Hello,

We hope that you have all had a good week so far. As part of Mental Health awareness week, the children took part in an assembly which taught them all about the importance of expressing their feelings and listening to others who wish to share their worries or concerns. The children then took part in a Q&A session and were very mature in their responses, having a clear understanding that it is important to see an adult should they seek additional help. On Friday 17th May 2019, Year Three also took part in a Shakespeare drama workshop with a children’s theatre company. They had a fantastic time taking part in games and freeze-frame activities. Please see the photos below…

In Maths, the children have been working on addition and subtraction. They have shown true commitment when solving a series of Dragon problems by using an expanded column method. We were impressed by the children’s use of multiple representations (bar model, part-part whole model, pictures and number lines) to demonstrate their understanding of each number sentence at a deeper level. Well done Year Three! As the week progressed, the children then had an opportunity to work in groups through a series of carousel activities about equivalent fractions and fractions of an amount. This revision session enabled the children to engage in various tasks (dominoes, flash cards, equivalence bars, fraction walls) that involved the addition and subtraction of fractions. Please see the photos below…

In English, the children have been learning about newspaper articles and have been learning about the purpose, audience and layout of particular newspaper reports. During the week, the children were given the opportunity to explore a range of news articles, to identify which features had been used in order to provide more information to the reader. Particular features we have been learning about (that add detail to an article) include headlines, subheadings, by-lines, captions, introductions, conclusions and contact details. The children particularly enjoyed working in table groups to see which features they could find. Please see the photos below…

Next week, we are looking forward to celebrating our Easter service at Sacred Heart church on Tuesday 21st May 2019. If you would like to join our walk to the church, we would be very grateful! Please contact the school office.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba

On Tuesday the children arrived back from there bank holiday weekend to find that while they had be gone we had had a break in in one of the Year 3 classrooms!!

The children were set the task to find out exactly what had happened and so explored the scene, making notes and asking questions.

On Friday, we were lucky enough to speak to some of the key witnesses about the events and started to think about how these events unfolded.  We got to speak to Mr Cunningham, Mr Chapman, Mrs Walls – A Dragon Scientist, and Mrs Phillips – a local neighbour.  The children will be collating all the information and writing a newspaper report on the Dragon spotted in Waterlooville.  We will be taking our reports to Waterlooville Library later in the term to share.  We will be asking for parent volunteers to help us walk to the church.

In other news, this week in Maths the children have been solving Dragon related problems involving addition and subtraction.  We have been very impressed with the way that they have been working this week and so hope this continues into the following week.

The Spelling homework for this week will be focusing on spelling words from the Y3/4 list.  Don’t forget to also practise your times tables and have a go on Sumdog!

Team Year 3

Hello,

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

This week, the children have been publishing and editing their Slave Diary entries. We were amazed by the children’s use of dialogue, 5W detail (who, what, where, when, why), possessive apostrophes and fronted adverbials. Well done, Year Three! Next week in English, we look forward to staring our new unit of learning on writing a Dragon Newspaper article. The children are going to find a surprise in their classroom and are going to be our school news reporters as they find out more about the events from key witnesses…

In Maths, Year Three have been learning how to tell the time. We have been working on the following: telling time to the nearest hour, half an hour, quarter past/to, nearest 5 minutes and 1 minute. The children have demonstrated a tremendous amount of commitment and critical thinking this week, particularly when they were given a set of interval problems to solve e.g. If I start to watch a film at 2.45pm and the film lasts 1 hour 15 minutes, what time will I leave the cinema? Have a go this weekend at creating some of your own time problems for a friend to solve. Can you think of a problem where you have to work backwards and subtract the amount of time away? For example, If I left the supermarket at 3.45pm and had spent 35 minutes doing my shopping, what time must I have arrived at the supermarket? 

We hope to see lots of children attending the Y3/4 Silent Disco and having a fun time with their friends after school, tomorrow. We also look forward to taking part in a drama session about Global Warming on Friday 17th May 2019, as well as attending our Y3/4 Mass at Sacred Heart Church and taking part in school photo day (both on Tuesday 21st May 2019).

