Year 3
Accordion content
Spring 2, 2024
Update 1:
Book Week
This week in school has been Book Week. Our aim of the week has been to read a text fluently. To begin the week, we listened to different examples of texts being read to us and we how their intonation and expression showed the mood of the text and made it engaging to listen to. Next, we were introduced to our focus text for the week: Where The Wild Things Are. We read the text as a class and discussed what was happening in the story. To help us understand how to read the text, we marked up copies of this to show where to take a short pause whilst reading and where to take a long pause. For the rest of the week, we practised reading this text aloud fluently using intonation and expression. We enjoyed performing this to Year 4 in a Reader’s Theatre and we loved hearing theirs too!
Maths
Over the last few weeks, we have been learning about units of measure. We have learnt how to measure accurately and convert between millimetres, centimetres and metres. We particularly enjoyed the maths lesson where we got to measure each other’s foot length and height to investigate whether taller people have longer feet.
Geography
Our Geography lessons this half term have been all about our local study of Overton. First, we found Overton on Google Maps and zoomed out to discover the nearest town, then what county, country, and continent we live in. To help us visualise and understand this we created our own circle maps. To help us to further our geography knowledge, we were asked to draw a map of our route to school. This needed to include physical and human features that we pass on our way to school such as a church, river, traffic lights, fields and shops.
Update 2:
English
This half term in English, we have been exploring The Tin Forest by Helen Ward, to understand how an author shows transformation throughout a story using negative and positive language alongside colour and illustration. We have used literacy devices such as expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials and prepositional phrases to create our own version of The Tin Forest matching our sentences to its illustrations. To further our knowledge and understanding of transformation stories, we also read The Night Gardener and an extract from The Secret Garden to link the features and discuss them as a class. We have been really impressed with the powerful writing the children have produced!
Maths
We have put our measuring skills to the test by understanding what perimeter is and how to calculate the perimeter of a shape. In the last two weeks of term, we have begun learning about unit and non-unit fractions and understanding how to order and compare fractions.
PE
In gymnastics, we have worked in groups to perform a routine involving equipment and key gymnastic balances previously learned. Some of us have had to overcome our fear of heights to jump off the higher boxes.
During our games lessons, we have enjoyed developing our racket and ball skills to play tennis. Our main focus have been direction and ensuring we have appropriate grip of the tennis racket.
French
Year 3 have worked hard to secure their numbers in French from 1-20 this half term. We have practised our oral and aural skills through listening activities and class games. In addition, many children now feel confident in reading and writing these numbers when written as French words.
Year 3 really enjoyed the KS2 MFL day – we have had many further class discussions about different languages and cultures. We have also learnt several parts of the body – focusing on the genders of nouns and plural words. All children should now be able to perform the song ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ in French! We have focused on a few new phonic sounds to help us in our learning – namely c/k/q/qu, r/ rr, z/s/x, and in/ ain/ im. Well done Year 3!
Easter
The lead up to Easter has been an exciting time in school. We have had the opportunity to nurture and hatch chicks and we loved getting to hold these. We’ve also enjoyed learning our songs for our Year 3 and 4 Easter production. We cannot wait to perform this!
Spring 1, 2024
Update 1
English
This half term in English, we have dived into the fictional world of James Reeves and his Prefabulous Animiles. We studied his poem The Hippocrump and how his clever techniques and features caught our attention as readers like onomatopoeia, italics for expression, the rhythm and rhyming couplets. We described and discussed the Hippocrump’s unusual features and the clever combination of different animals James Reeves had used to create his prefabulous animile. We designed our very own prefabulous animile and wrote a poem in the style of James Reeves to bring our creations to life!
Science
In science we have been exploring the human body. The highlight had to be our dissection of a Pig’s Pluck. We're sure you’ve already heard all about this! This lesson was an amazing opportunity to see what the organs inside a pig look like and to compare them to those of a human. We discussed, dissected and even got to touch all of the organs which was fascinating. In other lessons, we looked at the importance of our skeleton for support, protection and movement and we investigated whether people have stronger muscles because they use them more.
Update 2
PE
In tag rugby this half term, we have learned the rules of the game and understood how to pass and catch a rugby ball.
Our dance and movement this half term has been focused on the different parts of a river. In groups, we created our own routines to go with the music for the source, stream, waterfall and mouth of a river.
Maths
Over the last few weeks, we have been working hard with multiplication and division using arrays, grouping and sharing before applying this to the written methods of expanded multiplication and short division. We then went on to use both of these with an exchange. Perhaps you could ask your child to show and explain this method to you!
DT
We have really enjoyed DT and many of us have discovered a new-found love for soup! Towards the beginning of the unit, we taste-tested a range of soups to help us understand what soup tasted like and the different ingredients used. Following this, we voted on the vegetables we wanted to include in our class soup. Then we got to work in groups to prepare and cook our own soup. When it came to tasting our product, we were divided in our opinions- some loved it and some not so much.
