Welcome to Year 3!

The Year 3 team:

3 Crystal  - Miss Higginbotham (You can call me Miss H) 

3 Lion -  Mrs Davis and Mrs Bedford

with Mrs Walta, Mrs Graham and Mrs Hicks 

Important information:

PE: Please remove earrings for these days or send in a small pot if children can take them out themselves. Plasters are not allowed instead of removal and we are not permitted to take them out for children. Please ensure that children are wearing the correct P.E. kit (black shorts, joggers or leggings, red polo shirts, black trainers, black socks, red fleece for the colder months) and that long hair is tied up and earrings are removed on these days.

Bring a water bottle with a sports top each day.

Reading diaries and reading books should be in school every day.

Reading book change day will be Thursday. (This may change.)

Spellings will be set weekly on Doodle (usually on a Friday). The children should aspire to remain in the green zone by working on the little but often principle. We expect them to complete maths and spelling weekly. Rewards will be given for staying in the green zone as well as a bonus award for 1000 stars. 

English

English 

The Painting, a portal story, is the first focus for our writing. We will be working on writing more complex sentences to include fronted adverbials and sprinkling some similes in too. We will learn how to use more complex sentence structures with a wider variety of conjunctions, as well as how to use commas to separate clauses. We will continue to build on our range of powerful verbs and adjectives. We will then move on to non-fiction writing. 

Our class readers will be: The Christmasaurus and the Winter Witch  by Tom Fletcher followed by  The Iron Man and Pages and Co. We will also look at a different text in our comprehension crusher sessions each fortnight. Children have their reading scheme book and may also occasionally borrow a book from  our school library. Book change for reading scheme books will be on a Thursday.  We encourage the children to record their own reading in their Reading Diary - pages read and short reviews would be lovely to see. We also encourage adults to record in this diary when hearing children read. 

Our Reading Bugs is our reading rewards system in Year 3. Children will move their reading bug stick along the pots each day that they read at home. Rewards will be given to those children whose reading diary is signed by an adult to acknowledge that this reading at home has taken place. Five signatures from the weekend to the Friday are what we are looking for.

Maths

Maths 

We are continuing with our learning about multiplication and division. Our maths understanding starts with practical apparatus before children move onto drawing or writing. Problem solving and explaining their reasoning is an important part of showing mathematical understanding. 

Following multiplication and division, we will be working on Length and measures, working with Metres, centimetres and millimetres to measure, add and compare length. 

To support in maths, please work on number bonds and times tables, specifically 2,3,4,5,8 and 10. Using money and telling the time are also valuable activities that can be practised at home.  

Our RE will focus on Judaism. In PSHE, we will be thinking about families and all of the different types there can be. 

In Science, we will be studying the human body, concentrating on how our skeletons help us.  

In one of our PE units, children will develop and improve techniques with Basketball. Our other PE unit is gymnastics- beginning with balancing.  
Our new  history topic this term is called "Why is it called the Black Country?". We will be looking at the reasons why people moved from the countryside to live in towns. Looking at a range of resources, we will think about how things change during the Industrial Revolution, we will think about how life changed in our local area. 

Our ICT lessons will focus on simple programming using Scratch. It is a great resource and easy to use programming blocks to make satisfying projects. There are lots of tutorials and online videos to help too. Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share will take you to the website. Children can set up their own accounts to let them save their work, but it needs to be verified by a parent. 

In French, we will learn about fruits.

Lessons for Music with Kapow will develop singing techniques and then we will learn about the pentatonic scale.