Year 3 Learning

As we all get used to this different time of learning at home and spending a little while away from each other, a special someone really wanted to make sure we all stayed in touch and shared the things we got up to whilst being away from school...

So in this space, he will write to you in the form of a diary entry each week which you can share with your families whilst we are away from school to keep you up to date with his adventures!

 Tuesday 7th April 2020 

Hello everybody, 

I don't know about you but I have had the strangest couple of weeks! Everything is a little bit different but still normal and I'm not sure how that even makes sense. The first couple of weeks off, we still went to school every day but there were nowhere near as many children. It was weird and very quiet. We did some art outside with chalks, we made tutu's, cakes and did lots of PE - that was really hard, I had to have a long sit down after. 

But now school has finished for Easter, so we are staying at home all day and keeping busy here instead. 

We started by painting a HUGE rainbow on the living room window, what do you think? 

We have also been doing some baking, today we made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. My tummy was shouting at me before they were even cool enough to eat 

I also have a new, super cool wooly hat, although I think that Miss Armstrong may have gotten a little confused and should have made me a sunhat instead! 

I hope you are all well and finding lots of cool ways to entertain yourselves at home, keep checking with me, I'll be back to tell you about more of my adventures very soon. 

Love Penfold xx

R.E. 

This term we will continue to think about how God calls us and our response to that call. We will begin to learn more about the Sacraments through the theme of belonging, thinking about how we, as Catholics, celebrate our belonging to the Family of the Church through the Celebration of Mass. We will also be beginning our preparation for First Reconciliation, by thinking about the choices we make each day and the effects our choices have on others. We will continue to focus on God’s call to us, thinking about how we choose to respond to His call.  

Topic

This half term, we will be exploring the prehistoric lives of the people of Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. We will learn about life during the Stone Age, discovering what humans needed to survive, before researching Skara Brae and considering the importance of what was found there. Following this we will move on to the Bronze Age, identifying how copper mining changed people’s lives, particularly children of the time. We will briefly study the landmark of Stonehenge and the theories regarding its construction. Finally, we will discuss why we think people began to move their settlements to hillforts and depend upon Druids to help them run their societies.

English

Our English learning this term will once again be linked to our topic as we share The Stone Age Boy story by Satoshi Kitamura. We will make predictions about the story before writing narratives about our own Stone Age adventures. 

Our second text this term is The Boy with the Bronze Axe. We will discuss the genre of this story, deciding if it is fiction, non-fiction or both. We will use the plot of the story and our history learning about Skara Brae to write non-chronological reports about the settlement and the events that led to its discovery. 

Our final text this term will be Ug by Raymond Briggs. We will use a day in the life of Ug as inspiration for our own narratives about Stone Age life, before stepping into his stone trousers and coming up with our own inventions to advertise. We will end the term by combining our learning about all three texts and writing a persuasive essay to convince people to travel through time and experiences life at Skara Brae with a tour guide (Ug). 

Maths

In maths this half term, we will continue to revise our knowledge of multiplication before introducing new strategies for division, using this developing understanding to solve problems and give reasons for our answers. During Spring 2, we will begin to expand our understanding of fractions by identifying that fractions are a part of a whole, using both objects and numbers. fractions are a part of a whole, using both objects and numbers. 

In shape and measure, we will revisit what we already know about money, using coins to make totals and adding and subtracting sums of money to give change during practical problem-solving activities. We will also begin to learn about statistic presenting and interpreting data in pictograms, tally charts and bar charts, using our interpretations to answer questions. 

Times tables

It is so important that your child can recall and use times tables at speed. Their ability to do this will significantly influence their learning. Please help your child by practising with them. The internet is a great tool for finding games, songs to make this a fun thing to do together. In year 3, children should know the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and begin to learn the 3, 4 and 8 times tables.

Science

In science, we will learn about the things animals including humans need to live, grow, be strong and be healthy, beginning by looking at food groups and nutrition, considering our nutritional needs to maintain a healthy, balanced diet. We will investigate skeletons, identifying the bones which make up our skeletons, recognising the role both the skeleton and muscles play in helping us to move. 

Things to remember…

- Practice times tables; 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 

- HAVE FUN!!!

Stone Age to the Iron Age Experience Day

Today we had a fantastic Stone Age to the Iron Age experience day. 

Our day began with a feast of porridge topped with freshly foraged berries (almost literally!) and a Stone Age story around the campfire. 

We then entered the Bronze Age and thought about the famous beaker culture before having a go at making our own clay pots. 

After that we learned about the Druids, who were extremely important figures within Celtic Iron Age communities and we made our own Druid flower crowns using natural materials that we gathered from our school grounds. 

In the afternoon we were very lucky to work with Mrs Armstrong, Mrs Formosa and Mrs Kaur in forest school where we learned how to safely light fires to make hot chocolate. We also used a range of tools to cut sticks into sections before hollowing out the centres and threaded these beads onto string to make our own Stone Age style jewellery. Finally, we practised our shelter building skins, with the addition of animal skins (tarpaulin) to ensure they were as weather resistant as possible! 

All of us enjoyed every minute of it, as you can see in the photographs!

A big thank you from all of us in Year 3 for your ongoing support and enthusiasm :)