Monthly Archives: March, 2018

Easter holidays

Hello,

We hope you have all had a great week so far.

This week, Year Three have been very busy across their curricular learning! In English, the children have published and evaluated their slave diary entries. Both classes showed excellent collaboration when they colour-coded their work and then shared with a partner for ‘2 stars and a wish’ (i.e. two successes and one suggestion for improvement). Towards the end of the week, Year Three were given a non-fiction Roman text and participated in the challenge of correcting any spelling and punctuation errors. It was fantastic to see the children using their thesauruses independently, as a means of locating more powerful adjectives that those provided to them. Well done Year Three, an example of great critical thinking!

In Maths, the children have continued to work upon multiplication and division. In particular, they have enjoyed tricky mastery and reasoning tasks including scaling problems. Both classes also worked in pairs, to interpret a set of word problems before categorising them as Multiplication or Division questions. The children used a wide range of methods in order to solve them, before comparing which method was the most efficient. After half term, we look forward to learning about Addition and Subtraction in the context of statistics and data.

During our Science unit, we have enjoyed planning our own ‘plant growth’ investigations. Each group chose a variable to test and then worked together to monitor their results whilst ensuring all other variables remained constant. Afterwards, we then discussed ‘fair testing’ and the children were given an opportunity to explain whether or not they felt they had conducted a fair test. Please see the photos below…

We would like to thank Mrs Sumba for all of the support she has provided in Hippo class across the Autumn and Spring terms. She will be missed by all of the children and the Year 3 team – we hope to see her again at St Peter’s sometime in the future! We would also like to welcome back Mrs Stewart, who has recently returned from maternity leave. The children look forward to seeing her in the classroom across the Summer terms.

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter break and look forward to seeing you again soon,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Luter, Mrs Sumba and Mrs Stewart.

Geography Day!

Hello,

Today, the children took part in a Geography Deep Learning Day. They had a fantastic time creating their very own shoe box biomes! Both classes were successful when labelling each of the physical features within their habitats. Well done Year 3! Please see the photos below:

       

In English, the children have planned, drafted and edited their slave diary entries. We were very impressed by the quality of the children’s writing – they had successfully added detail to their narratives, through the use of fronted adverbials and dialogue. Next week, we look forward to publishing and evaluating our work, before moving on to edit and correct elements of vocabulary and grammar across Roman information texts.

In Maths, Year Three have been working hard on their learning of Division. In particular, we have been learning to use our knowledge of the inverse and times tables in order to reach a more efficient method for solving division problems. Towards the end of the week, the children were given challenging ‘True or False’ problems, whereby the children had to justify each method they had used. Next week, we look forward to learning about Multiplication.

Just to let you know that the children took part in a ‘Year Three bring and buy’ sale, this week. In total, the pupils raised £46.03 for CAFOD. Congratulations Year 3 for all of the hard work involved with arranging and organising the fundraiser.

We hope you all have an excellent weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Luter and Mrs Sumba.

 

 

Challenge and commitment

Hello,

This week, Year Three have been working exceptionally hard in their learning across the school curriculum. We would like to congratulate all of the children for the commitment and perseverance that was demonstrated across both classes, particularly across the subjects of English and Maths. Well done Year Three!

In English, the children have been learning how to develop detail through the use of narrative. At the beginning of the week, Year Three took part in role play and drama as they developed a conversation between the two main characters of their slave diary. We then used a class rhyme to learn how to punctuate direct speech correctly through the use of inverted commas. The children have also looked at singular and plural possession, using the possessive apostrophe to indicate how many characters own particular items within their slave diaries. Both classes have worked hard, to successfully produce a detailed piece of narrative that offers a variety of descriptions and dialogue. Great work Year Three!

In Maths, we have been learning how to tell the time: to the nearest hour, half an hour, quarter of an hour, 5 minutes and even to the nearest minute! Despite this being a challenging task, Year Three showed excellent commitment and achieved high levels of success. By the end of the week,  for instance, pupils could confidently apply their learning in order to solve a range of interval problems and challenge cards about time. Can you practise telling the time from a digital clock at home, this weekend? What patterns do you notice?

We hope you all have a peaceful weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Luter and Mrs Sumba.

School Poetry Competition

Hello,

This week, the children have been working hard on editing and improving their work across the curriculum, as well as refining their performances in advance of the KS2 poetry competition. We would like to congratulate our Year 3 pupils on their excellent performances, which were creative and engaging. Well done!

In English, we have been learning how to add detail to our ‘sea voyage’ descriptions – through prepositions, fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases – for our slave diary entries. The children have been able to describe the time, location and degree of events as well as the emotions of their characters. Next week, we look forward to learning about the use of dialogue in narrative, to convey further information and detail about a character, before drafting and editing our very own slave diaries.

In Maths, we have been studying Geometry. At the start of the week, we looked at the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, before linking our prior knowledge of fractions to look at ‘quarter turns’ and ‘half turns’. Today, the children particularly enjoyed using Beebots to programme their own set of instructions when designing an obstacle course involving right angle turns. We have identified other features of shapes including horizontal and vertical lines. Next week, we look forward to learning about time.

This week, Year 3 discussed and agreed upon the following events for their CAFOD fundraiser, which shall take place on the afternoon of Wednesday 21st March 2018:

  • Toy sale (bring a toy you no longer use or need).
  • Book sale (bring a book you have read and would like someone else to try).
  • Guess the Baby Photo (bring a named COPY of a photo from when you were a baby or toddler).

We hope you all have a great weekend and look forward to another week of learning,

Best Wishes,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Sumba and Mrs Luter

Snowy weather!

Hello,

We hope you have all been having a fun – and safe – weekend in the snow!

This week, the children have been learning about fronted adverbials of time and place. Having watched a selection of video clips and sound bites of a stormy voyage, the children produced some excellent descriptions for their slave diary entries. We were impressed to see both classes producing their own creative sentence openers, well done Year Three! Next week, as part of our sentence-level work, we look forward to exploring prepositions for our setting descriptions, as well as dialogue in order to add further detail about different characters.

In Maths, Year Three have worked exceptionally hard to explore a variety of fractions both practically and pictorially. During the week, we moved on to learning about tenths of a number as well as calculating non-unit fractions of amounts (e.g. 3/8 of 16), all within the context of tricky reasoning problems. Next week, we shall be moving on to our new unit of learning: geometry! Can you find any 2D and 3D shapes around your home this weekend? How would you describe and compare these shapes?

We look forward to welcoming our students back to school on Monday 5th March,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Sumba and Mrs Luter.