!
On Thursday we tackled our final computing project of the year, designing and printing our own t-shirts using computing software to create an individual design. It was a lot more complicated than we thought, as we had to consider the cost in making our own t-shirts and the time it took. We decided that at the moment we were not in a position to make our own t-shirt range but discussed the possibility of making them as a possible fund raiser in the future, watch this space!
It is with a sad heart that we have to say goodbye, or in reality, see you later! I know that the children will continue to thrive on their learning journey and will have an incredible year in Year 4 with Miss Mcvey. All that is left to be said is, well done, Year 3, I have had a fantastic year with you, and I wish you all the best for the future. Have a wonderful, restful, and exciting summer! See you soon, Miss Jones!
Date: 6th Jul 2022 @ 12:08pm
What a superb penultimate week of not only the term but the year!
This week we completed our final independent piece of writing for our Author Books, creating a leaflet packed full of information about the 'Jardin des Plantes, Paris'. For this, the children had to use their website and google, to research the park and the different activites and inhabitant you could find in there. After, they planned in detail, the different sections of their leaflet before finally completing them. The leflets are truly incredible packed full of information and vibrant pictures to persuade the reader to not only read on but also visit the park! Well done, Year 3.
In Maths, we finished our topic on Geometry in style, by making a range of 3D shapes using a variety of resources. We then compared them to 2D shapes, discussing their differences and similarites and recognising that lots of 3D shapes, have 2D shapes inside them. We then moved onto our topic on Capacity and Volume. We looked at the different ways of measuring various objects and the units involved. Next week, we will finish this topic by comparng mass and volume in more detail.
In RE, we finished off our topic of Harvest focusing on the Jewish festival, Sukkot. We started by using our bubble maps to descirbe their festival before comparing it to the Christian Havest celebrations. To end this topic we took time to build our or Sukkah's with their very specific requirements.
We finished off our Geography topic about the River Nile, focusing on the uses of the Nile during different periods, ancient and modern. We were shocked to learn that some were used then and now! We loved going on a question hunt when we investigated Alexandira, a famous ancient and modern city!
We finally got to take part in our highly anticipated Sports Day! Year 3 were very excited and loved taking part in the sack race, egg and spoon race but our favouite race has got to be the three legged race, who knew that it could be so tricky! We worked hard to collect points for our school house teams. We are so proud of all their achievements an their excellent sportsmanships showcasing their amazing efforts and determination.
We ended our week focusing on Science, investigating the space race and the countires (and animals) involved. After, we used a variety of resources to make our own Moon Landing Rocket, propelling our mashmallows in the air. It was so much fun and a great way to end the week.
Reminders:
-Recorders will be kept in school and passed onto Year 4, ready for recorder lessons next year. If you wish to take your child's home over the summer then please let staff know via the schol email address.
- This week children will go swimming for the final time in Year 3, these lessons will resume at the start of Year 4.
-School term finishes at 1pm on Friday 15th July.
-Please ensure any school reading books are returned to school, prior to the end of term.
Date: 30th Jun 2022 @ 9:00pm
Where did that week go? All we know is that time flies when you are having fun and my goodness, we have had fun!
In Maths, we continued to explore our topic Geometry. The focus this week has been on angles, developing a understanding of acute and obtuse angles in relation to 90 degrees. We also began measuring and drawing angles of our own using our rulers for accuracy. Finally, we looked at the difference between horizontal and vertical lines. Next week, we will finish our Geometry topic after investigating 2D and 3D shapes before moving onto our final topic of Year 3, Mass and Capacity a truly exciting topic.
In English, we had such fun exploring the incredible merchandise created during Zereffa's trip to Paris, from giraffe style hair to giraffe cakes. We then created our own, some of the merchandise was pretty expensive, so I hope you all have saved up! On Friday, we began to research areas of Paris in preparation for our Author book work, a persuasive leaflet. We carefully unpicked the wesite to find key information such as important dates, prices and sights to see. Next week, we will began our first draft of our Author Books.
Art was an absolute highlight this week, creating our very own paitings in the style of LS Lowry. After exploring his pictures for key features such as buildings, cars and people, we began to sketch. Once we were complete, we started painting, practicing our layering to add detail and texture. Next week we will use a range of mediums to create another version, focusing again on texture and finer detail.
The Great British weather was not our friend on Wednesday and certainly rained on our parade. That did not stop us having great fun, taking on the final SumDog Challenge of the year. The tension is high in school as we all eagerly await he results, I wonder which year will win. We can also see the silver lining with the rain, allowing us all some extra practices in preparation for next week!
