Friday 6th December 2024

This Week's Learning

For many of the mornings this week the children have been hard at work completing assessments, however on Monday morning we were treated to a visit from a Geologist who shared her wealth of knowledge with us about rocks and volcanoes. The children absolutely loved the mock volcano explosion in the playground and were excited to handle various rocks she had brought in.                     

In RE the children discussed their understanding of faith and how that is connected to making promises. They have also a had great fun creating 'zines' mini booklets and used them to showcase their learning on Ancient Egypt.

Next Week's Learning

Next week the children will be having the opportunity to do some free writing and will be learning about fossils in science. We will be starting our new unit in maths which is multiplication and division.

Next week 3J will be swimming on Thursday. Forest School is still cancelled.

Keep warm and well,

The Year 3 Team

Friday 29th November 2024

This Week's Learning

This week in our RE learning, the children thought about whether God still makes covenants with Christians today and looked at the Christian marriage promises and what they mean. In english, they verbally described the setting before and during the eruption from Christina Balit's book 'Escape from Pompeii', before moving onto amalgamating their ideas into shared pieces of writing.

Our science learning on rocks and soils this week was through some practical investigations. The children tested different rocks for durability and looked in detail at their composition before finally naming them as either, sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous. They also tested the drainage of clay and sandy soils and thought about how the make up of these soils affected this. 

Next Week's Learning

Next week we will be assessing what the children have learnt this term. In History we will be making Ziggurats as part of our learning about cradles of civilisation and in Geography the children will be learning about active, dormant and extinct volcanoes.

3B will be swimming next Thursday but Forest School is still cancelled due to Mr Woods continuing to convalesce.

Please be aware that Tuesday 17th December 6pm is the KS2 Carol Service at All Saints Church on The Green. We would love to see as many children as possible there so do please put this date in your diarys. It is a lovely occasion which really does set the mood for Christmas!

The Year 3 Team

Friday 22nd November 2024

This Week's Learning

This week the children have started to explore Christina Balit's book 'Escape from Pompeii. They have drawn their own story maps and added rich vocabulary around them in order to 'magpie' from when writing their own pieces.

Their learning in geography and science has greatly helped their understanding of the capacity of a volcano for destruction and they have been fascinated to learn that the burying of Pompeii by the explosion of Vesuvius was a real life event. In science the children learnt about the Rock Cycle and in geography they labelled the different parts of a volcano using technical language. The children always look forward to times table Fridays, mostly because they get to play the 'Hit the Button' times tables interactive game. It is a great way to encourage fluency in times tables and the children love the competition between groups.

Next Week's Learning

Next week in science the children will be investigating rocks and soils through practical tasks. They will be thinking about covenants in RE, leading on from their learning about Noah and God's promise to him in the Bible story. In english they will be contributing their ideas to some shared writing to prepare them for writing their own piece the following week. We will be finishing our unit of work in maths on addition and subtraction and looking at estimating and making decisions about which calculation to use when answering word questions.

Next week 3B will be doing Forest School on Tuesday and 3J will be swimming on Thursday.

Have a lovely weekend and stay warm!

The Year 3 Team

Friday 15th November 2024

This Week's Learning

It was 3B's turn to have Forest School this week and they were lucky enough to have some lovely sunshine to accompany their outdoor learning. The children enjoyed a well earned cup of hot chocolate at the end of their session, it always tastes better outside!

Our poetry learning culminated at the end of this week by the children writing their own volcano poems and performing them to their class.

In computing the children were introduced to animation through making 'flick' books. They really loved seeing their drawings move as they flicked through the pages.

Next Week's Learning

We begin new learning in english as we use the book by Christina Balit 'Escape from Pompeii'. We will be introducing the theme by watching an immersive animated video clip which charts the course of the eruption as scientists believe it actually happened. There are some dramatic parts and so we are including the link here so that if you wish, you can watch it prior to us showing the children and if you feel your child might be sensitive to any of the contents, please put a note in their Contact Book and we can make sure they are not in the room when it is shown: 

https://youtu.be/dY_3ggKg0Bc

Next week 3J will be having Forest School on Tuesday and 3B will be swimming on Thursday.

 The Year 3 Team

Friday 8th November 2024

We hope you were all able to take advantage of the half term break and enjoyed the drier weather. The children have just about readjusted to the school day schedule and it has been good to be learning together again.

This Week's Learning

This term in english we are exploring Performance Poetry and the children had great fun watching the author and broadcaster Michael Rosen perform some of his work. They took inspiration  from him as they thought about how they might incorporate some Performance Poetry features into their own readings of poems.

We started off the term in maths where we had left off before the break by practicing exchanging in addition and subtraction calculations. The children used concrete manipulatives so that they could see exactly how and why the exchanging works. 

We have begun our learning in science and Geography on Rocks, Soils & Fossils and Volcanoes. The children were amazed to learn that the earth's core reaches a temperature of 5,500 degrees celsius!

Our PE this term is Dance which takes place in the inside hall.

