Y3 Weekly Newsletter 19.09.25

Dear Parents and Carers,

What another wonderfully busy week in Year 3! From exploring the mysterious Iron Man to investigating rocks, designing digital devices, and even escaping mummies in PE, the children have impressed us with their imagination and determination. Here are a few of our highlights from this week.

In English, we continued reading The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, exploring the first two chapters in detail. To help us dive deeper into the character of the Iron Man, we completed a role on the wall activity, thinking about how the Iron Man might feel inside compared with how he is perceived on the outside. The children generated some brilliant vocabulary and descriptive phrases about his appearance. We then turned this into poetry by writing our own Kenning poems. As kennings are written as riddles, the children had to choose their words carefully to make the poems engaging yet slightly challenging to solve. Their finished poems were short but powerful, really capturing the mysterious nature of the Iron Man.

In Reading, we linked our Science topic to our text, My Book of Rocks and Minerals. To practise our retrieval skills, we played 'Fastest Finger First'. Mrs Roney gave us a word, and the challenge was to skim and scan the page as quickly as possible, point to the word, and call out, "Fastest finger first!" This activity helped sharpen the children's ability to find information quickly and made reading a really lively and interactive session.

In Maths, we have been exploring counting in hundreds and learning how to partition 3 digit numbers in different ways. The children practised both standard partitioning (breaking numbers into the exact values of the hundreds, tens and ones) and non-standard partitioning (splitting numbers into flexible parts to make the given number). To support this, we used part-whole models and arrow cards, which helped the children build numbers practically and then break them apart step by step. It was fantastic to see them growing in confidence with number representation.

This week's RE lesson focused on what the Bible teaches us about harvest. We studied three key stories from the Old Testament: Joseph collecting grain from Genesis 41:48, Ruth 2:23 collecting crops from Boaz's land to support her mother-in-law and Exodus 23:16, when the Israelites harvested their best crops to offer to God. Working in groups, the children acted out their assigned stories and performed them to the class. This gave the children a really secure understanding of each of the stories. Afterwards, they reflected on the key messages behind each story and recorded these in their RE books.

In science, we became rock detectives to investigate the three main types of rock. Using our detective skills, we identified igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. We enjoyed tackling quiz questions and explored familiar rocks such as slate, sandstone, marble, and chalk. We have been so invested in our science topic that members of our class have brought special gemstones, fossils and rocks in from home to share with the rest of the class. Thank you to our special families for supporting us in making our learning fun and memorable.

In geography, we began answering our enquiry question, Where on Earth are we? To explore this question, we thought about all our geography vocabulary and used actions to locate the northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere and the equator. We enjoyed comparing maps and globes, and in doing so, we spoke confidently about the maps we created in Year 2.

We have been thinking about guarding our hearts in our PSHE lesson this week. We were able to share why guarding our heart is important and what we may need to guard our heart from. For example, we decided that we would guard our hearts from unkind words or when watching something scary in a film. This links to our bible quote, 'In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable.' Philippians honourable.'

During our wellbeing time, we enjoyed spending time thinking about what we love and we practised our hand breathing technique.

In computing, we discovered how digital devices rely on an input, process, and output to function. The children then designed their own imaginative digital devices, carefully thinking about what input the device would need, what process it would follow, and what the output would be. Their creativity was outstanding -- so much so that Mrs Roney joked that some ideas should be taken straight onto Dragon's Den!

In music this week, we looked at a new instrument to us called a ukulele. We are very excited to be learning to play this instrument this half-term. We looked at the different parts and what each part does. We were given our own ukulele and we will have the same number each week. We watched some professional ukulele players play their favourite musical pieces. We were amazed!

PE lessons this week focused on developing our ball control skills. One of the highlights was a game called Escape the Mummy, where the children had to dribble the ball away from the "mummy" and reach the safety pyramids. This activity helped them practise using tiny touches to control the ball whilst scanning their surroundings to stay aware of what was happening around them. The game was fast-paced, fun, and full of laughter!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Please remember that PE has now changed to be on a Monday and Thursday so please send children into school in their PE kits on these days. I have been really impressed to see how often the children are reading at home. In Year 3, and across school we strive to build a love of reading and we most certainly seem to have that! Well done team!

Passwords for maths.com have been stuck into the children's reading diaries and homework will be set on here each week on a Friday.

Wishing you a restful weekend,

Mrs Roney.