During this period of home schooling, please feel free to email me at Year3Mcdonagh@gmail.com for any questions, support or guidance on tasks set through the HomeSchool portal.

Please send photos and updates of your children and what they are getting up to and if you would like them displayed on the website let me know.

Well done to all of the children in Year 3 that have been working extremely hard during this time. 

Well done Dmutro for working extremely hard at home to do your work and help out around the house!

A big congratulations to Pauline who won the History competition!

Check out our PSHE page for a range of activities to keep your mind and body fit and healthy as you learn from home. 

https://www.stthomasofcanterburyprimaryschool.co.uk/pshe/

The children in Year 3M have had a wonderful start to the year, settling in to Key Stage 2 and working to the best of their abilities.

Throughout the year, you will be updated on our learning journeys and achievements.

Autumn Term

With year 3’s History topic being ‘The Stone Age to the Bronze Age’, we based our English writing on the book ‘Stone Age Boy’ by Satoshi Kitamura. We began our writing by producing a letter to the author to ask if we could have a copy of the book after receiving a letter with clues about the book’s content. The children used images from the book to create their own alternative story using a range of sentence structures and grammar features.

In the story, a young boy becomes lost and stumbles across a peculiar-looking girl who is from the Stone Age. She takes him to meet her family so that he can see how they live. The children have been able to draw comparisons between their own ways of living and how people lived long ago in prehistoric times.

Our writing sessions are tailored to each child’s learning journey, progressing onto the next skill once the previous one has been embedded.

To support us with learning how to compose direct speech, we acted out part of our story to help us get a better understanding of what the characters might have been saying.

Our class poem is 'Slowly' by James Reeves

Slowly

Slowly the tide creeps up the sand,

Slowly the shadows cross the land.

Slowly the carthorse pulls his mile,

Slowly the old man mounts the stile.

Slowly the hands move round the clock,

Slowly the dew dries on the dock.

Slow is the snail – but slowest of all

the green moss spreads on the old brick wall.

James Reeves

Our class read is ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. The children have become immersed into this story as Charlie’s adventure unfolds.

During daily reading sessions, the children will clarify any unknown vocabulary and ask questions about what they have just read using a range of question stems. They will summarise the key points of what they have read to show good comprehension and make predictions about what they think will happen next based on what they already know from the text.

During guided reading sessions, the children will use reciprocal reading approaches to deepen their understanding of the texts and encourage them to think about the reasons behind why the characters and authors behave in the ways that they do. We have used a range of fiction, non-fiction texts, plays and fables to unpick during our sessions.

Our reading comprehension sessions have been based on ‘The Little Match Girl’ by Carrie Weston. The children have enjoyed this text that follows the unfortunate story of an orphan girl, on her own on New Year’s Eve. They have empathised with the character and made inferences regarding her situation.

The children have enjoyed listening to Andy Stanton’s ‘Mr Gum’ at the end of the day during our reading time. In the year three section in our school library, you will find that our year group author is Andy Stanton. The children are able to choose from a range of his books during their lunch time to bring home to read for pleasure.

We began the year by consolidating our understanding of number and place value with 2-digit numbers before we moved onto exploring 3-digit numbers, which is our focus in year 3. In our maths sessions, we are skilled at making numbers in a range of ways using concrete apparatus and pictorial representations. We are able to partition 3-digit numbers in many different ways and we have currently been exploring estimation using number lines.

In our multiplication and division sessions, we focus on exploring the related facts that can help our rapid recall. We aim to improve our challenge scores weekly so counting regularly and linking facts will help us to do this.

In our first R.E topic, we learned about God’s dream for every family. We discussed the key question ‘What makes a house a home?’ to understand why parents and children should love and respect one another as God wants them to do. Our next topic was belonging. We explored the meaning of the commitment and promises made at Baptism, discussing the key question ‘Why make promises?’

Here is a group of us re-enacting a Baptismal ceremony. We used the signs and symbols used during this sacrament such as the Baptismal Candle, Oil of Catechumens, Oil of Chrism and Holy Water.