Next Week's Learning

Next week our maths learning continues to cement knowledge of exchanging in subtraction calculations. In english the children will be using vocabulary and features from a published author's poem about a volcano in order to write their own versions which they will eventually perform. We start our RE learning on Christianity on the theme of 'People of God' and will be looking at the make up of the Bible.

Next week 3B will be doing Forest School on Tuesday ( Brooke and Warren in the morning and Forest and Ghyll in the afternoon).

3J will be swimming on Thursday afternoon.

Also, we have the Scholastic Book Fair in school. Your child will have had the opportunity to choose some books on Monday of next week and will bring home the form for you then to be able to purchase if you wish to.

One last plea! As we have now moved into the winter uniform season, could you please encourage our child to learn how to tie their own tie! It is impossible and not a good use of time for teachers to be tying many children's ties after PE, swimming or Forest School. Many thanks for your help with this!

The Year 3 Team

Friday 25th October 2024

At the beginning of the week the children practiced reciting their versions of the 'Gentle Giant' story to one another in preparation for their writing later in the week. The pairings were helpful as the children were able to learn from each other as well as practicing essential speaking and listening skills.

In History, the learning was all about what the ancient Egyptians believed about death and the children had great fun acting out the process of mummification!

In science the children used their data of heights and foot lengths to create a bar chart in order to see the information more clearly. They were able to write simple conclusions from the data they had collected and so answer the investigation question; 'Does the tallest child in the class also have the longest feet?' They found that there was a general trend and that the taller you are the bigger feet you tend to have also.

Next Term

Next term Year 3 will be starting Forest School on Tuesdays. 3J will be starting this on the very first day back to school next term. The following week will be 3B's turn. The children will be doing this in their House Groups with Brook and Warren in the morning and Ghyll and Forest in the afternoon. Swimming will continue on Thursdays with 3B swimming in the first week back.  PE continues to be on a Tuesday when the children are not involved in Forest School.

Please see our Year 3 area of the curriculum page for information on our teaching in term 2: https://www.fermorschool.org.uk/year-3/

Have a lovely restful break

The Year 3 Team

Friday 18th October 2024

This Week's Learning

In science the children learnt about how to keep their bones healthy and how bones grow. As part of this learning we posed a question for them to investigate: 'Does the tallest person in the class also have the longest feet?' The children thought about how they were going to carry out the investigation and the first activity was to measure their right foot. We then measured each child's height and next week we will collect the data and put it into a bar chart. The children also completed their Christmas card designs which will go to print very soon for you to have in good time to write before Christmas! We also enjoyed sharing the children's home learning together

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Next Week's Learning

Next week the children will be completing their studies of 'Mountains' in geography by looking at the Snowdonia mountain range. They will be thinking about what they think is important about the Christian story of creation in RE and in english they will be co-authoring a version of Michael Morpurgo's 'Gentle Giant'.

Next week 3J will be swimming on Thursday

Have a restful weekend

The year 3 Team

Friday 11th October 2024

This Week's Learning

The highlight of this week has been our D.T. learning as the children designed, made and evaluated their fruit tarts. They practiced chopping, slicing, grating and peeling skills and thought about the aesthetics of their tarts to make them pleasing to look at.

This week the children also enjoyed story mapping 'Gentle Giant' by Michael Morpurgo and in maths they were learning how to apply their number bond knowledge to addition and subtraction calculations.

Next Week's Learning

In science next week the children will be learning about bones as part of our unit on Animals including Humans - the Skeleton and Nutrition. In history they will be continuing to learn about the Ancient Egyptians and in particular what they believed about death.

Next week 3B will be swimming on Thursday afternoon. 

The Year 3 Team                                                                       

Friday 4th October 2024

This Week's Learning

We are very pleased with the children's writing which culminated our learning based on the Egyptian Cinderella story. Much of the vocabulary we have been teaching was evident in their narratives and the use of paragraphs was also seen.

In maths the children had the opportunity to show what they have learnt through a mini test on the Place Value topic. A highlight of our week has been starting our D.T. learning on understanding where food comes from around the world and what seasonal foods are. This week we learnt about food miles and seasonal produce of the UK. The children practiced cutting and grating skills and tasted British seasonal fruits in preparation for desiging and making a fruit tart next week.

Next Week's Learning

We start a new text in english which is Michael Morpurgo's 'The Gentle Giant'. This is a story with a clear structure and fairytale type narrative and we hope the children will engage well with it. The children will be making their fruit tarts at the end of next week and they will be bringing them home to eat on Thursday. In maths, we start our new topic which is Addition and Subtraction.

Next week 3J will be swimming on Thursday

Enjoy the slightly drier weather over the weekend!

The Year 3 Team

Friday 27th September 2024

This Week's Learning

In maths, the children started to use number lines in order to learn the concept of a whole and equal parts and to practice counting on and backwards in different amounts. Many found this challenging and we will endeavour to give more time in the future to this skill so that the children can become more familar with it, as it is a helpful way to cement their sense of many important mathematical concepts.

We discussed the question 'If God created the world to be good what do Christians believe about why things go wrong?' in our RE learning this week. Many children contributed to a very thoughtful discussion, as you can see from the many post-it notes around the question below.