Unfotunately this week we had to say goodbye to the wonderful Miss Duffy who sadly had to leave us this week. It is bitter sweet however, as we know wherever she goes she will continue to shine and her next class will be just as lucky as us. Good luck, and keep in touch!
Our school book fair is currently taking place in the school portacabin and is open from 3.05pm to 3.30pm each day after school until next Wednesday 6th July. All purchases made, result in more books for our class libraries! Please do support us if you are able to, and thank you to those of you who have supported this event already. Your support is very much appreciated.
Reminders:
- Sports Day is rescheduled for Wednesday 6th July. Children will need to come to school dressed in their PE kits. Swimming will be cancelled again for this reason.
- Recorder lessons continue every Monday until the end of term
- Friday 15th July – End of term – School closes at 1pm
Date: 26th Jun 2022 @ 1:43pm
Another week gone, where is this year going!
This week we have tackled our termly asessments head on, showing true determination and resilience. This assessments are nothing to be worried about but allow us, as staff, to continually check the childrens understanding to inform our teaching. The children should, as always, be very proud of their hardworking attitude and enthusiasm, we certainly are!
On Tuesday we were delighted to take part in the Lap of Hope with the rest of the school as part of the Commonwealth Games and Comic Relief celebrations. We started our morning creating pledges for a better world and a world we want to see, before heading out and running a lap of the school, both inside and outside, with both KS1 and KS2. Later that day, we were invited to a whole school assembly led by Year 5 and Year 6 Sports Ambassadors who taught us more about the upcoming Commonwealth Games. We were amazed at how many new events have been added this year. To round off our celebrations, and to celebrate World Music Day, we joined the whole school in singing 'Sing' by Gary Barlow, Military Wives, and The Commonwealth Band. It was a magical moment.
We ended our week on a high, with a trip to the TSP Summer Fair, a highlight of the year. Using our tokens to take part, we browsed the various stalls winnig prizes along the way. We even had horses and sheep! The incredible activites and delicious food meant that we had a fantastic afternoon full of memories.
Reminders:
-Sports Day will take place on Wednesday 29th June. Please ensure children wear their PE kit and bring a bottle of water to school.
- There is no swimming this week, swimming will resume on Wednesday 6th July
- Recorder lessons will continue every Monday until the end of term.
-With the warm weather, please ensure your child brings a bottle of water to school.
Date: 10th Jun 2022 @ 12:05pm
What a fantastic start to the final term!
This week, we started our new, final text in English, ‘Zeraffa Giraffa’. Before we started reading, we explored our new STAR vocabulary, using our dictionaries to define the words and creating a glossary for future reference. After, we were given a range of clues about our new text and worked together to predict what the book was about. When we finally began to read our story, we were amazed to learn that it was a story, based on a true event that occurred hundreds of years ago. We cannot wait to find out more about this interesting giraffe.
In Maths, we continued with our topic on Time, focusing on reading time to the nearest minute, and recognising that time has an a.m. and p.m. This has been a tricky topic, but using small practical clocks to support us we were able to tackle it head on. Next week, we will continue to look at Time paying special attention to duration.
In Reading, we began our new story ‘Egyptian Cinderella’. Similar to English, we created our own picture glossary for STAR vocabulary that will appear over the next few weeks. After, we began to read, making connections with our previous topic on Egyptians, and the fairy tale Cinderella. We were shocked at how servants and slaves were treated differently at this time and how people were taken from other countries to work.
This story linked nicely to our Geography topic, ‘Why was the River Nile so important?’. Before we look into this topic in more detail we reflected on our previous learning and using our circle map, we wrote down facts we already know about the River Nile.
In Art, we investigated our new focused artist ‘LS Lowry’. We explored some of his incredible art work and the different scenes that he painted. Over the next few weeks we will continue to unpick his art work, and will begin to create our own scenes in a similar style.
Reminders
- Swimming lessons will take place every Wednesday, please ensure that all children come to school with their hat, goggles, and towel.
- PE days will therefore be Wednesdays and Fridays.
- Recorders must be brought to school each Monday ready for the lesson. Please practice at home at the weekend.
- Next Friday the children will be able to wear their own clothes again in exchange for bottles for the tombola, if any parents can support the school on the day please do let Team TSP know.
Date: 25th May 2022 @ 11:50am
Where has that final week of term gone? Well done Year 3 for a superb half term.
