Year 3

December 2020

Wow, what an exciting half-term Year 3 have had! They have all done so well with their learning.

We started the new half-term at the start of November with a Stone Age day. We were really grateful to the Red House for coming into school to demonstrate Stone Age musical instruments and to help the children to do some beautiful Stone Age drawings. Everyone also enjoyed getting messy with some cave painting and jewellery making.

I was blown away by everyone’s half-term projects (either making volcanoes or models of the planet). Having so many volcanoes meant that we were able to create our own Ring of Fire on the field and watch many explosive eruptions. After studying earthquakes, the children designed and built their own earthquake-resistant buildings, many of which withstood a violent shaking!

In Maths, we’ve been learning about addition and subtraction, including the use of the column method for adding and subtracting larger numbers (up to 3 digits). I’ve been really impressed by the speed with which the children have picked up their 3 times table. Thank you for your support with using Times Tables Rockstars at home – it really does make a difference. Many of the children have been keen to practise this at school and so have attended lunch time clubs to do this. Please continue to support your child to revise and remember facts from the 2, 3 and 5 times tables to aid fluency.

In Science, Year 3 became petrologists as they investigated rock samples and then made their own igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks from chocolate. Not surprisingly, this was a really popular activity! They performed their own experiments on various soil samples and made some very convincing fossils.

In English, we enjoyed the class book Pebble in my Pocket which supported our learning in Science and Geography. The children loved hearing George’s Marvellous Medicine and were delighted and surprised one day by a visit from Grandma herself (although she was extremely grumpy!). This gave rise to some excellent acting as the children took on the roles of George or Grandma and they used some really interesting adjectives, alliteration and similes in writing based on the book. Thank you for your continued support with daily reading and learning spellings at home – it makes a huge difference to the children’s progress with reading and writing. Handwriting has continued to be a focus this half-term - the children are making good progress with their joined writing.

I would like to congratulate all the children on their immense achievements this term. As you can see (photos are shown below), they have been extremely busy and are probably looking forward to a well-deserved rest over the Christmas break.

I wish all our families a peaceful and restful Christmas and every happiness in the New Year.

With very best wishes,

Mrs Johnson