We hope you all have a brilliant weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba

Welcome back after what was a beautiful bank holiday weekend – We hope that all the children had a restful Easter break.  They have certainly returned ready to work.  We have all been very impressed with the way the children have returned to their learning.

During our English lessons this week we have been completing our Roman adventure stories.  The children have been trying to include a range of fronted adverbials, exciting vocabulary and possessive apostrophes.  We have been doing lots of editing along the way and so are looking forward to publishing our stories next week.

Maths – We have been learning about the different types of angles – acute, obtuse and right angles.  The children created ‘stickman’ during their lessons and had to identify the angles that they could see.  This would be a fun activity to try for home learning.  They could try drawing a ‘stick house’ and try and identify the angles.  They could even just look around their environment and try and identify the different angles.

N.B: acute (smaller than a right angle), obtuse (larger than a right angle).

We also had chance to direct a ‘beebot’ around a route on the computers.  The children had to use their knowledge of right angle turns to help the beebots negotiate the routes.

Next week we will be publishing our writing and starting our new writing unit.  In Maths, it’s time for time! Get ready to read some clocks and solve problems around time.

Have a great weekend.

Regards

Team Three

Hello,

We hope that you are all enjoying the Easter break so far. Here is an update on what the children have been up to during the final week of Spring Term.

In English, the children have completed their learning on direct speech and possessive apostrophes. At the start of the week, the children studied an extract from Peter Pan in order to analyse the distribution of dialogue and 5W (narrative) detail across the scene that described Captain Hook’s pirate ship. Both classes then applied their learning of the grammatical rules for speech punctuation and singular / plural possession, to create a narrative extract of their own that detailed events and conversations between the characters within their Roman slave diary. The children showed excellent commitment and critical thinking skills when drafting and editing their work. Well done Year Three! After half term, we look forward to completing our Roman Slave diaries before publishing and evaluating them.

In Maths, we have been continuing our learning on Money in the context of addition and subtraction problems. In particular, the children have applied their knowledge of coin values by ‘regrouping’ smaller coins to find alternative combinations of coins that involve larger values – this efficient strategy has enabled Year Three to add and subtract amounts that are recorded in pounds and pence, mentally. As the week progressed, the children explored a variety of problems and used multiple representations (number lines, place value grids, Numicon, coin drawings) to show their understanding of them. For example: Mr Crozier has spent less than £5 on 2 items at the CAFOD shop. He pays with 5 coins. Which two items could he have bought? By the end of the week, the children were taught how to use the inverse to ‘count up’ the difference between two separate amounts of money. We focused on reaching the ‘nearest 10p’ before moving on towards the nearest £1.

As part of Holy Week, Year Three were invited to Oaklands chapel in order to take part in Collective Worship and reflect upon the Stations of the Cross. The children demonstrated exceptional behaviour and were very respectful when they took part in a Q&A session with the school chaplain. In class, we studied the Last Supper and compared its similarities and differences to the words and actions of the Eucharistic Rite that forms part of Mass today.

We hope you all have a peaceful and relaxing Easter and look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday 23rd April 2019.

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba.

Hello,

We hope that you are all making the most of the beautiful sunshine this weekend!

This week, we have been learning how to punctuate speech correctly through the use of inverted commas. After some interactive activities, the children had a go at using their speech punctuation bookmarks in order to punctuate the speech within the conversation they had produced on speech bubbles towards the end of last week. We were very impressed by the children’s use of green biros to self assess and edit the work they had produced, checking their work against the speech punctuation rules using the rhyme we had learned in class. Well done Year Three! As the week progressed, we then moved on to learning about the use of apostrophes for singular (e.g. the slave’s locket) and plural (the pirates’ swords) possession. Both classes then had the opportunity to practise this skill through colour coding and pictorial tasks, which then enabled the children to produce their own sentences (that indicated what each character owned) for their Roman slave diaries. Next week, we look forward to drafting, editing and publishing our topic work.

