Autumn 1 Week 1

What a fantastic first week back! The children have settled into new routines and have shown how mature they are. We have had a good week of learning and we are very much looking forward to what lies ahead!

Our Big Question this half term is ' What is the difference between a Meerkat, Chipmunk and Human.' This is a science based unit where we will look at habitats, nutrition, diet, with a focus on how our bones work, comparing our bodies with animals. We have spent some time deciding what we'd like to explore as a year group, as well as what we already know.

As part of a whole school focus on anti - bullying,  this week,  during our English lessons we have focused on the short film ' For the Birds' we have thoroughly enjoyed watching it. It contains  both humour and a strong message that the  children have explored through drama and role play. Next week we plan on writing a persuasive letter to one of the characters.

In Maths we have started our place value unit, using base ten and number - lines to help with our understanding. We have been incredibly impressed with how the children are taking great care over their presentation and look forward to be able to showcase this.

I think the biggest hit of the week was introducing Lexia, our online reading programme.  We are getting much quicker at logging on - perhaps something they might like to practise at home!

I hope that they have enjoyed the first week as much as we have. As ever don't hesitate to contact us should you have any questions. 

We hope you have a restful weekend.

The Year 3 Team.

Autumn 1 - Week 2

The children were very excited to start their 10 week Ukulele course this week! We are very lucky to have an external music teacher to come in and teach us and we look forward to showcasing this at some point!

During Maths lessons we continued with our unit on Place Value - focussing on numbers up to 1000. We have used a variety of methods,  partitioning numbers and understanding the value of each digit in a number. We have used a range of practical resources to support understanding.

English this week has culminated in the children writing a persuasive letter to the little birds, persuading them to stop bullying Big Bird! We have been very impressed with the persuasive language used and how the children presented their letter. 

Science this week has focused on the diet of both animals and humans and what both need to survive. We looked at various foods and the children answered questions such as 'what would happen if a lion only ate lettuce'. As part of our learning next week we have asked the children to fill out a food diary. This will form the basis of our Science lesson so we would be grateful if these are completed by Wednesday.

The Year 3 Team

Autumn 1 - Week 3

Well what a fantastic week of learning we have had! We have started our new English unit based on the book ' The Incredible Book Eating Boy' By Oliver Jeffers. What fabulous ideas the children have shared, they have described how their favourite books might taste, using some excellent vocabulary. We very much look forward to continuing this learning journey.

In Maths we continue to look at place value, exploring 1 more, 10 more and  100 more than a number then moved on to 1, 10 and 100 less than a given number. We have used counters and base ten to help when the abstract has been challenging.

During science lessons this week we have focused on the human diet, what is a good balance and what we might do to improve what we eat. It was brilliant to see how many of the children remembered to fill out their food diary and then use this information to create a bar chart. We then discovered how some drinks might contain more sugar than we first predicted.

Ukulele  was a big hit again - what a joyful sight to see all the children engaged and excited to be involved in learning a new skill!

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Year 3 Team 

Autumn 1 - Week 4 

In maths we have completed our unit on place value, exploring ordering numbers up to 1000, counting in 50's and comparing numbers up to 1000. Next week we will move on to addition and subtraction.

During our writing lessons we have continued to write humorous sentences - and on Thursday and Friday the children were able to make their own lift the flap book inspired by ' Ketchup on Your Cornflakes' by Nick Sharrat. This was a lot of fun and we look forward to showing these to lower school next week.

In Geography we investigated exactly where in the world Chipmunks and Meerkats live, describing their habitat and comparing them, this led on to our science lesson where the children designed a plate of food for either a chipmunk or meerkat. This enabled them to decided what the similarities between the two are and why their diet might be different.

I hope that the children enjoyed the computing lesson they had this week as much as we did! It was their first step in looking at coding. if you are able to log on to Purple Mash at home I am sure you will be given a demonstration!

As ever if you have any queries about what we are learning, or the home learning sent home don't hesitate to contact us.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Year 3 Team 

Autumn 1 - Week 5

We started the week with our new Maths topic of addition and subtraction, revisiting adding and subtracting 1's 10's and 100's. Next we will be moving on to using exchange when adding and subtracting numbers.