Year 3 started their week with an important task, selecting our representatives for the TSP Pupil Voice Groups. We began by writing and listening to our peers’ speeches in class, in which they stated why we should vote for them, before casting our votes at the TSP Polling Station, using our very own Polling cards. A huge congratulations to all children, but especially to nominated representatives who will be Year 3 voice in all meetings, sharing our opinions and beliefs.
On Monday, we added another incredible piece of writing to our Author Books, our version of the story ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker. We loved adding our own words to this wordless book, whilst creating our own illustrations.
In Maths, we continued to recap, connecting our prior knowledge from Year 2 with our new fractions’ knowledge. This allowed us to see how mathematical concepts are linked and how we can use previous work to solve more complex problems.
For our Computing Day this term, we used the Book Creator App and the Google Search Engine, to become ‘Online Detectives’. After designing our own front covers, we completed a series of tasks using the internet whilst also using our prior knowledge to add audio, images and links to pack our digital books full of information.
We ended our week in the best way possible, with laughter, love and celebrations. To mark the Queen’s Jubilee, we partook in a bit of ‘afternoon tea’, which is apparently the Queen’s favourite past time! We loved having our very own cup of tea (decaf of course) and a large slice of Victoria Sponge whilst we learnt all about the Queen’s incredible life. This was not the only event of the day as we took part in the TSP’s Got Talent Show. Following a morning of performances, the two winning acts from Year 3 were put through to the final, against acts from across the school. Well done to everyone who auditioned and our finalists, you are all truly incredible.
Love Reading have issued their Mid-May Newsletter; please see many more top-read recommendations you may wish to explore with your child/ren. Happy reading!
Reminders:
-School commences on Monday 6th June.
-Recorders remain on Mondays after half term.
- Spellings have been set for the half term and will be assessed the first week back. In addition, please make use of the virtual classroom which attached to this blog, if you wish to complete any activities over half term.
-PE lessons will continue to take place every Wednesday (swimming) and Friday after half term.
Date: 18th May 2022 @ 9:46pm
Another week full of highlights and achievements within the Year 3 classroom!
We have continued to explore our Collective Worship value of the month, Perseverance. This time, we looked longer term, and each tasked ourselves with a challenge that we would like to achieve by the end of Year 3 (which is only a few weeks!). We then gave ourselves three things that we can do to achieve it before hiding it away until the last day of term when we will see if we have achieved it.
In English, we started the week by planning our stories for the book ‘Journey’. We took our time to carefully plan what language we wanted to use and how the girl might feel at each point. Later, we began to write. With calming music playing in the background, we put our heads down and began to write out our new detailed and intriguing stories. We cannot wait to put them in our author books next week!
In Maths, we got practical, using our knowledge of fractions to complete a range of fun and interesting activities including a colour by number. Fractions has been both an interesting and challenging topic for us all!
In Art we continued with our topic of jewellery and created another bracelet using a different technique. Using a range of materials and apparatus we created detailed and interesting bracelets for our friends and loved ones.
In Science, we put our lab coats back on and completed another experiment, this time to test the strength of a range of magnets. Using materials from in and around the classroom, we tested the strength of the magnet’s attractions and repulsion!
Swimming was fantastic again this week! We loved jumping in and developing our swimming skills, this week we paid special attention on our breathing, ensuring we kicked our legs whilst breathing to ensure we didn’t stop moving. It was a lot trickier that it sounds! Another great lesson was recorders, this week we learnt two new notes and started to learn how to put a range of notes together to make a tune.
Reminders
- Swimming lessons will take place every Wednesday, please ensure that all children come to school with their hat, goggles, and towel.
- PE days will therefore be Wednesdays and Fridays.
- Recorders must be brought to school each Monday ready for the lesson. Please practice at home at the weekend.
Date: 11th May 2022 @ 9:39pm
It’s been an active week this week for us here in Year 3!
The highlight of the week has got to be the start of our swimming lessons. We were all super excited to jump on the bus, get changed and jump straight into the pool for our first session. We were all extremely tired after, but cannot wait to go again next week. Yoga has also been a hit and has allowed us to take time and practice our breathing and relaxation techniques should we ever feel sad or overwhelmed.
As part of our monthly Collective Worship value ‘perseverance’ we continued to explore how we can reach targets and overcome challenges and the steps we need to take to achieve them. Creating our own perseverance ladders, we each looked at our end of the month goals and the steps we need to complete them.
