Welcome to our Year 3 page!

The Year 3 Team:
Mr Lucas and Miss Arundel

Routines:

On a Wednesday we have the JB Sports coaches come and teach our P.E lessons; on these days we come to school in our P.E kit. Our P.E kit should be:

• Plain white t-shirt
• Black/navy shorts.
• Trainers or Plimsolls can be worn for PE lessons.
• Black/Navy tracksuit bottoms for colder weather/outdoor PE.
• Black/Navy tracksuit top for colder weather/outdoor PE.
• No Football/Sports shirts

Home Reading - We encourage all children to read for 30 minutes at least 4 times a week. This will help them to put their fluency into practice, one of the cornerstones to great reading! If they read for three or four nights a week, they move up the reward ladder in class and earn a token for their house; if they read for five, six or seven nights a week, they move straight to the top of the reward ladder and gain a raffle ticket. On the last day of each big term, Mr Lucas will draw two tokens from the pot and those children will win a Golden Token, earning them a book from our Book Vending Machine! Mr Lucas will collect reading diaries in on Friday to mark so please ensure they come in on that day.

If you would like some guidance on the best way to read with your child at home, or are looking for help to inspire reluctant readers, try the document below! It's packed with ideas!

Homework

This year, we are changing our homework provision and will no longer be setting weekly homework. This to provide more time for daily reading (See above for expectations). We are also changing the way we do spellings. We now follow the Active Spelling program which does not require children to prepare for a test at home.

If you are keen to support your child at home, there are a few things you can do that will really help. We are a TT Rockstars school. As such, all children in KS2 have a log in to the website where they can practice the times tables we have learned in class. In year 3, we aim to know our 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 8's and 10's. Becoming more proficient with these is always a good thing!

English Support

If you are looking to support your child with English, there is a great link to BBC Bitesize which offers a range of activities to help with the grammar and punctuation expectations.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zhbhcxs 

Class Reading

Mr Lucas loves to read out loud to the children and tries to do so at the end of every school day!

This term we are reading Varjak Paw! This cat must learn to fight! Varjak Paw is a Mesopotamian Blue kitten, who lives high up in an old house on a hill. He's never left home, until he receives a mysterious visit from his grandfather who tells him about The Way - a secret martial art for cats. Now Varjak must use the Way to survive in a city full of dangerous dogs, cat gangs and, strangest of all, the mysterious Vanishings.

"Let your light shine, so others may see the good that you do."

This term we are shining a light on world renowned inventor and entrepreneur Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs famously started the company Apple in his garage, working hard and innovating continuously until it became the number one company in the world. Not only did he set up Apple, but he also helped start the animation company Pixar! If anyone is going to help us see the do's and don'ts of design technology, it's him!

Jigsaw This is Jigsaw Jino! Jino will support us this year during our Jigsaw lessons and ensure we are following the Jigsaw charter.

Our Spring 2 piece is: Dreams and Goals

Stone Age Visit - Wild Woodcraft

To bring our Stone Age topic to a close, Year 3 went on an incredible trip to Wild Woodcraft! There, we lived like hunter gatherers for the day, building shelters, making fires, preparing animals for cooking and even learned how to boil water in the wild! Matthew and Maria, our Stone Age guides, let us get hands on with authentic paleolithic tools and weapons, modelling how they were used - it was like we were really there! 

Art - Thomas Gainsborough

In the Spring term, we began looking at the work of 18th century painter Thomas Gainsborough. We explored how to build a painting up in layers, beginning with a wash background that was light and an equal mix of paint and water. Then, as we got closer to the foreground, we decreased the amount of water, bringing out the brightness of the colours.