Our English lessons this week have been focused on creating funny sentences, using metaphor, dialogue and a wide range of vocabulary. We got to the end of our book 'The incredible book eating boy' and we look forward to writing our own version next week.

In science the children learned all about skeletons, and created their own skeletons to help them remember some of the scientific names for bones. We also looked at invertebrates and vertebrates classifying and sorting during our science learning.   

We look forward to another fun filled week next week!

The year 3 Team  

Autumn 1 - week 6 

The children have really impressed us this week with their writing. After using the 'Incredible Book Eating Boy' as our stimulus, they have written their own versions. Their  imagination has really been impressive and we have had lots of fun reading through their stories. After a lesson editing and proofreading their work, they will be able to 'publish' their work on Monday for display in the book corner.

During maths lessons we have continued working on addition and subtraction, now we are now using exchange and the children are using the column method to help them show their working out.

In order to really remember our 'bones' the children had a fun and practical lesson - drawing around each other with chalk and then labelling which bones were found where in the body. We found that they were able to label quite a few - next week we move on to looking at the joints and muscles in our bodies and how they work.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and we look forward to our last week of this half term!

The Year 3 Team

Autumn 1 - Week 7

What a fantastic end to a very successful half term. 

Our science learning culminated in understanding the role that joints  play in our bodies, then moving on to how muscles work, creating an experiment to see how muscles contract and relax.

In DT this week we recapped our knowledge of nutrition and designed and created our own savoury tarts. We first of all focussed on hygiene in our 'kitchen' and then went on to chop up our vegetable and create our dish. They looked delicious, I hope some of you got to sample them!

We hope you have a restful half term.

The Year 3 Team.

Autumn 2 Week 1

We were delighted to welcome the children back to what is a very exciting term in the school calendar!

Our new big questions 'Why are Rainforests so important' has prompted lots of excellent questions for our topic board - we very much look forward to exploring all the things the children would like to learn over the coming weeks.

We have started a new English unit , the children have impressed us with their brilliant word choices and we are really focusing on high level vocabulary to enhance writing. We explored character feelings through drama and had great fun re-enacting how it would feel to be thrown off a boat in high winds!

We continue with addition and subtraction and over the next few weeks will be practicing using the column method to solve problems. 

As it is Bonfire night this weekend we spent some time talking about how we can keep ourselves safe around fireworks. The children then created some really eye catching posters to share what they have learned.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

The year three team.

Autumn 2 - Week 2

Autumn 2 - Week 3 

In maths this week we concluded our Addition and subtraction unit (although we will revisit these skills throughout the year!) with estimation and learning how the inverse can help us to check our calculations.

Our year 3 superstars have written some amazing sentences using similes, alliteration and ambitious adjectives. They used some of this high level  vocabulary to narrate an underwater scene in the style of David Attenborough - we were very impressed!

As Geographers the children have started to explore the Amazon Rainforest in more detail, next week they will finish this research and we will move on to learning more about the climate in the Rainforest Biomes of the world.

As Scientists we have looked at how plants / flowers are pollinated and we are looking forward next week to conducting an experiment.

We hope you enjoyed the fair on Friday night - and look forward to seeing you all on Monday!

The Year 3 team.

Autumn 2 - Week 4

Autumn 2 - Week 5

Autumn 2 - Week 5 

Another busy week for the lovely Chipmunks! 

We have now written the results for both our science experiments, the children were eager to monitor the changes in our basil plants and noted that without soil, which provides nutrients, the plant was very much effected. The plant that was kept in cold conditions also fared badly!

During Art the children were able to produce an abstract piece of work inspired by our Botanical Drawing unit. A copy of which we should be able to send home next week! We have loved watching their creativity flourish  and look forward to our DT day where this creativity can be let loose.

As mathematicians we are exploring multiplication and division, we have looked at arrays, grouping and sharing. We will work through the 3, 4 and 8 times tables over the next two weeks, we encourage practice on TT Rockstars and the children can compete with you on Hit the Button - a game they really enjoy.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Year 3 Team.