Our topic this term has been ‘The Stone Age to the Iron Age’. We loved handling and exploring real life artefacts to speculate what life was like during this pre-historic time.  We even did our own independent research. The concepts that we have learned about during this topic are; Culture-food, Culture-technology and religion.

We discussed the following key questions to start our historic enquiry;

Was Stone Age man a hunter and gatherer simply for survival?

How different was life in the Stone Age, when man started to farm?

When was the Bronze Age and what life was like during this period of time?

Why is it so difficult to work out why Stonehenge was built?

When was the Iron Age and what was life like during this period of time?

In English, we have been reading and creating writing based on the book ‘Stone Age Boy’ by Satoshi Kitamura. Our knowledge from our history lessons has really helped us in our writing sessions.

In our art lessons, we were inspired by the work of Paul Klee and his painting ‘Legend of the Nile’.

Paul Klee used mono-chromatic colour schemes to create his work which were extremely interested by. We adopted his painting styles and experimented with colour using a range of tints and shades. As our history topic was the ‘Stone Age to the Iron Age’, we carefully selected a range of colours that would have been suitable for this time in history. We sketched a range of cave art ideas and chose our favourite ones to add to our final designs.

In Science we have been learning about magnets, forces and rocks. Did you know that the three main types, or classes, of rock are sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous and the differences among them have to do with how they are formed? We have conducted a range of scientific experiments with magnets and forces; we tested movements on different surfaces, compared the difference when changing the variables and explored which objects are magnetic and which are not.

We love to learn in year 3 and often do extra homework to show case our learning!

In French, we have been learning about ourselves and items that are found in the classroom. We greet each other every morning with ‘Bonjour’ and again in the afternoon register with ‘Bonsoir’. We have learned how to have a conversation about ourselves and ask questions using classroom items. 

We have two sessions of PE a week, one dedicated to dance or gymnastics and the other dedicated to games. So far in gymnastics we have explored linking a range of movements together using the different patches and points of our bodies. We created a series of links with our partners moving into different levels and incorporated a range of balance movements in between. 

Our dance lessons have been linked to our next history topic of 'The Romans'. We have developed a 32-48 count Romans Motif using whole group choreography to produce our actions. We worked on our timing, posture and extension of each movement. We then worked together in pairs to explore travelling during dance in which we changed our levels and also mirror imagery. Finally, we used a poem to create a dance in which we focused on canon movements and changes in formation.

In games, we have explored the rules and strategies used in both tennis and tag rugby. We love our PE sessions and are very competitive!

During each session we evaluate each other, giving praise and constructive feedback to our peers.

In geography we have been researching all about the United Kingdom. We have been developing geographical skills and fieldwork by using maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate  and describe the features of the UK.

Using atlases and the eight points of a compass, we began by locating the countries, capital cities and main counties of the UK and transferred this information onto our own maps. 

Using our map skills, we located geographical regions and identified human and physical characteristics and key topographical features of mountains and rivers in the UK. We discussed the land-use of mountains, rivers and farming to see how they fit into society today.

In DT we created Christmas themed photo frames to gift as a Christmas present. We needed to ensure that the frames were stable and that they could hold our photographs. We collected a range of visual data to begin with and recorded from first hand observations of a range of photo frames. Once we had decided on the designs and structures that we preferred we each chose a photo frame for our final design. 

Some of us chose to have hanging photo frames, whereas some of us decided that we wanted our frames to stand. We had to think about what materials we would use to strengthen our structure and put this into practice. 

Here are some of our final designs below. 

In PSHE, we have asked the key question 'What are the rules that keep us safe?'. We explored school rules about health and safety, basic emergency aid procedures and where and how to get help. We discussed the concept of ‘keeping something confidential or secret’, when we should or should not agree to this and when it is right to ‘break a confidence’ or ‘share a secret’. 

We then looked at our feelings and emotions, how we can express and manage these and why this is important. We have lots of time to discuss each others opinions in PSHE and create a range of strategies to help us in and outside of school.