Week beginning 21/03/16

This week in Year 3...

Literacy

We have been finishing and editing our diary entries; writing in role as Howard Carter. During this piece of writing we have been thinking about: rich description, subtly revealing emotions in our writing and time conjunctions. 

Maths 

On an Easter theme, we have been solving different problems, which include working systematically and finding all possibilities. 

History

We have concluded our 'Ancient Times' topic by learning about some of the many ancient Egyptian gods. Also, We have creating our own ancient Egyptian cyber hunts in ICT including all of our new knowledge that we have learnt. 

Art 

We completed our art pieces working in the style of Antony Gormley. This involved thinking about the space and perspective regarding how to position our figures to create an interesting and stunning effect whilst capturing photographs. We enjoyed using both digital cameras and iPads to take photographs from interesting angles.

Happy Easter everybody! Thank-you all for your hard work this term and I look forward to seeing everybody on Monday April 11th refreshed and ready to go!

Week Beginning 14/03/16

Hello! Welcome to another Year 3 weekly blog. We are racing through the spring term with another week packed full of challenges and learning. 

Literacy 

In literacy this week, we have been spending a lot of time empathising. We now know that this means thinking about how others are feeling. We have been learning about the life of local archaeologist Howard Carter and his excavation of the Valley of the Kings. We have been imagining what it must of been like making one of the most important discoveries about ancient Egypt of all time: Tutankhamen's tomb. We have heard about the troubles plaguing the dig and identified different thoughts, feelings and emotions, getting ready to write in role when we re-create is diary entries. 

Maths

In maths we have been continuing with our money skills. We are confident recognising different coins and solving problems involving money. We are now adding up our shopping bills and working out the change. 

Science

We had a very exciting week in science, as we created our very own rainbows. We discovered that white light is actually made up of a spectrum of colours which can be split up when passing light through certain materials. It was tricky setting  everything up but when we found our rainbows we were very excited! Ask us to explain how we did it. 

History

In history this week, we researched how important the river Nile was to the ancient Egyptians and how the farming seasons changed throughout the years because of it. Lucia won the 'Wonderful Work' certificate this week for her fantastic explanation of the three farming seasons: Akhet, Peret and Shemu.

In other news...

We all enjoyed celebrating and raising money for Sports Relief this week. We dressed in our favourite sports gear, donated money to charity, ran a mile and worked together in teams to design our own new team game involving giant balloons and hoops. 

Week Beginning 7.03.16

This blog for this week is by Bethanie.

Maths

In maths this week, we have been starting  our unit on fractions. We have been ordering and comparing fractions and looking at how big the are. It got tricky when the numerator and the denominator weren't the same. We found a very clever trick that was when the numerator is closer to the denominator, it means that the fraction is closer to a whole. 

Literacy

In literacy this week we have been looking at the Egyptian Creation Story. We looked at different animations of it. We retold the story orally, created a comic and completed a written version focusing on time adverbials and conjunctions. Some people had a go at creating  their own! It was super fun and we also compared different versions of it. We wished we could do it again! We looked at how we have improved and Miss Palmer said our writing was amazing and is becoming a  very high quality.

History

In history, we have been learning more about Ancient Egypt. We went to the computer suite to research about the different gods and Miss Palmer re-created the mummification process on Iwan! We completed created a 'How to Make a Mummy' fact sheet. We learned about hieroglyphic and had a go at writing secret messages.  

Art and Science

We had another lesson that was a mixture of subjects again this week. In science we have been investigating how a shadow is formed, we looked at the different shadows of opaque, translucent and transparent materials. We also designed an experiment to investigate what affects the size and shape of a shadow. 

Finally, we created shadow profiles of ourselves. Can you guess who we are? 

Music

In music we have been looking at where the notes go on the piece of paper when reading music. We learned that a crochet is worth one beat and a minim is worth two beats. When we say 'worth' we mean how long you hold it for. For example, a minim has to be held on for two beats, and a crochet has to be hold on for one beat. It was tricky but we really enjoyed it!

Finally, well done to Sam for achieving his silver merit badge and Bethany her bronze. Also, to Ben for receiving the Sportasaurus reward for good teamwork. 

  

Week Beginning 29.03.16

This weeks blog is by Bethanie and Gemma.

Maths

In maths this week, we have been subtracting using different methods and deciding which method is best for certain problems. We have been subtracting using number lines, by counting on or counting back. We have also been rounding and adjusting the numbers. It was quite tricky deciding which was the best method for each different question, but practicing helped us find the method which worked the best.

We have also been working on our problem solving skills. We looked at the layout of a hopscotch game and looked for patterns and sequences. We found that the three times table appeared a lot. We used our knowledge to predict the number of a certain square further along the in the sequence. 

Literacy

In Literacy we have been learning about homophones and explaining what they are. Also, for world book day, we researched our top fives. Such as: favorite book characters, authors and illustrators. Also, for the first time, we were introduced to simple past and perfect present tense. Even our maths that day was themed on the book 'Esio Trot' by Roald Dahl!

Science

In science this week, we have been looking at the dangers of the sun and discussing how we can stay save in the sun. We mixed our science work with literacy and have been writing explanations (using scientific language) explaining the dangers of U.V light. The U.V light is an invisible light to us, but we can still feel the strong, sometimes harmful rays. We explained how to stay safe and even designed our own sunglasses. 

 Art

In art this week we have been looking at sun sets and silhouettes  and designing our own based in a sandy Egyptian desert. We chose translucent material so the sun would shine through the colours but be blocked out by the opaque, black, silhouettes.  Then we laminated them. We found it interesting and we tried not to blow off other people's tissue paper! We found it very fun and wanted to do more!

