Year 3

Autumn 2, 2024

Welcome to Year 3! 

 

We hope you had a lovely half term break and are ready for more learning in year 3 with lots of new things to learn. 

WE NEED YOUR HELP . . .

Please save and send into school KITCHEN ROLL TUBES, CARDBOARD PACKAGING and LARGE CARDBOARD PACKAGING (e.g. large cereal boxes). We need these by week commencing 18th November 2024, however, donations can be brought into school anytime before this.

 

Start time - 8:40am               Pick up time - 3:15pm

If you have any questions, concerns or worries, please contact me at year3@cpa.dsat.education and we will do our best to respond as soon as we can.

Key information

Please ensure that your child brings a labelled water bottle to school everyday as well as ensuring that all items of your child's uniform is clearly labelled too. Snacks are not provided in Key Stage 2, please send with your child a healthy fruit snack or cereal bar for break time.

PE is on a Tuesday morning - please send children to school in their PE kits. They will get changed into their school uniform afterwards so please ensure this is in their bags too. Please ensure long hair is tied back and earrings are removed or a covering, such as a plaster is provided from home.

Reading books will be changed on Thursdays, please ensure your child brings their reading book and their reading record to school.

Homework will be sent out on a Thursday and will be due back the following Thursday.

 

Please click on the link below to find the information shared during our Beginning of Year meeting in September.

Year 3 Beginning of Year meeting information

 

Curriculum

Here is a summary of what we will be learning in Year 3 during the Autumn term:

Writing - narrative

Our writing this half-term will be based on the book 'Winter's Child' by Angela McAllister.

 

 Our writing this half-term will be based on the book 'Winter's Child' by Angela McAllister. In response to the book, we will be writing a fantasy story including characters, a setting and a plot. In the build up to this, children will complete a range of activities using a variety of skills which include

Spoken Language

• Ask relevant questions
• Build vocabulary
• Give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives
• Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates
• Consider and evaluate different viewpoints

Reading Comprehension

• Use dictionaries to check the meaning of words
• Identify themes and conventions
• Discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination
• Recognise different forms of poetry
• Explain meaning of words in context
• Draw inferences (characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives); justify with evidence
• Predict from details stated and implied

Writing Composition:

• Plan writing by discussing the structure, vocab and grammar of similar writing
• Discuss and record ideas 
• Compose and rehearse sentences orally
• Build a varied and rich vocabulary
• Assess the effectiveness of own and others’ writing
• Propose changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency
• Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors
• Read aloud own writing using appropriate intonation and controlling the tone and volume so that the meaning is clear

Reading

Our reading sessions this half term will be based around the book 'Ice Palace' by Robert Swindells. Th blurb reads: No one sees Starjik and his hungry wolves when thy come in the dead of night, but always a child is missing in the morning. Who can rid the land of this curse and melt the fear in its people’s hearts? Only Ivan, who loves his little brother enough to follow him through many dangers to Starjik’s cavern.

Through daily reading, children will practice their fluency in a variety of ways including teacher led reading, choral, echo, paired and individual reading. In addition, children will complete a variety of activities in response to our reading focussing on the following comprehension skills: 

• identifying main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and summarise
• identifying how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning
• identifying themes and conventions in a wide range of books
• identifying how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning

Spelling

Children will be following the Head-Start spelling programme again this year, with a dedicated spelling lesson each day. Please click on the link below to see the spellings we will focus on over the year.

Year 3 Head-Start spellings Autumn term

Children will also be encouraged to spell the year 3/4 common exception words, please click on the link below

Year 3/4 Common Exception Words

The children in Year 3 and 4 will also have the opportunity to enter the upcoming DSAT Spelling Bee competition too - details to follow nearer the time.

Maths - graphs, addition and subtraction, length and perimeter, multiplication and division 

This half term we will be building on our year 2 maths learning about graphs, addition and subtraction, length and perimeter, multiplication and division.

Each week children take part in a times table challenge where they have 3 minutes to answer questions based on their times table and related division facts. It is important to build times table fluency as speedy recall will enable them to progress. TTRockstars can help with these, further details of TTRS are at the bottom of this page. Click on the following links to view the times table challenges. Bronze Award, Silver award, Gold award, Titanium award, Platinum award, Ultimate Challenge

To further support your children at home, please encourage them to learn their times tables and to practise and remember our Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) for Autumn term.  Please click on the following link for Year 3 Autumn KIRFs, we are now focussing on Autumn 2. 

