Year 3

Spring Term - Literacy

Our literacy learning for 2024 began with a morning spent eating toast! This was our introduction to our focus text, “Until I Met Dudley” by Roger McGough.  This imaginative and engaging text provides both fantastical and real explanations of how everyday household appliances work.  We revisited the four main sentence types as well as learning to use causal conjunctions to write high quality sentences to explain how things work.  We also learnt how to identify and use prepositions to provide more precise explanations in our writing.  The final outcome was a written explanation of how a rubbish truck works.

Spring Term - Maths

Our maths learning this term has involved some revisiting of autumn term topics; place value, multiplication and division.  However, we went further with our learning to consider different ways that multiplication and division can be represented using the eight times table and lots of smarties!  We then started a unit of work about fractions and for this we used playdough to represent a “whole” which we divided up into different numbers of “parts”.  This will help strengthen our understanding of the concept of fractions as we continue our learning.

We have also begun our daily number sense lessons.  These lessons are encouraging us to increase our confidence with number facts through the use of visual models and animations of numbers.  Another important part of the daily lesson is to share and discuss our observations of numbers and number facts.

Spring Term - Science

This term in science we have learnt about magnets and forces.  This was a very hands-on topic and we conducted many investigations both indoors and outdoors.  These included running cars down ramps onto different surfaces and pulling trays with a force meter to measure how resistance varied.  We learnt the difference between contact and non-contact forces as well as some interesting facts about how magnets work.  Did you know that a Maglev train can travel at speeds of over 300 miles per hour using the power of magnets?

Spring Term - Other Curriculum Areas

DT - we began the year by learning about seasonal food.  We used websites to find out which foods grow where in the world and then again to explore how far foods travel to get to our shops.  We designed a seasonal tart and then practised our peeling and cutting skills to make an apple tart.  We were very fortunate to have some locally grown apples provided so not only were they seasonal but there were barely any food miles in their production! The evaluating stage was most definitely enjoyed by all - we got to taste our tarts!

Seasonal tarts were not the only tasty thing on the menu this term.  As part of the cultural enrichment programme, we also got to enjoy a delicious Indian meal at Les Cotils.  Whilst feasting on our curry, we learned lots of facts about India and its culture.

Art - we have learnt about tone which refers to the light and dark areas of an object or piece of artwork.  We learnt how to make a tint by adding white and a shade by adding a darker colour.  We also tried our paper folding skills to make a small book or “zine” and drew a sequence of images on strips of paper for use in a zoetrope which created the illusion of a moving image.

PE - We have been working with Mr Shepherd for indoor PE learning gymnastic rolls, balances and jumps.  Once we were confident with these we put these together into a sequence as well as performing some jumps off apparatus.  Our focus in outdoor PE has been net and wall games and we have learnt to play some simple racket games.

Autumn Term - Literacy 

This term in literacy we spent the first few weeks revisiting prior learning from Year 2. This has included investigating and using, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and understanding and developing sentence structures using appropriate punctuation. The rest of the term has been spent looking at the text 'Into the Forest' by Antony Brown, which we have all thoroughly enjoyed. The book has allowed us to develop our creative writing and we have all written an exciting story opener / setting description. 

Autumn Term - Maths 

Our maths learning this term has been very exciting! Our main focus has been on Place Value and Addition and Subtraction. We have revisited the use of equipment and even used Cheerios and marshmallows to demonstrate our understanding of the value of digits in a 3 digit number. We continue to practice our times tables and have enjoyed using TT Rockstars and learning new games such as, multiplication flip.  

Autumn Term - Science 

In science this term we have been learning about rocks and fossils. We have thoroughly enjoyed identifying different types of rocks and labelling them appropriately. To aid our learning and ensure we could remember, we created our own actions for the rock cycle, which was great fun! We even learnt about rocks we would find in and around Guernsey. 

To finish the topic we learnt about fossils, specifically the difference between trace and body fossils. We even had a go at creating and drawing our own. 

Autumn Term - Other Curriculum Areas 

Art - We started the year with art and all really enjoyed developing our sketching skills through the observation of shape and shading. 

History - In history we are currently learning about The Stone Ages, which is incredibly interesting. We have been so surprised at how people first lived and survived and are very much looking forward to continuing this history unit. 

ICT - at the beginning of the year we used iPads to create our own book trailers. It was important that we considered the audience and purpose for the videos whilst engaging the viewer but also not giving too much of the storyline away. It was challenging but we loved using devices and learnt lots of new skills. 

PE - in PE this term we have been working with Mr Shepherd to develop our dance skills. This has included, break dancing and body popping - very cool! It has enabled us to develop our core strength, coordination, gross motor skills and work collaboratively with each other as well as being huge amounts of fun.