Year 3 Weekly News Round Up 21.6.24

What a busy few weeks in Year 3!

In maths, we have covered lots in the last two weeks! We focused on telling the time to the nearest 5 minutes, tallies, pictograms and interpreting the data in different ways. We have enjoyed looking at the key features of a pictogram to help us interpret the information. We decided that a pictogram needs a key, a title, clearly spaced out pictures and labels. Once we had mastered the features, we set about answering questions. We have also investigated different lines and completed our arithmetic quiz for this term. You did a great job Year 3!

During some of our English lessons, we have focussed on writing a setting description. Firstly, we used the example text to explore new vocabulary and then we thought about how the setting felt from the character's point of view. We worked hard to use a model piece based in a city to then help us write our own setting descriptions within a forest. 

In our science lessons this week, we started our new unit on planting and growing. We recapped parts of a plant and this time, looked at the jobs of all of the plants. We then planned our own experiments, asking questions such as will a plant grow in the dark? Yesterday, you put your plans into actions with Miss Holland and brought your experiments to life planting sunflower seeds. We will spend next week observing and recording to see if we can answer our investigation questions.

In our our animal unit in Science, we worked as a whole class in the forest school shed, completed research using iPads and sorted pretend food. We were able to recap which foods give us energy and which foods help us grow. We then moved onto look at the importance of a balanced diet and used new vocabulary to describe animals as carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. We researched different animals, and thought about their habitats and their preferred food. Following on from this, we have enjoyed learning about the human skeleton, and discovered the names and functions of our major bones. We labelled a life sized model and then carefully identified where our ribs, skull, mandible, femur and spine are.

In our art lessons, we looked back at our sketches from last week, around different Roald Dahl stories and characters. We then focused in on the one character we wanted to create with clay. We tried out lots of techniques to manipulate the clay in our hands and then started on our creations. We had the BFG, Matilda, Wonka chocolate bars, plants, Alfie the tortoise, the Enormous Crocodile and James and the Giant Peach. We then went on to paint these with very small paintbrushes to make sure the paint went on carefully as to not spoil the creations. I'm sure you'll agree these are absolutely fantastic and we've had so many compliments from different members of staff who stopped to admire them! Well done Y3.

In DT, we continued on with our cooking and nutrition unit. We taste tested different foods and described them, using our taste buds. Some of the foods you hadn't had before and you tried them, this made me very proud! After this, we were ready to start our cooking. We needed to prep all of the vegetables by washing them and cutting them. We recapped food hygiene rules and made sure we had thoroughly washed our hands. We then used the claw and bridge grip to cut the vegetables, including mushrooms, peppers and courgettes. We then made the curry and tasted it! Lots of you tried it when you saw others having it and enjoying it, even when you first thought you didn't want to. Some of you even had 2 or 3 bowls! Quite a few of you asked for the recipe so we will sort this for you for next week! Well done Y3, it was a pleasure teaching you this lesson.

In our HeartSmart lesson, we began out new unit 'No Way Through Isn't True!' We drew our own robot diagram. In the first box were our names, the second box was the thing(s) we may get stuck on, and the third box was what we can do to help ourselves when we are stuck. We are going to think really hard about persevering when we find things tricky. This links to the bible reference – 'Love never gives up; and its faith, hope and patience never fail. Love is eternal – 1 Corinthians 13:7-8

We also had time to reflect on our 'Fake is a mistake' learning, and write some next steps that are personal to us. With the help of Boris the robot, we thought about why people choose to lie and what happens when people do lie.

In PE last week, we recapped what we learnt last week about fielding and reminded each other about using a long leg position to stop a rolling ball. We focussed more on bowling today and worked again on our over arm through and the correct grip, and we played a game where we aimed for the wicket gathering points every time we hit the wicket. Then we introduced a batter and a wicket keeper and carried on gathering points. Some children were able to tell us that the line in front of the wickets is called a crease and we have touch our bat over that line when scoring runs.

In PE this week, we were introduced to the pull shot. This is an attacking shot. We practiced this by ensuring that the bowlers delivered the shot quite high and outside of the batter's body to give the batter a chance to step back and swing the bat and swivel on their backward foot. We were then introduced to dynamo cricket and we split off into two separate games and support was given to those who felt less confident.

We hope you have had a lovely, sunny weekend.

Miss McCurrie and Mrs Pointon