It has been another incredible week in Year 3 this week. Thank you to those of you who were able to come in to see the children's learning this afternoon. If you have not managed to book a parents evening appointment, please contact the school office. Here is what we have been doing this week.

English

In English this week, we have continued our learning around our text ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’. We have continued to build our skills to write a setting description of the Faraway Tree, focussing on describing the 5 senses. On Monday, we had an incredible sensory carousel, where we drew the tree for sight, went outside to the Forest School to see what we could hear and touch, tested different scent cups to describe smells and even tasted some of Moonface’s google buns and toffee shocks. This helped the children write some fantastic setting descriptions.

Later on in the week, we moved on to incorporate verbs and a range of fronted adverbials into our setting descriptions in order to vary our sentence structure.

Next week we will be moving on to focus on writing from a given viewpoint through diary entries and letters, based on our book.

Maths

This week, we have been learning about time. We began the week by recapping how to tell the time on an analogue clock in 5-minute intervals, before moving on to tell the time in 1 minute intervals. We were very impressed with the children’s accomplishments with this. We then moved on to calculate durations of time, before learning how to convert different units of time. We created reference cards to help us remember different conversions, such as how many seconds in 1 minute and how many hours in 1 day.

Next week, we will be moving on to learn how to solve problems using addition and subtraction.

Fact of the Week

Next week our fact of the week will be:

8 x 5 = 40

Thematic

Our thematic lessons were a little bit different this week as Monday was British Science Day! We began our afternoon by looking at what a scientist is, including all of the different jobs a scientist can encompass. We then moved on to focus on the theme of ‘Time’ and looked at what a pendulum is. We then created our own pendulums, investigating how we could change them to make them move faster or slower.

On Tuesday, we returned to our learning on Romans by learning about Claudius’ successful invasion of Britain in AD43. We learnt the reasons for this invasion and the impact on Britain, before reenacting this in small groups. On Wednesday, we learnt about Hadrian’s Wall and why it was built by Emperor Hadrian. We then wrote diary entries from the viewpoint of a citizen living near the wall.

Next week, we will be continuing our learning on the Romans by learning about Boudicca, the inventions of the Romans and their beliefs.

Love to Learn

We would like the children to continue working on their Science Poster competition for Miss Isaac.

For British Science Week, the theme this year is ‘Time’. You are invited to enter a competition to create a poster maybe showing how a certain type of technology has changed over time, or even the advancement of time-telling technology itself. Budding poster makers could also go futuristic, showing us how they think the world might look in years to come. You could perhaps look at nature – lifecycles, lifespans, evolution and hibernation – nature is full of timely topics. Your poster must only be A4 or A3 size. It will be scanned so it must be flat. There will be prizes in school and also our 5 best entries will be entered to a national competition. Here is what the judges will be looking for:

• Creativity in Approach – don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and present your research in a slightly different way

• Content – clear, accurate and informative about a Science topic

• Effective Communication – Presented and communicated in an engaging way

Please hand your entries on paper to Miss Isaac or your class teacher by Friday 22^nd March.

Please could children also be practising telling the time on an analogue clock. Topmarks has a great resource to support your child with this: Teaching Clock (topmarks.co.uk)

Other News

• Please ensure that your child is reading at home and bringing their reading record in to school every day. The expectation for KS2 children is that children read four times a week with an adult at home.

• PE day for Year 3 is a THURSDAY this term. Please send your child to school wearing full PE kit.

• Top Up PE is a FRIDAY this term. Please could children come to school wearing their uniform and trainers.

Key Dates

18-21/3 – Parent Teacher Consultations

21/3 – Rock your Socks Day

22/3 – Speaker Finals at Royal Harbour

25/3 – Roman Day (children are invited to dress up as Romans on this day)

27/3 – Come Dine with Me Years 2 & 3

28/3 – End of Term 4. School ends at normal time.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Year 3 Team