 In other news...

It was fantastic to see so much effort put into the colourful and imaginative World Book Day costumes. We all enjoyed the opportunity to dress as our favourite character and celebrate books with some book themed activities. Well done to Finn and Charlotte for being the class winners for their Willy Wonker and Cinderella's evil stepmother costumes. We all enjoyed guessing who each member of the class was from their intriguing clues. 

Another well done to those who gained their bronze, silver or gold merit awards this week. What a lot of hard work and what an achievement! 

 

Week Beginning 22/02/16

This is the 3P class blog by Bethanie and Imogen.

 Maths

In maths this week, we have been adding amounts of money and calculating missing numbers. We found it tricky when we crossed the tens barrier and when we had to add up really big numbers. Even though it was tricky, it was very fun and we got used to it once we practised.

Literacy

We really enjoyed literacy because we all worked really hard. We were writing our own adverts using persuasive language. We had to make really boring objects sound like they are the best in the world! We performed our adverts to the class.

We also did some special writing which was based on instructions about catching different creatures like giant griffins or cupboard goblins and dinosaurs. It was good to show all the skills we had learnt.

Science

In science, we have been working on light and dark. We have been telling the differences between them and looking at how reflecting light behaves. We have also been learning about where the light is coming from (source) before it reflects onto the  mirror into our eyes.

History

In history, we have been learning about the Egyptians  and where Egypt  is in Africa. We also learnt different places in that country. We have been learning about how successful they were. We were quite sad when our Ancient Greek topic ended but are happy to start our Ancient Egypt topic.

Music

In music we have been learning how to read a few notes on the viola. We learnt about crochets and minims which are music notes. We learnt about calypso music and learnt the song 'Rain on the Green Grass' which we then played on the viola. Ask us to tell you what the different is between a beat, rhythm and metre!

Art
We have been doing some sculpting in art this week. We have been working in response to the artist Antony Gormly. We discussed his work and created our own figures in the style of his piece 'A Field for Britain'. We liked at although all of the figures looked the same from a distance they all have their own unique differences. 

In other news...

Year 3 received  lots of certificates in our wonderful work assembly on Friday. Well done to Erin for achieving her 5m swimming certificate. 

This week we had two head teachers awards in Year 3! Fantastic effort girls!

Finally, don't forget World Book Day this coming Thursday. The fancy dress challenge is on! Come as your favourite book character complete with 3 clues as to who you are. Prizes for the best costume and clues. 

  

Week Beginning 8/09/16

What a collection of performing super stars we have in Year 3! Thank-you to all who came to our class assembly this week. The children were clearly very excited and proud to present their learning to the school and those at home. A fantastic performance by all, well done!

Maths
In maths this week, we added a Chinese twist to our current unit on shape by tackling Tangram puzzles in celebration of Chinese new year on Monday. It took lots of perseverance but we decided it was very rewarding when we finally achieved success!

We have also been busy describing and classifying 3D shapes by their proprieties and we even had a go at making some 2D shapes using peg boards, and making 3D shape using; straws and pipe cleaners, clix and polydrhon. 

History
In history, we have been learning about the clothes of ancient Greece and making some ancient Greek style jewelry. We also had a tasting session, trying some of the foods that would have been available at the time of the accent Greek rule. Such as: figs, feta cheese, honey cakes and olives. Our favourites were the honey cakes and cheese but only a few of us liked the olives!

Well done to Necton Primary quiz team for coming second in the cluster quiz event. Finally, thank-you to FOSA for arranging the valentines disco. We all had a fantastic time! 

Enjoy the break and we look forward to seeing everybody again on the 22nd of February. 

Week beginning 1/02/16

What an exciting week! 

Monday started with another team challenge in the form of a general knowledge quiz. Well done to all the children who were brave enough to sit in front of the school and have their knowledge put to the test. An extra special well done to Barnardo for coming first! 

The Year 3/4 golf team were out on Tuesday competing against other local schools, finishing an impressive 3rd in their competition. Well done team Necton!

Much fun was had by all as we enjoyed a visit from the travelling theatre group Artefacts, performing their production 'Dig it'. Some of Year 3 were even chosen to help act on stage. It was also an honour to be part of the national Sign2Sing day on Friday; raising money for charity by singing and signing.  

Literacy 

This week we have been learning how to start sentences using adverbs, adverbial phrases and fronted adverbials. We have been applying our new skills as we wrote the introduction and build up to our very own versions of The Odyssey by Homer.

Maths 

Maths has been all about shape this week. We have focused on 2D shapes, extending our knowledge of different quadrilaterals and describing shapes by their properties. We have even had a go at drawing them, making shape logic puzzles and 'what am I games'. We have also been identifying angles that are smaller or larger than a right angle.

History/Art

We are really enjoying our topic on ancient Greece, as we continued this week by looking at the artistic city state of Athens. We created mosaics, frescoes and jewelry that depict symbols that were important to the ancient Greeks. 

Also, we are having a fantastic response to the Greek homework challenge. Here are just a few of the creative examples that have arrived so far.

In other news, it was lovely see so many parents and carers at the parents evening last Wednesday. I really enjoy the opportunity to share the progression and achievements of this fantastic class and look forward to seeing more of you next Thursday. Also on Thursday, is our class assembly. Come and see what we have been up to this half term as we celebrate our learning with drama and song! Finally, don't forget the valentines disco on Friday 12th Of February, tickets are still available at break times.