Year 3 Weekly News 13.1.23

Our first full week this term has been jam packed with lots of new learning and fun!

Our English lessons this week focused on our new book called Egyptology! When we came into the classroom on Monday, there were envelopes hidden around the room with question marks on, a tray of sand with clues in and a brown package left for us...we didn't know who had left them there. There was only one thing for it. We had to be detectives and investigate the clues. We found lots of key words, like papyrus, excavation, unearthly and reveal and we found a name tag that said 'my name is Emily'. We then opened the package and it was our book called Egyptology. When we read the blurb, it is a journal from a girl called Emily Sands who was an Egyptologist. We then focused on some of the pictures in the book and read her first journal entry which told us all about her arrival to Cairo to see the pyramids. We then wrote our own setting description of Egypt using all we had learnt across the week.

This week in our Steps to Read lessons we have been reading 'The Genius of the Ancient Egyptians' and have learnt the meaning of lots of new words, including unrest, prosperous and civilisation. We used our 'scanning' skills to retrieve information from the text and record our answers. We also had some one to one reading time across the week where we enjoyed reading to an adult and our reading buddies (teddies!).

In maths, we have continued our unit on multiplication and division. This week we have focused on using our knowledge of times tables and relating the facts to numbers 10 times bigger, for example, how can we use our knowledge of 3x2 to help us with 3x20. We have used counters, dienes and arrays to help us this week. We have also been introduced to time. We have looked at calendars, finding out how many days in the week, weeks in a month and months in a year. We found a great way of using our hands to help us remember how many days each month has. We also learned about leap years. We also worked out problems by counting forwards and backwards using weeks.

In history, we placed the Ancient Egyptians on our history timeline and then discussed what we had already learnt about the Egyptians so far. We then asked the big history question "were the Egyptians a civilised society?" This will be the question to lead our history lessons this term.

In computing this week, we completed an online safety lesson all about 'who is in our online community?' We discussed what is the internet, who is in our internet community and how to stay safe online. We played on interland and answered lots of questions focusing on keeping ourselves safe online and being kind to others too.

In science we started our new unit all about light. We followed an archaeologist as he discovered an Egyptian tomb. We discussed how various different light sources helped him illuminate the tomb, which ones worked best and why shadows were formed. We found out that light travels in straight lines and when it hits a solid object the light is blocked, forming a shadow. We ventured around school looking for sources of light, found the difference between light sources and items that reflect light and ordered object from brightest to dimmest.

Our RE theme of salvation was introduced this week and we focused on the big question of 'Why do Christians believe Jesus rescued people?' We looked at lots of pictures of people being rescued and thought about how those people might feel. We then thought about any times we have been rescued and then in pairs and threes, acted out different rescue situations and used freeze frames to explain these to our classmates. We then used clues around the room to guess which rescue story from the bible we would be learning about this week.

Our Courageous Advocacy work also continued this week and we were keen to learn we would be continuing our work on learning how to reduce our plastic use. This term's focus is how when plastic is not recycled it can affect God's creatures, especially those in the seas and oceans. We read a story called 'Duffy's Lucky Escape' about a sea turtle who ate a plastic bag mistaking it for a jellyfish. We then drew our own pictures to show others how plastic can end up in the sea. We investigated lots of different every day plastics and we completed a quiz about how long they take to decompose if they are not recycled. We were so shocked by the results! Did you know a plastic straw takes 200 years to decompose? We then had a think about what we could do to make a difference and help our world and you came up with lots of great ideas.

PC Nick joined us on Tuesday to give us some key reminders about how to stay safe on the road. He explained how to be safe when we are pedestrians, passengers and when riding a bike. We heard the motto stand up for safety and it was an important reminder for us all.

We began to make our Egyptian instrument in music. We cut the 2 templates out and made 4 holes in the top section ready to thread the string through next week. As Hathor was the goddess of music, we drew a small headshot of her which we will be placing at the top of the sistrum handle.

In PE we continued our gymnastics unit. We used bigger apparatus and continued our pathways, adding in asymmetrical balance and movement.

This week in Happy Mind lessons, we looked at the word appreciation and discussed how it feels when someone does something nice for us or we do something nice for someone else. We got into comfy positions and practised our happy breathing. You then thought of what you are appreciative of and we have continued this theme in the classroom across the week.

Homework has been set on spag.com this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss McCurrie and Mrs Jenkins