In English, we finished our story ‘Journey’ and were delighted to learn that the girl was rescued from the cold metal cage, making a friend along the way. We put on out multicoloured thinking hats and got creative, creating our own endings and diary entries along the way. Next week, we will compare our story with another, ‘The Tilly Mint Tales’ focusing on creating and describing our own characters and settings. Towards the end of the week, we will start our Author Book journeys and begin to plan our very own stories.
In Maths, we recapped the meaning of unit and non-unit fractions before exploring equivalent fractions whilst applying our knowledge to both shapes and objects. Finally, we applied this knowledge to a range of problem-solving activities. Next week, we will finally start our topic on Time, reading clocks to the half past, hour and quarter to, applying this knowledge to complex questions.
Recorders could be heard all around the school on Monday, and from what we have heard from parents, around everyone’s home! This week we focused on playing clear notes, using two fingers, and blowing carefully without too much force, this was a lot harder than it sounds.
In Science, we continued to investigate our topic ‘Forces’, completing an investigation using cars, rulers, and various surfaces. Working closely together with our partners, we experimented to see on which surface our toy car travelled the furthest before discussing our results. We found that the smoothest surface allowed the car to travel furthest.
Reminders
- Swimming lessons will take place every Wednesday, please ensure that all children come to school with their hat, goggles, and towel.
- PE days will therefore be Wednesdays and Fridays.
Recorders must be brought to school each Monday ready for the lesson. Please practice at home at the weekend.
Date: 3rd May 2022 @ 1:12pm
Another week in Year 3, and what a fantastic week it has been.
In English, we have been focusing on developing our setting descriptions, writing not only one but two different setting descriptions from our story ‘Journey’. We carefully studied the pages of the wordless book, using expanded noun phrases for the various objects we can see and upleveling them with verbs and prepositions to add more detail. This descriptive writing really allowed us to dive into this exciting new world.
In Maths, we entered our final week of Fractions, developing our understanding of equivalent fractions as well as adding and subtracting fractions and the rules surrounding this concept. Fractions has proved to be one of our trickier topics but we have persevered on this learning journey and feel that we have come out the other side. Next week we will spend some time covering any misconceptions that have arisen before moving onto the topic of ‘Time’, by first revisiting o’clock and half past before moving onto telling time to five minutes.
This week also saw the end of our double music lessons, where we finally bid farewell to the wonderful Mr Fogg, who not only provided us with fun, exciting and vibrant drumming lessons, but supported us prior to the Easter holidays with learning our songs for the Easter service. Recorders will be back on Monday, and we cannot wait to learn ‘Baby Shark’ on the recorder, watch out parents, you’re in for a treat!
We have been loving our PE topic, Yoga, and have been using our sessions to slowly control our breathing, stretching our muscles and allowing ourselves to move in a calm and relaxing way. That being said, we cannot wait for next week, when we start our swimming lessons!
In RE we looked at the story ‘The Good Samaritan’ unpicking Jesus’ message. We loved how the story showed the message of love, and how we should always, where possible, show love to everyone regardless of their differences, instead choosing to celebrate ours and everyone else‘s uniqueness.
Star Carr was at the forefront of our History lesson this week. Focusing specifically on the Stone Age Period of Prehistoric Britain, we were shocked to learn that this era, stretching over 2 million years, can be further broken down into three parts. As well as that we learnt how during this period our ancestors created and used tools and animals’ bones to camouflage themselves whilst hunting!
Reminders
- Swimming lessons will commence next Wednesday 11th May. Please ensure the children come to school ‘beach ready’ to ensure a smooth transition into the pool. This means they need to wear their swimming trunks or costumes underneath their PE kit.
- PE days will therefore change, and children are asked to come to school in their PE kits on Wednesdays and Fridays.
- Recorders need to be brought to school each Monday for your child’s recorder lessons, please ensure recorders are clearly labelled.
Date: 27th Apr 2022 @ 12:23pm
The fun has continued this week in Year 3 and we cannot wait to see what the rest of the term has in store for us!
We were delighted to take part in our first friendly football match this week against Woodlands Primary school, practicing during our breaktimes and talking tactics as a class. The game itself was great fun with an incredible turn out of 16 players, this meant that we could play our game in two halves to ensure that we all had a go. Although we didn’t win, we had a super time and showed incredible determination and sportsmanship, for that we are incredibly proud of you all. That wasn’t the only celebration of the week as we were delighted to welcome members of the National Trust Formby back to our school, to showcase our incredible mural made completely out of recycled materials. They were so impressed with our work they gave us a special certificate. Well done Year 3, you have been incredible reflecting our school values of Nurture, Imagine and Enjoy.
