Year 3 news... last week and this week!

So...what a couple of weeks! This weeks news is last weeks and this weeks combined after technical issues on our website. The teachers spent the inset day setting up your new classrooms ready to see your smiling faces on Tuesday and then we heard the sad news! This half term would be spent back on our iPads, tablets and laptops and teaching and learning would be virtual once more. So instead, you have seen my smiling face on the screen and I have seen yours in return. We started last week with reading, maths and English activities and you tried your best at each and every one.

In our reading time, we had a class story each day. We finished the end of our class story 'Oliver and the Seawigs' and what an ending it was! This week brought a new class story...Gangsta Granny by David Walliams. You have worked on dictionary skills (and maybe some "ask Google"s) and have found out the meaning of new words, you have learnt a bit about the Romans and answered questions on what you have read. You have written book reviews and this week even saw some comprehension work based on 'The Worst Witch' by Jill Murphy which I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. We have had daily stories from some of you and Megan shared hers last week with us on Friday. What a treat. Well done Megan, you are a great storyteller.

In the first week, your lockdown maths lessons included a starter task to recap calculations like addition, subtraction, fractions, multiplication and division and your maths lessons focused on fluency, recapping adding 1s and then 10s to three digit numbers. We finished the week with some place value work, mainly 100 more and less and 10 more and less. I was really impressed with how hard you have been working and how well you have taken to home learning again. You have been sending me voice notes or little videos to tell me if you need more help on a question and this shows me how well you want to do in your learning. This week maths has focused on multiplication and division, equal groups and a big push on the three times tables. You have used your Power Maths books and watched white rose videos to help you work out the answers. We even squeezed in some TT rock stars time and I have loved to hear you have been rock slamming each other. I will be spending my weekend getting lots of practise so I can send a few rock slams out next week too!

Last week in English, you told me all about your Christmas day and you completed an acrostic poem. You also learnt a little about the Romans for when we come back to school and we can learn about them properly again, all together as a class. You recorded new facts and asked questions using the correct punctuation. I have made a note of the questions and we will have them up in the classroom to answer as soon as we are all back together. You finished the week with a toy review of your favourite toy, these were really impressive and also really made me want to try some of these toys out! This week in our English lessons, we have started a new Talk 4 Writing unit called Unicorns Uncovered. You have learnt all about the legend of the River Unicorn and throughout the week, you have learnt the meaning of words, like 'reluctantly' and 'occasionally' and used them in context in sentences. You have worked on spellings from the passage, like 'through' and 'thought' and you learnt that some words can have lots of different meanings, like 'bank'.

This week, we introduced some other curriculum area lessons including science, history and music! I have had lots of you tell me that you really enjoyed them which makes me smile. Your science lesson focused on magnets and you tried to answer the question 'what are non contact forces?' In your geography lesson, you learnt about the landscape of Scotland, it's human and physical features and then compared it to where you live. In your French lesson this week, you learnt numbers 0-19, how to say them and how to read and write them and then took part in some fun maths problems using the french numbers. Très bien Year Trois! In history, you travelled back in time millions of years and learnt all about prehistoric Britain! We finished off our week with some well-being time, where you watched a video of a story called 'Jar of Happiness' and then had a go at creating your own, thinking of all the things that make you happy. What a lovely way to finish our virtual week together. And after all of that, you deserve a big rest this weekend!

As always, I am only on the other end of an email or seesaw so send me a message if you need anything. Well done on completing your first two weeks of home learning. We can do this together, keep up the amazing work!
Have a restful weekend,
Miss McCurrie