In Maths, we have started to learn about money and coin values. At the beginning of the week, the children were given a variety of tasks which they solved through an investigation. The children particularly enjoyed using the wide selection of coins on their tables in order to create combinations of different amounts of money. We then moved on to learn about conversion, opening up an ‘alien shop’ in which the children were required to exchange between pounds and pence before purchasing an item. Afterwards, we then began to explore the concept of exchanging multiple coins for a coin that is the sum of its value (e.g. exchanging two 5p coins for a 10p coin). Next week, we look forward to adding and subtracting pounds and pence, using a variety of strategies including number lines and formal written methods.

On Friday, the children had a fantastic time for Geography deep learning day. As part of our topic learning, we studied the development of the Roman Empire and in particular looked at the human and physical Geography of Italy. Year Three explored a range of carousel activities involving map skills before creating their own sets of top trump cards to compare the human and physical features of the United Kingdom and Italy.

We look forward to seeing you on Monday for our CAFOD ‘Wear it wacky’ non-uniform day. Please bring a donation of £1 and wear your brightest, most colourful clothes!

With best wishes,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba

Hello,

We hope that you have all had a pleasant week so far.

This week, the children attended an assembly to find out which participants from the Spring Term Reading Passport Challenge had won a place on the ‘Rock Up’ school trip from the class raffle draws! We would like to congratulate all of the children who took part in the reading challenge and say well done to those who were lucky enough to have their names drawn from the hat during the assembly. We were delighted by the level of commitment shown by the children, and their families, during the completion of their passports.

In English, we have been learning how to create fronted adverbials for manner and degree, as well as how to add detail to a sentence through the addition of particular word classes – adjectives, prepositions, verbs and adverbs. As the week progressed, we looked more closely at the use of dialogue within a Roman slave diary, in order to capture a reader’s interest and make them feel as though they were on board a pirate ship too. The children worked in pairs to role play the conversations that may have taken place between the slaves and their captors, before recording their ideas on speech bubbles to reinforce the concept of turn-taking between characters within a conversation. Next week, we look forward to punctuating our speech using inverted commas to show when speaking starts and ends. We shall also be exploring the use of alternative verbs to ‘said’, to give the reader further clues about a character’s feelings.

In Maths, we completed our revision of the addition and subtraction on hundreds, tens and ones before introducing our new unit of learning: Money. The children have enjoyed exploring a range of different coins on their tables. In particular, we have been learning about the values of different coins as well as using a variety of mathematical representations to show this, e.g. using Numicon to show that a 10p coin can be made up of two 5ps, five 2ps, or ten 1ps. As the week continued, Year Three began to compare amounts of money (more than, less than and equal to) before studying a range of money problems. For example, we have used combinations of coins to reach a higher or lower value as well as to begin making amounts of money in different ways. Next week, we look forward to learning about how to convert between pounds and pence, before solving more complex problems involving money values.

Thank you to all the children who have been handing in their Romans and spelling home learning – we can’t wait to see all of the fantastic learning that children have been working on at home, during our home learning check on Friday 29th March 2019.

See you all next week!

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba

Hello,

We hope that you all had a good week last week and that you are enjoying the weekend so far.

On Friday this week, the Year 4 children of St. Peter’s Catholic School organised a whole school fundraiser day for guide dogs of the blind. Each child gave a 50p donation to the charity and wore a bright head piece or decoration on their heads. Well done to all of the Year 4 children who gave an excellent presentation about guide dogs for the blind during a whole school assembly, at the beginning of the day.

This week, Year Three have started their new topic on The Romans. Already, we have seen some excellent home learning projects which have clearly reflected the creativity and imagination of the children – for example, some children have created Roman shields and drawings and brought them into school for show and tell, to share their learning with their peers. We look forward to seeing more of these fabulous projects next week. In English, we have started to learn about Roman diaries and have been reading the text, Illiona of Mytillini: Diary of a Greek slave who was captured and sold in Rome. The children have been able to discuss the emotions of different characters and use picture clues and descriptions from the book to support their inferences about how each person would have felt. Next week, we look forward to continuing our learning on fronted adverbials and how sentences openers can add extra detail about where, when, or how much something happens within a sentence.

