Year 3 had a fantastic time at Stanborough Lakes this term. The whole class enjoyed a superb day in scorching temperatures at the park. It was so much fun to play in the Splash Park together. There were water jets, mushroom fountains and showers to cool off in. We all played so well together playing hide and seek, tag and bulldog…all in the water! We were all starving and wanted our lunch by 10:00 but Mrs Emmony said nope, we had to wait! She handed out apples and drinks instead to keep us going.

At lunch time, we dried off and ate our lunch in the shade of pine trees by the paddling river. After lunch, Mrs Emmony told us all about the artist Andy Goldsworthy and we embarked on a nature walk to collect twigs, leaves and feathers to create our own nature art! On route, we discovered a wooded area where someone had begun making a den of logs. We asked our teachers if we could complete it and together, with their help, we created the most enormous and awesome den! We all took turns to sit inside. Some of us told our teachers that we had never made a den out of logs before, so it was a very exciting task for us. We continued on our walk and reached the boating lake. The teachers bought us all an ice cream or ice lolly to cool off and we watched the boats and all the geese.

Once we finished our walk, we were allowed to paddle in the stream; we could see tiny fish and some of us skimmed stones. Other children went off to play cricket with Mr Drake. The day ended too quickly and before long we had to head back to school. We had such a fun day!

 

In English, we have been reading Charlie and the chocolate factory! We have made our own incredible chocolate rooms for our homework; written character studies, letters, adverts, persuasive writing pieces and even designed our own 3 course dinner bubble gum! After that, we did a unit on a Literacy Shed animation called ‘Dream Giver’. We loved the animation and it inspired us to create our own setting descriptions and dream narratives. We are currently enjoying the hilarious adventures of Harold and George in ‘Captain Underpants’ book by Dav Pilkey.  We have written character studies, continued narratives, designed our own treehouses and next week we will be writing comics in the style of the book!

    

In maths, we have been working hard on learning how to do short multiplication and division, equivalent single and multi-step word problems, answering questions on scaling and making comparisons and finally, analogue and digital time.

 

In Geography, we have been learning about earthquakes by studying what is meant by terms such as epi-centre, tectonic plates and fault lines and how an earthquake happens. We have looked at tectonic plates in relation to a world map and we can see why certain countries are prone to frequent earthquake activity whilst we are not experiencing earthquake tremors in our own country. We have observed footage of earthquakes and learnt about tsunamis. We have learnt what Richter Scales are and we have made our own Richter Scales too! We are currently looking at building designs which will withstand earthquake tremors.

In French, we have been learning all about ordering items in a shop and we created our own ice cream shop so we could practise ordering different flavours and asking for the cost. We thoroughly enjoyed language day where we studied French culture and learnt French songs and had a visit from the Year 6 languages team to teach us all about sports in French.   

In science we have been learning all about light! We had great fun drawing round our shadows at various times during our school day to notice how the shadow not only changes in where we had to chalk round, but also the length of the shadow. Someone said it looked like our own-made sundials! One sunny afternoon we had great fun using the school's prisms to look at the light spectrum and how we could make a rainbow by moving the prism in different ways. 

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In Year 3, we have had a fantastic start to the Summer Term! In maths, we have been focussing on learning 3 and 4 multiples, multiplication and division facts.  We then launched into fractions. We can recognise fractions in shapes, we can use our knowledge to find equivalent fractions and fractions of amounts. We used many different methods to learn our fractions, however our favourite technique was in Active Maths on Fridays!

In English, we have been reading Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! We have explored a wide range of adjectives, consolidated expanding nouns and using adverbials and fronted adverbials to produce detailed character descriptions, formal letters, a diary entry, and even designed our own three course dinner chewing gum!

We had an incredible poetry week where we realised how much fun it can be to write poetry! With help from Joseph Coelho (Famous Poet and Waterstones Laureate) we learnt amazing techniques to write tongue twisters, poems with repeating lines, object poetry, shape poetry and rainbow poetry. We are all Poets now!  

In History, we have completed Prehistory by learning about the Iron Age, how it differed from the Stone Age and Bronze Age and what life was like. We have learnt about hilltop settlements, what different types of weapons and tools were used for, how the people earned a living and why the period of history became known as the Iron Age.

In Geography, we have learnt all about the country we live in. How we are apart of the United Kingdom and the other countries who join us in the United Kingdom.  We now know the difference between the UK and the British Isles. We have explored the physical and human geography of the UK investigating the locations of mountains and rivers and we have looked at what it means to be a village, town or city. We have located main cities and highlighted the capital cities of London, Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh.

    

We loved singing in the Music Sharing Assembly and we hope all our families and carers enjoyed our efforts. The ‘Pure Imagination’ song we chose, featured in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Film!

