Year Three
Hello and welcome to Year 3.
Spring 2 2024
In Science week, Year 3 looked at how boats have changed over time. They had fun making sailing boats and working out how they move. Some of them took the challenge and went on to make paddle boats too.
They also had a workshop run by Dr Bayliffe who came to talk about science and the children loved the chemistry experiments!
In English, we have been working hard to write stories.
In Design and Technology, Year 3 have been learning about the function of a switch and how it can be used to control a circuit. They applied this knowledge to making an alien spacecraft that has a light that turns on and off.
The class had fun on World Book Day and some of them came dressed as a character from a book.
The whole class were very brave and stood up, presenting their information about the alien that they'd designed and made at home. They were impressive and so many of them learnt what is needed to be a public speaker. They were learning to give one another constructive feedback too. Well Done Year 3 - we were very proud of you!
Year 3 had an amazing result at the local speed stacking competition with both boys and girls teams doing exceptionally well. The boys triumphed, coming in 1st place!
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Spring 1 2024
Year 3 have greatly enjoyed reading the adventure story, The Ice Palace. The wonderfully rich language in this book was used as inspiration for writing their own poems (based on the five senses in cold environments) and also for writing their own short adventure story. The children have tried to include similes, just like the author did too!
As part of this learning, the children made a 'freeze-frame' to show what it might have been like for the characters in the story.
To end this half-term, they have read wintry poems and identified where they included alliteration (where the same letter or sound is used at the beginning of words). The children have used alliteration to write tongue-twisters using the first letter of their own name.
In geography, the children worked in groups to research one of the countries of the United Kingdom. They first presented the facts as a poster. The following week each group presented their poster to the class and told us what they had discovered. We made top trumps cards using information we had researched online about rivers in the U.K.
Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed Number Day. They dressed up for digits and had fun playing number games.
In Science, Year 3 have been learning about rocks and fossils. They learnt how fossils are formed and had the chance to make their own dinosaur fossil.
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Autumn 2 2023
In English, the children have been gripped by the adventure story ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Huges. The story lends itself well to a variety of writing genres. The children have created character descriptions, written formal letters and completed a diary entry. They have had many opportunities to improve their work through practising uplevelling techniques. For this unit, we have specifically focussed on improving our writing presentation including doing our best to use the the correct size and shape of letters, joining and using finger spaces. Mrs Field our English lead, even came especially to visit us and praise the improvements she had observed in our work. Well done Year 3!
Year 3 thoroughly enjoyed a Christmas themed art workshop recently with artist Murial Hedgecock @theyoungartist. The children were taught how to use light, shadow and reflection to stimulate a 3D effect. Their beautiful snow globes looked good enough to sell in a shop! The children loved the experience and it was wonderful to hear their enthusiastic feedback when they discussed all that they had learnt.
This term the children have been learning all about key food groups, balanced diets, healthy eating and hygienic food preparation concluding in the design and making of a healthy sandwich. They have researched their favourite sandwich fillings; communicated their ideas through discussion, annotated sketches and cross-sectional diagrams; understood and applied the principles of a healthy and varied diet and finally, they’ve chosen the ingredients and prepared a sandwich using a range of food preparation techniques. For example, they’ve learnt which tools are used for which purpose and the correct way to cut foods safely and effectively.
Year 3 have now completed their Autumn Term swimming course at Westminster Lodge Pool. It has been amazing to see their confidence and ability grow in the water each week. Each child has made great strides in swimming and they should feel very proud of their achievements. They are all sad that the course is over and we hope that they continue to swim regularly outside of school to keep up their swimming skills!
The class have shown off their performing abilities in multiple performances this term from the Harvest Assembly to singing ‘When I grow up’ from Matilda the Musical and singing and signing the christmas carol ‘Silent Night’ in the KS2 Christmas Sharing Assembly. Those children who wanted a stand out role on all these occasions were given it and everybody has had a chance to shine and shine they all did! We are immensely proud of all the children and we think they are magnificent performers!
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Autumn 1 2023
Year 3 have had a great start to the school year. They are working hard to establish their class rules and expectations now they are in the upper end of the school and the children are really enjoying being in KS2 and the new responsibilities and challenges it brings.
The children are loving our History topic 'Stone Age to Iron Age'! We have enthusiastically delved into texts in English and Guided Reading such as ‘The Stone Age Boy’ and ‘The Boy with the Bronze Axe’ to bring this huge area of pre-history to life through vivid narration! So far the children have been fascinated by the discovery of palaeolithic cave paintings, Mesolithic tools and Neolithic settlements such as Skara Brae. They have a clear understanding of changes that occurred over time and we are very proud of their knowledge and recall to date.
Year 3 are thoroughly enjoying their French lessons this year. We began with a little introduction to France and its language, finding France on a map of Europe and learning some fascinating facts about where else in the world people speak French. I wonder if your children can remember how many countries speak French as their national language. (The answer is 29!) And did you know that France shares a border with 8 different countries? No, we didn't either! We learnt how to say the name of France's capital city and its flag and colours in French, we learnt how to greet each other in French and ask how others are feeling and reply with a suitable response.
In Art the children are learning all about Van Gogh. We discovered Van Gogh was keen to develop his skill at drawing portraits and as he was a shy person, he often looked in a mirror and painted himself. We completed a portrait of Van Gogh adopting his painting and drawing technique of using small flourishes of brush strokes. After this, we studied his painting of ‘Starry Night’ and discovered this beautiful view was actually what he could see between the bars of a mental hospital he was a patient in. The children worked on producing their own ‘Starry Night using pencils and watercolour.
In Maths, we began the year consolidating our knowledge of place value ensuring we know the place and value of each digit in a 3 digit number. We used dienes, counters and place value charts to support us in our learning. We have rounded numbers to the nearest ten and hundred and looked at a variety of different mental addition and subtraction techniques to help us solve calculations. Currently, we are looking at formal column method, estimation and inverse operations.
We are now looking ahead to the second Autumn Term excited to launch our new Geography and D&T projects and explore new English texts and Maths units.
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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.
