Welcome to Year 3 - Mrs Dolman's Class 2019-20

Welcome everyone to the Year 3 class blog.

Please keep checking the blog for termly updates on all the activities and learning in class.  

Spring 1 

Year 3 have had a fantastic journey so far in the new Spring term. To start the term the children attended      multi-sensory creative workshops with local artist Dave Bixter. The children and their parents together made a series of drawings based on the sound created using a Theremin.  The children’s drawings were then converted into a piece of music by creating a shape of their drawings with a copper wire and placing this on the Theremin instrument. To follow on from this the children then used their music and drawings to create a dance with support from Altru a creative drama and dance company to which they performed to their parents at the end of the workshops.

The children loved reading the moral book ‘The Happy Prince.’ We used this book to learn about subordinate conjunctions, prepositions, expanded noun phrases and direct speech. The children wrote their own moral stories about a statue who wanted to correct all the misery in the world with whatever resources he had available. We used this book to discuss how we can help others in need. This was linked into our RE learning about What it meant to be a disciple of Jesus?

Our class novels have included the wonderful book ‘Leon and the Place Between.’ In our PEEP sessions the children explored with their reading skills how to retrieve information, identify meanings of key vocabulary and use their inferences skills to understand meaning. We followed this with the hilarious book ‘Grandpa’s Great Escape’ by David Walliams. The children seemed to have a great interest in hi s books and therefore to support our Year 3 action plan to encourage and develop boy writers and readers we based our authors and letters English unit o n him. The children read extracts of many of his books and chose their favourite to read for pleasure in class. During a drama session the children wrote a play script and acted out one of the scenes in ‘Grandads Great Escape.’ Later in the unit they wrote an emotive character description about ‘The Boy in the Dress’ and a fantastic set of disgusting instructions on how to make cabbage soup after reading ‘Gangsta Granny’. Finally, we looked at the structure and features of letter writing and wrote letters to David Walliams including all the key spelling, grammar and punctuation focuses of the term.

This term in Maths we have been learning about multiplication and division of 3,4 and 8. The children then used their knowledge to solve problems and explain methods.  We have continued to work on extending our vocabulary in Maths, which we can use to explain methods in our journals.

In our History Unit Stone Age to Bronze Age we looked at how the Stone Age to Bronze Age period impacted on life in Britain. The children were fascinated learning how the early man survived in a harsh environment and loved virtually walking around the Skara Brae to look at how time in the Stone Age developed. The children explored the reasons to why historians think Stonehenge was built up by exploring various evidence. We then had a class debate on what they thought the most likely reason was.  We also learnt why copper mining was crucial to the Bronze Age.

In Science we have been learning about forces, friction and magnetic attraction. The children worked scientifically and collaboratively to investigate friction, by exploring the movement of a toy car over different surfaces. The children explored the way magnetic poles attract and repel in an exciting challenge set to see if they can make objects move without touch them. Furthermore, they investigated the strength of different types of magnets after receiving a letter from Boris Johnson. He wanted the children to investigate the strongest magnet needed to lift a chair whilst being carried by a helicopter, to arrive at a meeting with Donald Trump in style. They continued to develop their scientific enquiry skills, making observations, predictions and conclusions.

We have been continuing our Spanish, learning the days of the week and months of the year. The children are now able to write the date fully in Spanish and say when their birthday is in a short conservation revising the greets, numbers and favourite colours we had learnt in previous terms. Later in the term we studied collages and took inspiration from Eric Carle drawings and Hannah Hoch to recreate our own collages.

We of course finished the term dancing our socks off in the Valentines Disco and raised awareness with Internet Safety Day #freetobeme.

Have a great holiday and see you all back in the new half term. 

Autumn 1

Year 3 have made an outstanding start to this academic year!

Year 3 have settled into KS2 amazingly well and are learning about new independence towards their learning and roles involved with moving into juniors. The new juniors have settled in well on their new key stage 2 playground and are being supported by the older children. Playground buddies have supported the children in this first half term. 

 In English, we have enjoyed reading an alternative to the traditional tale the children have known from being in Reception 'The Alternative Story of the Three Little Pigs'. Our writing was based around creating an alternative ending to this well known story! Linking into our Geography lessons we have been learning about non-chronological reports and it's key features. The children all produced a fantastic final report based on Volcanoes. We have tried to boost reading in our classroom this half term including introducing a reading ladder and the children created a boy and girl friendly reading area with key texts that the children wanted to read! 

In Maths, we have explored numbers to 1000, place value, and addition and subtraction of 3 digit numbers. The children have used their knowledge of written strategies from Year 2 and their new learning to apply it to their problem solving in Year 3.  We have had a great push and weekly challenges for quick recall of our times tables. The children are becoming more confident and their arithmetic scores are improving. The use of Times Table Rock Stars has had a great focus in our classrooms to allow the children to challenge each other and improve their own knowledge. 

In Science, we have learnt all about animals including humans. The children learnt about skeletons, food groups and how muscles work. We have designed and carried out investigations to test the effects of bone length on activities, using scientific enquiry, measuring and recording skills. Next half term we will be learning about Rocks and how our learning about Extreme Earth this half in Geography and support our Science learning. 

In Computing, we created a word processed document all about Extreme Earth, using key skills and text formats to create an engaging report.  

In Geography, we have been learning about Extreme Earth. We learnt all about volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami's. The children used their map skills to locate volcanoes around the world through discussion and practical tasks, the children learn about how and why these natural phenomena occur and the ways in which they affect people and the environment. We had a class debate about why people would ever choose to live near a volcano? 

We have had a brilliant half term and look forward to what next half term will bring. 

Year 3 Notice Board

Welcome Meeting Information

Autumn Curriculum Overview

Spring Curriculum Overview