We have been enjoying taking part in running Golden Miles. Our Whole School record breaking effort was so much fun! We really supported each other and it was great to run with Beechy Bear!

We have had a fantastic term and look forward to all the learning and adventures to come next term!

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What a busy term! We have had an amazing time in Year 3! 

In science, the children have been learning all about plants, the parts and function of plants and how they grow. They carried out investigations into the conditions plants need to grow and even dissected tulips! In Science Week, the children learnt about the struggles many farmers experience in areas prone to rising floodwaters. In response to the problem, the children designed their own floating fields. They had to consider the longevity of materials used, balance, how to trap air and keep their platforms waterproof. On completion, they topped their designs with soil and cress seed and we tested their stem projects in a water tank!  We also enjoyed a visit from scientists who taught us all about the bacteria which cause illnesses. We even got to inspect germs under a microscope and make our own playdough models of germs!   

    

In Maths, the children have been learning all about 3D shapes and net shapes. Activities included recognising shapes in real life objects in and around the school, creating net shapes (which was fiddly but rewarding) and learning how to recognise and describe a 3d shape by its features. We have also been concentrating on reviewing counting in 3s and the 3 times table. We have practised a range of techniques to consolidate the tables such as making arrays, chanting by rote, times table songs, and recognising patterns. Please continue to practise the 3s at home!

In English, we have thoroughly enjoyed our alien unit! The children have been learning how to write recounts of events, how and when to use different types of conjunctions, features of a script and writing in the first person. The children saw CCTV footage of an Unidentified Flying Object crash in the playground! They considered witness accounts, expert views and emergency services actions and then completed their own news report script.

Year 3 have been transported to Ancient Egypt! They dressed up in their best Egyptian outfits in preparation for their day of learning all about the Ancient Egyptians. First up on their trip was a carousel of activities. In small groups the children made their own natron to mummify tomatoes and apples; baked Egyptian flat bread sweetened with dates and honey and they were engineers as they created their own Shadufs!  They completed the morning by cracking a hieroglyphs secret code and practising their mummy bandaging skills! In the afternoon, the children sampled a wide range native Egyptian fruits such as pomegranate, figs, mangoes and melons and dipped their warm bread in honey, just as the Ancient Egyptians did. They discovered the more gory aspects of Egyptian life through Horrible Histories and designed their own sarcophagus.  They had an incredible day and we are grateful for the parents' support in making it happen!

  

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In Maths, we have been focusing on adding and subtracting numbers using number lines and the column method. We used lots of manipulatives to help us with our larger numbers and to understand how to regroup and exchange.  We have also been looking at equal and unequal groups, repeated addition and counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s in preparation for our multiplication unit.

In English we have been reading the adventures of 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. We have supported our reading with lots of exciting written work such as writing letters as an angry farmer to The Mayor, completing diary entries as Hogarth and exploring language features in text such as similes, metaphors, alliteration and personification.   

As part of our Geography unit 'Sustainability', we embarked on a litter pick and collected rubbish from all over the school. Our Eco Warrior representatives are going to report back to our Eco Warrior Council on our findings. We discovered that plastic crisp wrappers and cling film were the most common items found, closely followed by sweet wrappers and cartons. We were shocked at how much we found in just twenty minutes. We learnt about the difference between words such as recycle and reuse and how small changes we make can have big positive impacts on the environment. 

In DT, we have been learning about the importance of good hygiene when preparing food. We designed our own posters displaying our research. 

On Fridays we spend an enjoyable ten minutes each week learning Makaton. This half term we voted to learn 'A Star Full of Stars' as we all love the Sing 2 movie! Here is a link to a video of our performance:

A sky full of stars makaton - 1.MOV (vimeo.com)

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In English, we have been exploring some of the wonderful stories by Roald Dahl. The children have been focusing on the personalities and traits of Grandma and George, the key characters from George's Marvellous Medicine. We compiled a list of adjectives to describe the characters and practised finding synonyms in the thesaurus to widen their vocabulary.  With the help of a Venn diagram, we noticed that despite the character differences, Grandma and George do have some traits in common; both are quite cunning yet both do get lonely and bored!

We've used our skimming and scanning skills to compile a list of ingredients George used in the medicine. We were then challenged to come up with our own disgusting medicine recipe using household items! Next we are looking at how imperative verbs are used in instructions and we will draft and write our own Marvellous Medicine Recipes!  

In Art, we are exploring the work of renowned painter Vincent Van Gogh. We are focussing on Van Gogh's Starry Night. We created our own interpretations of the art work using wax crayons and watercolours. Next we use an alternative technique such as using acrylics and chalk for effect.