Our topic on Fractions continued this week in Maths, and we have loved every minute on this unit. At the start of the week we explored creating different fractions using cheerios carefully cutting them into halves and quarters to ensure that they were equal. Later in the week we investigated finding and making a ‘whole’ using fractions before moving on to tenths. Next week will be our final week on fractions and we will be looking at adding and subtracting them.
We have continued with our ‘Journey’ in English this week planning and writing diary entries for the girl, paying special attention to how our character felt and behaved at the start of the story when her family were ‘too busy to play with her’. We loved how the author and illustrator used red to highlight the items that were bringing her joy in the first part of the story and how the door to her new world was also red! Next week, we will continue to unpick the story creating setting descriptions, using expanded noun phrases, prepositions and conjunctions.
PE has had a calming tone this week as we continued with our yoga sessions, practicing our breathing and stretching skills whilst forming different shapes. It was the perfect lesson for us to unwind and relax in after such a busy week. On Thursday we were joined by Ultimate Kids for another thrilling and enjoyable activity session. We were so grateful to try a range of different activities, whilst keeping fit and active.
In Art we designed and created our own piece of jewellery, taking inspiration from both modern and new forms and were fascinated to learn how they were created and what special stones were selected. Sticking with the creative theme, we have also loved participating in our music lessons which have included the instruments drums and recorders, who new you could play ‘Baby Shark’ on so many instruments!
Have a wonderful bank holiday weekend, Year 3.
Reminders:
-Recorders can be bought online via school spider, the children will be having their first recorder lesson on Monday 9th May and will continue to use them throughout the year as well as in Year 4.
-PE lessons take place every Wednesday and Friday.
Date: 20th Apr 2022 @ 9:58pm
What a short but sweet week we have had here in Year 3!
On Friday, we marked and celebrated World Earth Day by teaming up with Year 4 and National Trust Formby, to create a huge mural made completely out of recycled materials. It was incredibly challenging and required us to think creatively to use the resources affectively to make our grand design.
In English, we started our new non-fiction text ‘Journey’ by the wonderful Aaron Becker. Prior to investigating the front cover, we used our dictionaries and laptops to unpick our new STAR vocabulary that would appear in the story along the way. The following lesson, we explored the front cover, making predictions about the story and what we thought would occur throughout we were therefore shocked to learn that this book, has NO words! We cannot wait to see what will happen next.
In Maths, we continued with our topic on Fractions, further developing our understanding of unit fractions before moving onto non-unit fractions. We loved playing various fraction games to get our brains thinking. Next week we will finish off our topic on fractions whilst exploring adding and subtracting fractions.
In RE, we started our new topic on ‘Rules’ discussing the importance of rules and various rules we follow in our lives both inside and outside school. Putting our heads together, we were amazed how many places have rules even parks! This allowed us to discuss if rules should ever be broken, we all agreed that rules could be broken if keeping them might hurt or upset us or someone else, however we know that they are there to keep us safe.
We completed our timelines in History this week, identify where Prehistoric Britain fell on our timeline in comparison to other periods we have studied within school. This allowed us to complete our circle maps, adding information we knew about Prehistoric Britain before we even started.
Magnets is our focus in science, and we started our new topic with a bang! Through a range of practical activates we were able to understand what not only what magnets are used for but also that not all metals are magnetic and that they have to be made from a specific material.
In Art we started our new topic on ‘Egyptian Jewellery’ creating and designing our own jewellery based on a range of artefacts found during the Egyptian period. We had some incredible creations which in the near future, we might bring to life.
Love Reading have chosen their 'top book picks' for April and May. More, highly-rated children's reads, from a variety of authors for different age ranges, are shared with us all to enjoy.
Reminders:
- PE will continue to be on Wednesdays and Fridays for the rest of the half term, Swimming will commence in May and letter will be sent in due course.
- Some children will be taking part in a friendly football match next Tuesday, please ensure that they bring their PE kits in their bags.
Date: 30th Mar 2022 @ 10:35pm
What an EGG-cellent final week of term!
The highlight of our week, has to be our incredible Easter performance at Holy Trinity Church. After weeks of practicing lines, actions and singing we brought it all together on Tuesday for our final dress rehearsal ready for Thursday’s grand performance, and what a performance it was! A huge congratulations to the whole of Year 3, you certainly did yourself proud!