In Maths, we have been continuing to learn about measure in the context of weight (g and Kg). In particular, the children were given a series of scales problems whereby a set of traditional scales were balanced and the children had to use information about the weight of one item to calculate what the weights of two others sets of items must have been. As the week progressed, Year Three were also given open-ended problems to solve (how many combinations of objects can you weigh to reach a total weight of X grams, etc). We were impressed by the children’s use of collaboration when working together to reason and explain their opinions when problem solving throughout these challenges. Well done Year Three! Next week, we look forward to learning about the addition and subtraction of measurements, in more depth.

Just a quick reminder to let you all know that the Reading Passport challenge for Spring term is almost complete! All passports shall be collected on Wednesday 20th March 2019, ready for the class raffle draws on Friday 22nd March 2019. Good luck everyone!

We wish you all a relaxing and peaceful weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba.

Hello,

We hope that you have all been enjoying the weekend so far.

This week, the children took part in World Book day. All of the children dressed up as their favourite story book characters and we were amazed by the effort and care that had been taken by children and parents to make the costumes. Well done Year Three!

In English, we have been working collaboratively to create a Rainforest poem through shared writing. Using ‘explain, change, create’, each class was able to identify the poetic features from a poem before making adjustments to it and finally recreating their very own verses. The children had a strong selection of similes, alliteration, expanded noun phrases and verbs within their sentences, which helped to make their poems very entertaining to the reader! At the end of the week, both classes also attended the St. Peter’s poetry competition – we would like to congratulate the Y3 participants who each gave an excellent performance of their chosen poem.

In Maths, we have continued our learning on measure. In particular, we have focused upon the skill of reading scales and understanding how a scale is made of equal intervals. Through the context of grams (g) and kilograms (kg), Year Three have been able to read a set of scales and record the weights of different items. We were impressed by the commitment that had been demonstrated by the children, especially across a set of tricky reasoning problems whereby the children had to express their opinion and prove their answers were correct by using mathematical facts. Next week, we look forward to introducing the children to missing number problems in order to balance items that are weighed on a set of traditional scales.

We look forward to seeing you all next week,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba

Hello,

We hope that you have all had a good week and that you are enjoying the weekend so far.

This week, St. Peters welcomed the children back to school for the beginning of the second spring term. In English, the children have been exploring Rainforest poetry. On Monday, the children were given a ‘mysterious bag of words’ from which to make predictions about the genre, purpose and audience of their next writing outcome: a night time Rainforest poem! As the week progressed, the children were given adjective and verb cards and took part in a ‘shades of meaning’ activity in order to develop their vocabulary banks and to discuss/compare the intensity of particular word choices. The children particularly enjoyed justifying their own choices when deciding how to order their language cards. At the end of the week, Year Three worked in table groups to order the sentences from a WAGOLL poem (What A Good One Looks Like) in order to make a cohesive poetic verse. We were impressed by the children’s annotations of poetic language including alliteration and similes, as well as their explanations for the effect these poetic devices have upon a reader or audience. Well done Year Three!

In Maths, we have been learning about measurements. At the start of the week, we introduced this unit by showing the children a riddle: “You are as wide as you are tall”. The children had a fantastic time taking part in a variety of investigative activities, to explore mm, cm and metres to prove or disprove this hypothesis. Furthermore, Year Three were then able to create their own tests such as ‘Your hand span is half the length between your elbow and fingers’, etc. In particular, the children have used bar models, their knowledge of fractions (e.g. half of a metre is 50cm, 1/10 of a cm is 1mm) as well as measuring equipment when solving a variety of measurement problems. As the week progressed, children were also given challenges including open-ended combination problems and the opportunity to measure with a ‘broken ruler’ to start counting out lengths from a number other than zero. We were delighted to see the children’s use of collaboration and commitment across these tasks.

We hope that you all enjoy the rest of your weekend and look forward to seeing you all at parents evening next week.

Kind regards,

Miss Honeywell, Mrs Stewart and Mrs Sumba