Art
Self-portraits have been the focus of our art this half term. Firstly, we looked carefully at the proportions of our facial features and drew a sketch of ourselves. Next, we explored the self-taught artist Jon Cooper and had a go at using different mediums to recreate the effects and moods shown within his portraits.
Modern Foreign Lanuages (MFL)
We have been busy this half term, learning lots of ‘Under The Sea’ vocabulary needed in order to read the wonderful ‘L’Arc en Ciel’ (Rainbow Fish) as a class. We have learnt the difference between masculine and feminine nouns and how to say ‘a’ and ‘the’. We have already secured five phonic sounds with actions and are learning how to blend them in our reading. In addition, we have mastered eleven colours in French! It is so lovely to bump into the children around school and have many of them greet me with ‘Bonjour’, ‘Salut!’ or ‘Ca va?’
Autumn 2, 2023
Update 1
History
We have had some very exciting history lessons this half term. In one lesson the children had to dissect a sample of Stone Age poo to find out more about the food people age during the Stone Age! We found evidence of corn, fish bones, plants, fruit and seeds.
Science
In science we have been exploring forces and magnets. We’ve conducted investigations to find out the flooring that has the best grip for Mr Clumsy and to explore magnetic and non-magnetic materials.
RE and Art
In RE last half term, we learnt about the festival of Diwali and how good overcomes evil. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita.
This then linked into our Art unit where we created our own Diya pots from clay and decorated them in authentic patterns.
Update 2
English
Our most recent English unit has been driven by the text Iron Man by Ted Hughes. The children enjoyed reading about this strange, iron character who came crashing down a cliff! They then wrote their own recount of the text by pretending they were one of the seagulls who witnessed this event. The children were fantastic at unpicking the language features of the text by noticing similes, dramatic short sentences, powerful verbs and personification. Even more impressive, they then used these literary devices in their own writing- they were a joy to read!
Maths
Over the last few weeks, we have been mastering the column method of addition and subtraction. Firstly, we used the place value counters to help us understand exchanging, before we then applied this to the written methods. Perhaps you could ask your child to show and explain this method to you!
PE
In football, the children have enjoyed developing their ball control skills, whilst in gymnastics they have worked as a team to create a routine in time to music. We used the song called Song 2 by Blur and part of their routine involved jumping in time to the Wooo hoooos in the chorus.
Stone Age Day
The greatest highlight of this half term was our Stone Age Day! The children looked fantastic in their costumes and fully immersed themselves in the activities. They built a shelter, made their own bow and arrow to hunt with, used sticks to create a cave painting and researched some of the prehistoric animals they would have encountered if they lived during this time.
Most impressive were the projects that the children brought into school on this day! Adults in school were so impressed with the time and effort they’d put into these! A huge well done to the children for creating these and to parents for facilitating this- thank you.
Art
In Art we have been learning about the different grades of sketching pencils, how to create a range of shading techniques and how to combine these with contour drawing.
To produce our observational drawings and paintings, we chose a Stone Age artefact and began by forming the contour with our sketching pencil. Then we added texture and tone using shading techniques. We repeated this using pen, then enhanced the tone using a paintbrush with water. Lastly, we used water colours to recreate our artefact drawings. To help us understand how to develop our observational drawing skills, we studied an Italian painter called Giorgio Morandi who specialised in still life.
Autumn 1, 2023
English
On our first day in Year 3, we arrived back from lunch to discover something had been in our Year 3 area. We had to piece together the clues that were left behind to think about who it might have been.
We discovered it was the beast from the text The Lonely Beast. We read the beginning of this story, which was about a beast who wanted to find more of his kind so he went on adventure to find them. However, when he arrived in the city, everyone ran away. Then we wrote a diary entry either from the perspective of the beast or from the viewpoint of one of the people in the city. Some of our work was then displayed around the school.
Our next English unit linked into our history topic of the Stone Age to the Iron Age. We looked at the features of non-fiction texts and carried out our own research about weapons, food and houses to create our own information text.
History
Our history lessons have helped us to learn a lot about the Stone Age. We have particularly enjoyed learning about archaeologists and becoming one ourselves! We had a range of pre-historic artefacts on our tables to make sketches of and to piece together the clues to predict what they might be used for and who might have used them.
A special treat for our History topic this half term was a visit from a year group parent who happens to be an archaeologist! We were lucky enough for her to come into school and present her findings from over the years including lots of exciting artefacts which she was allowed to bring in and share with us. We enjoyed learning about her job role and the things she had found.
Trip
A highlight of this half term was our trip to Butser Ancient Farm - we had lots of fun! We took part in a range of activities which involved building the wall of a Stone Age/ Bronze Age house; making string from plants, taking part in an archaeological excavation and having a tour of pre-historic houses.
