Year 3
Welcome to Year 3
Our Year Three team is made up of Miss Riley, Miss Camilleri (3R), Miss McDonagh and Mrs Sutton (3M).
Miss Riley and Miss McDonagh will use this page to keep you up to date with news, achievements and information about what we've be learning this year in Year Three.
If you need to contact the teachers, please ring the office to arrange an appointment or email the class teachers;
Miss Riley - year3riley@gmail.com
Miss McDonagh - year3mcdonagh@gmail.com
English
This term our class novel, to link to our History topic, is 'The Stone Age Boy' by Satoshi Kitamura. We love reading this book in Year Three which follows the story of a young boy who finds himself lost in an unknown era...The Stone Age! He learns the ways in which people hunted, gathered and survived at this time and is astonished by the skills that they possessed even though their language was not yet developed.
So far, we have written letters, alternative story beginnings and explored how to compose direct speech. We enjoy acting out scenes in this story and imagining what it would be like to live in a different time than what we do now. We compare the comfort of our warm, cosy bedrooms to that of sleeping in a wattle and daub covered tent outdoors. No thank you!
Mathematics
We have been working extremely hard this term to embed our understanding of place value and number. In year 3, we extend our knowledge of 2-digit numbers and begin to explore 3-digit numbers. We partition 3-digit numbers into many different ways daily and have been exploring how to problem solve. Daily, we participate in 4-rules where we partition numbers into great depth, mental and oral mathematics where we recap and consolidate the Year 2 objectives before developing our Year 3 skills and multiplication and division practice. These skills all build up to the main maths lessons, what great mathematicians we are!
By the end of Year 3, we must be able to multiply and divide by 3, 4 and 8s with rapid recall of our facts. We must master the 2, 5 and 10s before moving onto the Year Three times tables. To improve in our rapid recall of facts there are a number of websites that we can use along with a weekly tournament against classes on TTRS.
Reading
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 New Year’s Eve. They have empathised with the character and made inferences regarding her situation.
The children are able to choose from a range of his books from our class library to bring home to read for pleasure. Reading is at the core of our curriculum and it is very important for your children to be reading daily as it builds their vocabulary, increases their confidence and helps with their mental health. Did you know that if you read for 20 minutes per day, you will read around 1,800,000 words per year! Also reading for 6 minutes a day reduces stress by 68%!
Here are some websites that are free to access e-books. You can either read to your children, your children can read independently or they could listen to other people reading to them via the audiobooks;
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/oxford-reading-tree-levels/
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/have-some-fun/storybooks-and-games/
History
Our topics this term have been ‘The Stone Age to the Iron Age’ and 'The Romans'. We were keen to handle and explore real life artefacts to speculate what life was like during these times and loved learning about our historical pasts.
The concepts that we have learned about during these topics are;
The Stone Age to the Iron Age: Culture-food, Culture-technology and religion.
The Romans: Culture-dress, Conflict- warfare, invasion and society
We start our sessions by discussing key questions to kick start 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?
How powerful was the Roman Empire?
How did the Roman's successfully invade Britain?
What happened during ‘Boudicca’s Rebellion’ and what impact did it have?
How can we solve the mystery of why this great 400 year empire suddenly came to an end?
We have conducted research, handled artefacts, acted out historical scenes and immersed ourselves into the lives of those who have lived before us. We were shocked and appalled to find out that children were sent down into the mines to retrieve copper for making bronze weapons!
Art
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.
Geography
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 in the UK, 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.
French
In French, we began by learning about ourselves and about items that are found in the classroom. We have learned how to great each other in French and can have a conversation about ourselves!
Bonjour! Je m’appelle ______. J’ai huit ans et j’habite en Angleterre. Ca va?
We have learned colours, days of the week, Christmas items and we are currently learning about the weather. Talk to us in French and quiz us on how to pronounce and spell our key vocab! Our favourite French songs are; how old are you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WksvcV6vU0 and numbers to 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsEz58BblMY .
Have a look at the other songs we enjoy in class.
Religion
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?’. Our advent topic explored the key question ‘Are visitors always welcome?’, outweighing the joys and demands of visitors and exploring the visitors during the build up to Christmas.
Science
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.
Design and Technology
In DT we created chocolate boxes to give to Mr Wonka for his new chocolate invention. We needed to ensure that the boxes were stable and that they had a window to be able to see the chocolate inside the packaging. We collected a range of visual data to begin with and recorded from first hand observations of a range of chocolate packaging. Once we had decided on the designs and structures that we preferred we each chose a box for our final design. We had to take into account; chocolate shape and size, design and audience.