Year 3 Blog

Week Commencing Monday 19th April

We will be beginning our new topic 'Ancient Greece'.  This has previously been taught in Year 4, but luckily for us, has now been moved into Year 3 as it is such a fascinating period of history. We'll begin by looking at a time line so that the children can learn how long ago this was, and understand when it happened compared to the Romans and other key historical periods.  

This week, we will also be:

• Beginning our Design and Technology food unit of work about Greek Salads, initially looking at and comparing the concept of recipes.
• Introducing our new book Myth Atlas for English.  Over the next 3 to 4 weeks, we will be learning about Greek Myths and writing our own.  This is a gorgeous book, about myths around the world, and this week we will have fun exploring it; reading Greek myths, acting them out; talking about what we like and don't like about them; finding similarites and differences between different myths; and generally getting to grips with the concept of a myth.
• Staring our science topic about forces by planning a fair test to investigate the force required to push and pull objects on different surfaces.
• Building upon our learning of fractions from before Easter. After a recap to remind ourselves of last half term's learning, we will be focusing on tenths (as a fraction ,decimal, and counting in tenths)
• Spellings: This week's spelling pattern is adding the pre-fix 're-'

do                   redo        

write               rewrite        

play                 replay      

build               rebuild                

arrange          rearrange

appear           reappear

The 6 words from the Year 3, 4 list are: experiment, extreme, famous, February, forwards, fruit.

Week Commencing 29th March

(Last week before Easter Holidays)

During this week, we:

• Finished our review of the Year 2 fraction learning which children missed last year due to the Summer lockdown.  There is a PDF below which is the end of unit questions & these will show you what your child should now know.  After Easter we will continue to be learning about fractions - more detail to come in the weekly sections!
• Completed our 'Rough Guide to the Amazon writing - the children have worked incredibly hard on this, and if they didn't bring it home at the end of the week, they will be bringing it home after Easter!
• Came to the end of our Science learning about rocks and fossils - we completed an 'Escape from the Cave' challenge to check how much we'd learnt.
• Spellings:  adding the suffix 'ian'

  root word	root word + suffix -ian
  magic	magician
  electric	electrician
  music	musician
  optic	optician

Y3,4 spelling list words:  earth, eight, eighth, enough, exercise, experience

What we'll be doing till Easter:

• investigating Amazonian animals and their habitats
• creating diary entries, info fact boxes and formal e-mails
• consolidating fractions of shapes and quantities
• probing into the drainage qualities of different types of soil via a fair test
• delving into Judaism and its celebrations
• And of course, the usual weekly curriculum curiosities! 

Please encourage your child to feel free to jump in further with their learning! Join them!

Week Commencing 22nd March 2021

• In Science this week, we are testing how long it takes water to drain through different soil types.  We will be planning a fair test and making sure that we can use a stop watch !
• We are refreshing previous learning about prepositions to describe where we found our new animal in the Amazon Rainforest and we will be having a lesson linked to our individual targets.  We're then beginning to write our own Chapter of the Rough Guide to the Amazon, beginning with a fact file about the animal we found. Below you will find pages from the book and examples of prepositions.
• In Maths we are learning about unit and non-unit fractions. Whilst we won't be using the White Rose videos to teach with in school, they are linked below in case you find them helpful to know what we are covering.

This week, we have explored the school with our rainforest goggles on.

• We observed how our school grounds have similarities and differences with a rainforest. Also, how maps show different things. Can your child remember the capital cities of South American countries?
• We have been studying the book, 'Rainforest Rough Guide' (which has diary writing, fact boxes and formal e-mails) where an intrepid explorer has been funded to observe the jungle and to see how animals, plants and tribes are being affected by human activities. Also, what is the level of threat. Will they become extinct? What can we do to save the rainforest?
• Maths has been investigating the make up of a fraction (1/2, 1/4, 1/3, etc) both of shapes and of a quantity.
• Great fun was had getting stuck into soil and seeing the different types and their drainage qualities.

Squirrels Christmas Video

https://st-leonards-primary-school.primarysite.media/media/squirrels-christmas-song

Hedgehog Christmas song 

https://st-leonards-primary-school.primarysite.media/media/3-hedgehogs-christmas-song-2020

Moles Christmas video
https://st-leonards-primary-school.primarysite.media/media/y3-moles
 

Moles earn raffle tickets for good work, behaviour, school values, etc. They put their tickets into a golden box ready for the Friday draw! The winner gets a choice of a lollipop, a chewy sweet or Lego cards. All the other accumulated tickets are rolled up individually and placed in a jar. When the jar is full, a whole class treat is won.

You will be proud to know that by an overwhelming majority, the children voted for den building instead of computer time! No recounts or legal disruptions needed, out we went!

20.11.20

Year 3 Squirrels had an enjoyable chocolate enrichment day. They enjoyed sharing their stories with one another and then with the other classes in Year 3.  They created some wonderful designs for their own chocolate bars and even their own inventing rooms.  We had smarties that never loose their taste and everlasting chocolate fountains. The children also enjoyed watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Here are some photos.