Science
We loved learning about rocks and fossils! We explored the properties of rocks and learnt to identify some common types of rock. We also created our own fossil jelly to help us understand how fossils are formed.
PE
Orienteering this half term has been enjoyed by all. As a whole year group, we have been using the MUGA and top play ground to further our orienteering skills. We have especially enjoyed being in mixed groups across Class 7 and Class 8, communicating, collaborating and competing with one another. We began by learning about the different orienteering symbols used on maps and how to read the map key. Map orientation was the next important skill we learnt, understanding that we need to orientate the map and recognise the ‘bird’s eye view’ diagram of the ground. Each week a different task was set up for us to complete using our orienteering skills like, creating silly faces accurately using symbols and equipment, match the symbols in a race with other teams and count the cones.
Summer 2, 2023
Art
This half term, we took part in Arts Week! It was fantastic! Every day we moved through the school rotating round each class with different teachers and learning all kinds of art techniques connected to the theme of wellbeing and mindfulness. We made bracelets, mud faces, painted rocks, dream catchers and more.
To add to an already super arty week, when we were back in our Year 3 classes, we focused on our art topic. Creating leaf print collages.
To prepare for creating our collages, first we chose some leaves to study and sketch. Then, we learnt how to mix colours using only the primary colours before practising our printing techniques. We collected leaves from the school field, painted them with the colours we mixed up and then printed them onto cartridge paper using rollers to create our collages.
Science
Our science unit this term has been based on plants. We have learnt all about water transportation, germination and what seeds need to survive and grow.
To help us see these aspects of plants for ourselves, we conducted 3 experiments. We placed celery and carnations in coloured water to see the transportation of water from roots to leaves or petals. We planted a broad bean seed each in a jam jar to watch it germinate and we planted four pots of cress with different factors missing to see if it would affect its growth, for example if it had no light or no air could it still grow and how did it compare to the control cress?
Reciprocal Reading
This term in reciprocal reading our text has been ‘There’s a Pharaoh in Our Bath!’, a comedy fiction text about a mummified pharaoh who comes back to life along with his mummified cat and the adventures they go on. As part of our reciprocal reading lessons, we used our skills to infer, sift and sort the information we recovered from the text and checked for any new words we didn’t know the meaning of for clarification. We read each section as a class before answering the literal, exploration and expansion questions independently.
History and DT
Our studies of Ancient Egypt have been one of the highlights of Year 3. To finish off our unit we created our very own Tutankhamun Exhibition and invited members of our families to come and take a tour. We began by looking at museums and Ancient Egyptian exhibitions to understand what we were trying to achieve. We chose an artefact from Tutankhamun’s tomb to replicate. We had to research and write a fact file before making our very own version of it to display in our museum. We made jewellery, Anubis Shrines, Death Masks, Canopic Jars and more amazing artefacts.
Summer 1, 2023
History & Geography
This term in History and Geography we have been learning about Egypt and the Ancient Egyptians. We’ve made lots of exciting discoveries!
We’ve learnt about the River Nile in Geography, how it flows from South to North and that all the Egyptian cities are located along the Nile valley where the land is best for farming because everywhere else is desert. This led us to learn that Egypt is a country mostly made up of desert but has a large water source running through it, Egypt can be separated into two biomes; The Freshwater Biome and The Desert Biome.
In History, we took a virtual tour inside The Great Pyramid of Giza and discovered all about how they were made of limestone. During one lesson we found an ancient Egyptian tomb filled with artefacts in our classroom and using our best Egyptologist skills we had to make observations of an artefact each to draw from memory. The best part so far was our Ancient Egyptian Workshop with Brian. We spent the day dressed as Ancient Egyptians, Gods and Mummies. Brian taught us all about mummification, Howard Carter’s finding of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the many pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
English
In English, we have been reading a text called ‘Secrets of a Sun King’. Firstly, we wrote a newspaper article about a gruesome discovery of feet found on a hearth rug. Then, as we read more of the text, we began to make links to Ancient Egypt and curses, and we made connections between the characters. Towards the end of the term, we wrote a narrative imagining we were the main character Lil who was going to visit her poorly Grandad in hospital. We thought carefully about the feelings of the character, how the hospital would look and smell and how Grandad would look. The pieces of writing the children created were OUTSTANDING!
PE
This half, we continued our orienteering but progressed onto orienteering across the whole-school grounds. In addition to this we took part in some athletics, practising our throwing, catching and running skills. In dance, we enjoyed following a set routine, imagining we were exploring a pyramid and then we choreographed the next part by miming scenes from Ancient Egyptian life.
Maths Week
Maths week was a hit in Year 3! We loved hearing from our parent speakers about the role of maths in their jobs. It was very interesting and engaging. A huge thank you again to those parents who volunteered.
