Week Beginning 12/10/15

Literacy

In literacy this week we had fun role playing as celebrity chefs and performing cookery demonstrations inside our makeshift television. 

We have also been putting all of the writing skills we have been practising into place, with lots of extended writing. We have written our Revolting Recipes using: time and explanation conjunctions, adverbs and imperative verbs. 

We have also been looking back at our work since reception in our Special Writing books. For Special Writing week have written stories about finding a secret door. It has been amazing comparing these stories to our previous work and seeing how much we have all progressed. 

History 

In our history sessions this week, we combined our IT skills and researched important inventions, making information pages to add to our timeline. Along with our fantastic homework projects, I think you will agree, our class timeline is now looking pretty impressive. 

PE

We were also lucky enough to have another specialist PE lesson; learning how to play the fast and furious game of dodge ball. 

A special mention this week to Charlie who has completed his times table revision, learning ALL times tables and related division facts up to 12 x 12. What an achievement and inspiration! Keep collecting those stars Years 3, you can do it!

Finally, it was a pleasure to meet so many parents and carers during our first round of parent meetings. I really enjoyed discussing and sharing the many achievements made already this year. I would also like to remind those who did not manage to secure a time slot for the appointments next Wednesday, that you are welcome to make an alternative appointment at your convenience. 

Week beginning 5/10/15

Music
This week we have been continuing our work with our music specialist Miss Furnell. We have been practising all the skills we need to start playing an instrument. We are now confident with identifying different rhythms, listening to the meter and keeping steady beats. This week we had fun showing our understanding of these concepts using rhythm sticks. Next week we look forward to learning about our new instrument: the Viola.

Science 

We loved having some of the Year 5 pupils helping us with our science this week. The older children helped run activities based around our topic of forces; helping us determine the type and direction of the force and describing the behaviour of moving objects. Here are some of the activities...

The balancing clown.

Blasting rockets.  

Puff Jets.

Twirly doodles.

Training the magnetic snail. 

Thank-you Year 5!

Literacy 

We have been recapping our knowledge of time conjunctions and adverbs and learning about imperative verbs. We have been sharing ideas ready for writing our revolting recipes next week.

Numeracy

We have had a very successful week solving problems involving division. We are developing a range of techniques such as sharing and grouping, repeated subtraction and using the inverse to help us solve division problem. All of these methods can be found in the calculation policy on the school website. We are looking forward to starting a new unit shortly: fractions. 

In other news...

We really enjoyed the performance from the Image Theatre Group this week as they performed The Jungle Book. We danced and sang and some of us were even chosen to perform. 

Finally, as I am sure you are all aware, the time has come for our first parents evening of the year. I'm looking forward to meeting you all and discussing how your child has settled in to Year 3. I am aware now that all of the allotted time-slots have been filled. Please pop in if you have not managed to reserve a place and we can arrange a time that is convenient.  

Week beginning 29/09/15

This week in Year 3 the learning has been as fabulous as the weather! Let's start by having a look at what we have been learning in maths. 

Maths
We started a new unit and have made amazing progress with our mental and written methods for multiplication. We have been showing our understanding of this concept by using repeated addition, arrays and even using some informal partitioning to solve problems. We are becoming confident with our methods with multiplication so next week we will be spending more time practising division. 

Literacy
In literacy, we have finished our information reports and they are just fantastic. We have thought carefully about the structure and content and have even started writing in paragraphs. Some brilliant ideas, some amazing sentence starts and lots of extra details added using conjunctions. Superb work Year 3! 

We also played some barrier games to introduce our next writing unit: instructions. This was a lot harder than we anticipated and we really had to think hard about the language we used to help our partner; build models, copy drawings or make shapes on a peg board. 

Science
Yet again we got practical in science as we invested how to reduce a gravitational force. We observed sycamore 'helicopter' seeds and made some helicopters of our own to increase air resistance. 

PE
We took a short break from our gymnastic routines and made the most of the warm sunshine. We went outside to play some games that were likely to cause conflicts and be a little frustrating. We discussed how to be a good team player, the language we used towards each other and how to manage disappointments and frustrations when playing with others. We decided that this could help us in the playground too and we are proud to report, we all had an excellent time and did not fall out once!

Art
We have finished our work in response to the artist Patrick Caulfield and we hope you agree, our use of contrasting bold colours has produced stunning results. 