In English, we started our week by reading though our draft leaflets, purple penning mistakes and adding a range of language to ensure that our writing had been written to the highest level. After our reflection period, we then added this to our ‘Author Books’, we had to take our time to carefully think about our handwriting as again we were using pen!
In Spanish, our lessons concluded, recapping the 10 key musical instruments and Spanish phases linked to coordinating and playing them accordingly. We also tackled our computing topic which was all about computers and keyboards, familiarising ourselves with the Google Slide platform as well as the importance of quick typing skills and computing shortcuts.
We absolutely loved completing our DT project ‘Moving Monsters’ using a range of resources to produce our own unique creations. We started this project by designing our monster and crafting a prototype to assess what works and what doesn’t, focusing on areas to improve. Later that afternoon, we created our final product before evaluating what we not only liked and disliked but also things that we would improve next time.
For any children looking to complete any additional work over half term, please see our virtual classroom which can be found on our Google Classroom. Finally, I want to wish you all a happy Easter, filled with fun, love and laughter (and hopefully lots of chocolate!)
Reminders
- Year 3 PE lessons will take place on Wednesday and Friday each week after half term. Please ensure your child attends school in their PE kit every Wednesday and Friday.
- Please bring in any recycled materials after half term to support our mural creation as part of Earth Day.
Date: 24th Mar 2022 @ 7:47pm
We have been loving the weather this week in Year 3 and this has been reflected in our work!
On Monday, we celebrated ‘World Poetry Day’ by exploring a range of poems and creating our very own. We took inspiration from the important women around us, writing caring and detailed poems about the women in our life such as mums, nans, aunties and even Miss Jones! Later in the week, we began to prep our next piece of work for our Author Books, we concentrated on using high-level literacy features including adverbs and prepositions, in our non-fiction writing surrounding our book ‘The Big Blue Whale’. We are super excited to put pen to paper next week and can’t wait to see how our leaflets turn out.
In RE, we took time to unpick the final part of the Easter story, focusing on the importance of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We discussed how the different days made us feel and how the events can bring both joy and sadness to Christians around the world. After, we took time to complete our self-assessment grids for the topic, reflecting on how the Easter story conveys a range of emotions.
In Maths, we continued with our topic on fractions specifically focusing on unit and non-unit fractions. We looked in detail at a range of fractions including halves, quarters, and thirds. Next week, we will start to connect our learning back to September, to help us add and subtract a range of fractions.
In Geography, we took our learning outside into the sunshine and used our laptops and atlases to investigate and compare different European countries to the UK. It was certainly a fantastic way to finish our topic.
Reminders:
-Final Parent-Teacher Meetings will be on Wednesday 30th March, please check your email for exact timings.
- Year 3 will be hosting the Easter service at Holy Trinity Church at 10 am.
-Please continue to bring in recyclable materials for our mural as part of Earth Day.
Date: 18th Mar 2022 @ 12:37pm
Another busy week here in Year 3!
We ended our week on a high celebrating Red Nose Day with the wonderful Year 4 class. When we arrived in school, the hall had been set up with a range of exciting, engaging and RED activities. In the afternoon, we marked British Science Week with an exciting experiment all about volcanoes and how when they react, the lava bubbles and grows, spilling out of the top of the volcano.
In Maths, we finished our topic on measurement, focusing this week on perimeter. The children had to measure various shapes before working out the perimeter by adding them together using column addition. Next week, we will be focusing on fractions starting the week connecting our learning back to Year 2 and recognising halves, quarters and thirds.
In English, we continued with our non-fiction story ‘The Big Blue Whale’. We focused on using our knowledge of fronted adverbials and paragraphs to draft information in preparation for our leaflets. Next week, we will start drafting our final fact files and leaflets ready for our author books in the final week.
In Geography, we used our atlases and google maps to identify different countries within in Europe focusing on important features for the various countries such as, currency, royal family’s and languages spoken.
In Art, we looked at plant art, developing our drawing and painting skills with a special focus on trees. Afterwards, we selected a flower, sketching, colouring and painting them to add details and depth to make them look 3D.
Reminders
- PE days are still on a Wednesday and a Thursday
- Year 3 will be hosting the Easter Service, in Holy Trinity Church on Thursday 31st Please can children, who have lines, practice these at home.
- Please continue to bring in recyclable materials for our mural as part of Earth Day