Year 3

Our Universe! Block 1

Year Three have begun the year by blasting off into space and exploring the deep unknown. We learnt the names of the planets in our Solar System and their order from The Sun.

We have also used amazing creativity skills in our topic to create some stunning Art and D&T.

We used marbling ink and water to create mind-blowing, colourful Solar Systems. We also created the entire set of planets out of Papier-mâché.

Light

As part of our topic we have looked closely at light. We thought about different sources of light in the world around us. We conducted an investigation and tried to answer the question 'Are bigger torches always brighter?' To do this we predicted what we thought the results would be, we decided on how to keep it a fair test and then we tested to find our results. The results showed us that the strength of the battery, rather than the size of the torch, is what affects brightness.

Next we learnt that some materials are opaque, some are transparent and some are translucent. To do this we tested a variety of materials by shining a light at them and seeing if we could see any light coming through from the other side. Again we used our super science skills to conduct a full investigation including making predictions, keeping the test fair and finding and evaluating the results. 

We also had a go using light to create some amazing shadow puppetry! 

Tools Through the Ages - Block 2

We began by looking at various pictures related to our new topic and tried to guess what we would be learning about. We quickly worked out all the pictures were to do with the past and people from olden times.

Where's Wally? - Block 3

We started off 2020 with a bang! A mysterious letter was delivered to Year 3. It told us to follow the clues to find out who it was from. We went from clue to clue, which led us all around the school and playground, before finding a present! Inside were six Where's Wally books, place names and another letter from Wally.

He told us he was hiding somewhere in Britain and it was our job to find him. We've decided to learn all about Britain and how to read maps in order to find out where he's hiding. Stay tuned for more pictures and info on how we're getting on.

Over the last few weeks we have developed our geography skills and learnt how to use different geographical resources to help us find a place. We learnt how to use a globe, an atlas, a map and a digital map and decided which would be most useful for finding where Wally was hiding. 

We also learnt how to read a compass and discovered in which direction North, East, South and West are. We studied the capital cities of Britain and discovered some of London's famous landmarks. 

Plants - Block 4

In Block 4 we have been heading outside to the garden and learning all about plants. We began by asking a very simple question - what makes a plant a plant? The more we thought about it the more we realised perhaps it wasn't so simple after all. How do we know that a tree is a plant but an elephant is not? So we decided to look further into it.

Over the next few weeks we learnt the features of a plant, what plants need to survive and we looked at similarities and difference between a variety of living things.

We also had a go planting our own sunflowers, peppers, sprouting seeds, cornflower and sweet peas.

We also learnt all about how new plants grow, as even though we had planted some seeds ourselves, we were pretty sure not every single tree and flower and plant in a forest had been planted by a person. So how did they all get there? We learnt about seed dispersal and about the 4 types of seed dispersal - wind dispersal, animal dispersal, water dispersal and explosive dispersal (that one was our favourite).