Finally, a massive well done to all of the Necton Primary School children who took part in the Harvest Celebration at the church and a big thank-you to all of  those who came all to enjoy the clebrations and show your support. All of the poems, presentations and songs sounded fantastic. 

Week beginning 21.09.15

Literacy 

This week in literacy we have been planning and designing our very own dragons ready to write our own information reports next week. Drama activities helped us pull together our research, questioning and sentence construction skills as we interviewed our expert Dragonologists for Necton Primary Channel 10 News! We have also been working on making our sentence starts more engaging for the reader. 

Maths

We have been continuing with addition and subtractions practise this week and are feeling much more confident with calculating larger numbers. We are using our partitioning knowledge to calculate using a  number line. Next week we will be moving onto multiplications and division. Well done to those who have been earning their bronze, silver and gold stars for committing their multiplication tables to memory. This knowledge will come in very useful over the next couple of weeks as we start a new unit on multiplying and dividing. Keep practising, using your chart, with those at home. 

Science
Continuing with our topic of forces, we have been experimenting how to increase a force and the affects this has. We made our own rubber band propelled paper planes releasing a burst of energy to increase the distance travelled and the speed. Look out ahead! 

PE
Fluidity, posture and control have been the key words this week in PE. We have been putting together balancing and roll routines and evaluating our performances. 

In other news...

A quick reminder that the School Book Fair is in school until Wednesday. Also, in recognition of European Day of Languages, Mrs Simm has organised a European food quiz with a £5 book token as the prize so please encourage your child to enter. I am also pleased to report that many children are achieving lots of stamps as the Read to Succeed scheme continues. It's lovely to see so many enthusiastic readers and would like to take this opportunity to thank your for your support. Reading every day at home really does make such a difference.

Finally, we look forward to seeing all those who can make it at the church on Thursday for the Harvest Festival Celebrations to enjoy a performance of songs, poems and prayers. 

Where did the week go!

We started the week with an ICT extravaganza! We used interactive balance scales to help us write balanced number sentences whilst developing our understanding of the equals sign. 

In other maths news, a welcome game of Tiddlywinks lightened a lesson of challenging mental addition and subtraction. 

We also used the I Pads to research events and inventions throughout history to add to our timelines. In literacy, we were back in the suite again reading and researching different types of dragons for our work on explanation texts. All this ICT practise made Year 3 the perfect people to be website reviewers, as we started our computing topic 'Using the Internet Efficiently and Safely'. 

Science this week was fun, as we investigated factors that increase and decrease friction. We found out the the class is quite handy with a pair of chopsticks! 

In art we have have been continuing our work with water based and water repellent materials. We have been really careful whilst using the stain Brusho! Developing our skills and technique ready for when we start our study of the artist Paul Caulfield next week.

Mysterious egg update...due to some strange wobbling and cracks appearing we have decided to seek expert advice and have written letters to the Natural History Museum in London to help us solve the mystery. The egg has been packed off and will hopefully be returned soon with some answers.  

  

Our First Week

Welcome parents, carers, friends and family to our Year 3 blog. Our class has had a fantastic start to Key Stage 2 enjoying lots of new learning opportunities. 

Music

On Monday we met Mrs Furnell our specialist music teacher. We discovered that we have a very musical year group this year, as we worked on keeping a steady beat and holding a rhythm. This is all in preparation for when we start to learn the viola in a few weeks. 

Spanish

Another new lesson for Year 3! We started off our Spanish lessons by learning how to greet people in Spanish. I'm sure if you asked them, your child would be willing to give you a performance of the 'Hola' song we have all been practising. 

Maths

In maths this week, we have been really busy partitioning numbers, adding on and taking away 1 and 100 and solving other place value problems. We have also enjoyed using lots of maths equipment to represent numbers in a variety of ways. Don't forget to practise those multiplication tables at home to earn the gold, silver and bronze award stars. 

Over the next couple of weeks we will be progressing with our adding and subtraction strategies. You can find more information about the methods used in the classroom on the school website in the calculation guide. 

Literacy

There was much excitement this week with the launch of our new reading scheme Read to Succeed. Year 3 responded with much enthusiasm, with many children enjoying lots of reading time at home and gaining lots of stamps in their home school diary. 

Finally, a mysterious discovery occurred this Friday. An enormous egg was found in the wild area abandoned by a distant time traveller! Straight away Year 3 were struck with inspiration producing some fantastic descriptive writing and some monster themed artwork. The unusual find is currently resting safely in the classroom. We are all wondering if the egg will hatch...