Our topic in science of Animals including Humans, Nutrition and the Body, this week, was all about skeletons. The children learnt about different types of skeletons and grouped species according to their type.

Next Week's Learning

Next week, the children will be writing their own version of 'The Egyptian Cinderella' and will finish the Place Value unit of work in maths. In History, we will be looking at how Egypt changed over time and we will be starting our DT unit of work on using seasonal food. Next week, we will be looking at where food comes from around the world and handling foods in preparation for making a seasonal fruit tart the following week. The fruits we will be using will be: apples; pears; plums; blackberries and rhubarb. Please let the class teacher know if your child has any allergies to these foods, we may also be handling pastry.

Please see the Home Learning, Additional Task section of the class page for the new additional homework task.

The Year 3 Team

Friday 20th September 2024

Another full week of learning has flown by! We are enjoying developing relationships with your children and we hope your children are feeling more settled.

This Week's Learning

This week the children used the beautiful illustrations and language from our english book 'The Egyptian Cinderella' to develop expanded noun phrases to describe.

In science, we continued to think about what makes up a healthy diet and the children created their own meal plates, making sure they had included all the food groups needed in order to eat healthily.

A highlight of our week was a visit from Mr James who showed the children a video and talked about his hike up Ben Nevis with his wife and family. As well as adding another dimension to our learning on mountains, it is an extraordinary story of healing and highlights the work of the Air Ambulance. Mr James' wife was involved in an accident and needed the intervention of an Air Ambulance crew in order to save her life. When she recovered, out of gratitude for what they had received, Mr and Mrs James decided to hike the tallest mountain in Britain to raise money for this crucial service, which runs on charitable donations only. You can also watch the video here, but please do watch the whole video through first, as there are some parts showing Mr James' wife's recovery which maybe upsetting for your child to see. We did not show these parts in school.

Next Week's Learning

In science we will be learning about skeletons and in Geography we will be learning about mountain ranges. The children will be involved in shared writing and internalising the plot structure of our book the 'Egyptian Cinderella'. In maths we will be continuing our Place Value unit by using number lines to see patterns and relationships between numbers.

Next Thursday 26th September 3J will be swimming

The Year 3 Team

Friday 13th September 2024

This Week's Learning

In maths the children have been working with number lines and partitioning numbers to 100. We encouraged them to use manipulatives to help them see how a whole can be divided up into parts.

We took advantage of some dry weather to explore our beautiful grounds as part of the RE lesson in which the children were learning about what Christians believe about how God created the world. Our enquiry question this term in RE is 'What do Christians learn from the creation story?'

At the end of the week, the children made their sketch book pages look like old Egyptian papyrus paper by using tea bags and coffee. They then chose from a number of Egyptian drawings and patterns to make their own Egyptian style art.

Next Week's Learning

In maths we continue our Place Value unit and will be looking at 100's and representing and partitioning numbers to 1000. We will continue using the Egyptian Cinderella story to inspire the children. Their tasks next week will be to understand the structure of the story which will build upon their story maps and summaries they completed this week.

Important Dates

Swimming starts on a Thursday afternoon. The classes will alternate so each class will swim every other week.

Next week 19th September 3B will swim.

Thank you to those of you who have kindly offered to help with swimming. We will will be in touch in due course to confirm when we would like you help.

Please do take a look at the 'Welcome to Year 3' presentation if you didn't manage to make it to the 'Meet the Teacher' session on Thursday morning this week. You can find it by clicking on the 'Presentations' icon on our class page.

The Year 3 team

Friday 6th September 2024

This Week's Learning

We want to congratulate the children for settling back to school life and being attentive and ready to learn. They hopefully slept well for you this week because the first week back is particularly tiring for them as they adjust back to the expectations and schedule of the school day, as well as getting to know their new teachers and classroom environments.

The children have had fun playing team building games that encourage the essential skills of listening, taking turns, and communication in order to solve problems. In maths, they have been using manipulatives, which are counters and Base 10 dienes, to help them explore Place Value. This is essential understanding that the children need to in order to access the rest of the maths curriculum. We also used the outside space of the playground for some active learning involving a times table relay race and the use of chalks to draw Place Value grids and then compare numbers with other groups.

In RHE and art the children practised using a growth mind set to persevere when drawing several drafts of a butterfly. They learnt how to be better learning partners through giving each other specific, kind and useful feedback.

Next Week's Learning

Next week we will be continuing to learn about Place Value in maths through looking at partitioning and representing numbers. In RE we are starting our learning answering the question 'What do Christians learn from the Creation story?' Our science nutrition learning will be about food diaries and we will be continuing the History and Geography topics of Ancient Egyptians and Mountains. We will also have some more time to share the wonderful home learning that the children have brought in to show. 

Important Information

Next Thursday 12th September at 9 - 9.30am you will have the opportunity to come into school and meet Mrs Burton and Mrs Jeffs to learn more about Year 3 and ask any questions you may have. We look forward to seeing you then.

Have a restful weekend.

The Year 3 Team