Samoa Class Year 3
Autumn 2023
Samoa class have settled well into the routines of the Junior School and have already been on a school trip to Stonehenge and met up with Harold the giraffe ( who we met in Year 2), in our Life Education workshops.
In Maths we have built on the work that we did in Year 2 on place value and have been using a variety of resources to represent numbers up to 1000. We have now moved on to find 10 and 100 more/less than a given number. We are enjoying our daily times tables sessions and already know our10x tables off by heart.
In English, we started Year 3 by writing a special piece all about our Summer holiday for our ‘Aspirational Writing Wall’. We then moved on to reading about Traction Man’s adventures with his pet, Scrubbing Brush. Next, we enjoyed creating our own Traction Man adventures using amazing adjectives for description and time adverbials to sequence the events.
We love our class book corner which is full of lovely books. Anyone can use the book corner if they need a quiet space to relax and enjoy a book . When we have read our book to an adult, we can take a quiz on it which is great fun as we get to use an ipad. We have also enjoyed listening to our adults reading ‘ Fantastic Mr Fox’ during our daily class reading time.
In Science, we have focused on light and experimented with different materials to find out which ones were reflective. We used our findings to design a rucksack using reflective materials to help keep us safe on the way to and from school.
On Monday 2nd October, we had an exciting PSHE day where learned some mindfulness strategies, the importance of sleep and the qualities of friendship. Our favourite activity was the Life Education workshop where Helen taught us about looking after our mental health and took us on a tour of the inside of our body.
SPRING 2023
After half term, we were excited to return to school with our pick ‘n mix Roman themed homework, which we are very proud of. Thank-you to everyone for supporting their children in making posters, shields, models, cakes etc!
In maths , we spent the first week of this half term, focusing on money and have since moved onto fractions. To consolidate our fractions knowledge we completed an investigation into ‘ making the whole’ . We used our knowledge of halves, thirds and quarters, as well as counting in fractions to answer some questions.
In English, we started by looking at character descriptions before moving onto playscripts . On Friday 24th February, we enjoyed dressing up as our favourite characters for World Book Day. As well as sharing books with our friends, we found out about some new authors and started our new class reader, ‘Danny Champion of the World.’
I think the highlight of this half term for everyone was the trip to Paignton Zoo. We learnt that we did need to wait quietly if we were to spot some of the animals. Our patience was rewarded by some fantastic sights, including spotting a red panda, seeing a golden pheasant and watching a kangaroo wake up from her snooze. We even managed to have a bit of time in the play area before getting back to the coach ?
DECEMBER 2022
In history, we have been finding out more about the Stone Age. We learnt about the artefacts that have survived from the period and what we can deduce from them. We looked at surviving Stone Age cave paintings and then designed our own. Stone Age people used their hands as a template for lots of their paintings and some of did the same. We chose cave coloured paper and used natural colours, which made them look realistic.
In Science, we have continued our topic on animals , including humans . We have learnt about the different types of skeletons that animals can have and can name the different bones in the human skeleton. In this week’s lesson, we learnt how muscles and bones work together to create movement.
We learned that the contraction of muscles helps us to be able to move and that without muscles and tendons, we would just stay still.
In the photos below, you can see us making models of the upper arm muscles at work.
NOVEMBER 2022
We started the second half of the Autumn term by continuing our focus on addition and subtraction. We have looked at what happens to a 3-digit number when a multiple of 10 is added or subtracted using Base 10 and place value counters. This week we have moved on to adding 2-digit numbers with an exchange. In our daily tables skills we have been practising the 2x tables every day and completing our tests in our 2x tables booklets.
English
In English, we have enjoyed reading, “How to wash a woolly mammoth” and discussed why the task of cleaning a woolly mammoth is so difficult, according to the text. We then found out some facts about mammoths to add to the list of reasons that washing one may be a big challenge. This week we have been planning and writing our own instructions for washing a woolly mammoth.
History
In History, we have started our new topic of the Stone age to Iron age. This term we will focus on the Stone age and in our first lesson we used Now Press Play to introduce us to the Stone Age era with a fully immersive Stone Age experience which we all loved !
OCTOBER 2022
In Maths we have built on the work that we did in Year 2 on place value and have been using a variety of resources to represent numbers up to 1000. We have now moved on to find 10 and 100 more/less than a given number. We are enjoying our daily times tables sessions and already know our 5 and 10x tables off by heart.
In English, we started Year 3 by writing a special piece all about ourselves for our ‘Wonderful Writing Wall’. We then moved on to reading about Traction Man’s adventures with his pet, Scrubbing Brush. Next, we enjoyed creating our own Traction Man adventures using amazing adjectives for description and time adverbials to sequence the events.
Samoa class love reading books in the book corner and choosing books within their ZPD. We are getting used to taking quizzes once we have finished a book and recording our reading in our reading diaries. We have enjoyed listening to the story of ‘The Goldfish Boy, for our daily class reader.
In Science, we have focused on light and experimented with different materials to find out which ones were reflective. We used our findings to design a rucksack using reflective materials to help keep us safe on the way to and from school.
On Friday September 30th, Year 3 had an exciting PSHE day where learned some mindfulness strategies: the importance of sleep and the qualities of friendship. Samoa’s favourite activity was the Life Education workshop , where we met Harold , the giraffe.