Year 3 Autumn KIRFs

Science - lights and shadows

 This half term, the children will be learning about lights and shadows. Children will learn to

• recognise that they need light in order to see things and that dark is the absence of light
• notice that light is reflected from surfaces
• recognise that light from the Sun can be dangerous and that there are ways to protect their eyes
• recognise that shadows are formed when the light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object
• find patterns in the way that the size of shadows change.

 

RE - Christianity

This half term our key enquiry question is 'What is the Trinity'. This focuses on the concept of Incarnation.

Children will learn that

• Christians believe God is Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
  • Christians believe The Father creates; he sends the Son who saves his people; the Son sends the Holy Spirit to his followers.
  • Christians find that understanding God is challenging; people spend their whole lives learning more and more about God.
  • Christians really want to try to understand God better and so try to describe God using symbols, similes and metaphors, in song, story, poems and art.
  • Christians worship God as Trinity. It is a huge idea to grasp and Christians have created art to help to express this belief.
  • Christians believe the Holy Spirit is God’s power at work in the world and in their lives today, enabling them to follow Jesus.

PSHE  - Anti-Bullying and Children in Need

 

Antibullying week takes place week commencing Monday 11th - Friday 15th November 2024. This years theme is Choose Respect. Children will take part in a variety of activities across the week including:

• odd socks day Tuesday 12th November 2024
• learning an odd sock song to perform in a whole school assembly
• Exploring what making a choice means and how being respectful is a choice

Children in Need Day is Friday 15th November 2024 and children are invited to come to school in non uniform, the them is dress to express.

My Happy Mind - Celebrate  

This module is focused on character strengths We all have different character strengths and that by understanding what they are and then using them as much as possible, we can be at our best. In this context, Character Strengths refer to those character traits that make us unique. We all have different characters and this is something to celebrate! This is not about what we are 'good' at, like football or maths. It is about who we are, such as being kind or brave. Through a variety of weekly activities, children will learn:

• what the different types of Character Strengths are
• how we can learn to spot different strengths in ourselves and others
• which Character Strengths we identify with

We are continuing to deliver a program to all year groups at school called myHappymind. myHappymind is all based around helping children to understand how their brain works and to support them in developing positive skills and habits to be their very best selves! We finish our sessions with our school's Let Your Light Shine Prayer, click the link here Let Your Light Shine prayer

Please click on the link below to access an overview of what the program entails.

myHappymind Parent information

Geography - Map skills UK

Our theme for Geography this half term is map skills UK. Through this theme, we will complete a range of activities to help us learn to

• locate the UK using maps, concentrating on its environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, counties, and major cities.
• use maps, atlases, globes and digital /computer mapping to locate countries and describe features studied
• look at geographical regions and identify human and physical characteristics
• look at land use patterns; understanding how these uses have changed over time

 

Music - R&B

This half term we will be learning an R&B style song called 'Let your Spirit Fly' by Joanna Mangona. During each lesson children will listen and appraise a piece of R&B music, complete some musical activities and perform. Children will be learning to

• listen and appraise a piece of R&B music
• identify the style indicators of R&B music
• identify the structure of a song
• use their bodies to find the pulse of a song
• use musical language to discuss songs
• play a musical instrument following musical notation
• perform a song

Computing - Programming

This half term we are using Scratch - a block coding platform designed to simplify how to learn to code. We will be learning to

• use decomposition to explore the code behind an animation
• use repetition in programs
• use logical reasoning to explain how simple algorithms work
• explain the purpose of an algorithm
• form algorithms independently
• use logical thinking to explore more complex software; predicting, testing and explaining what it does
• incorporate loops to make code more efficient
• continue an existing code
• make reasonable suggestions for how to debug their own and others’ code

Design and Technology - Structures

WE NEED YOUR HELP . . .

Please save and send into school KITCHEN ROLL TUBES, CARDBOARD PACKAGING, LARGE CARDBOARD PACKAGING (e.g. large cereal boxes). We need these by week commencing 18th November 2024, however, donations can be brought into school anytime before this.

This half term we will be focusing on constructing a castle. The children will be learning to

• draw and label a simple castle that includes the most common features
• recognise that a castle is made up of multiple 3D shapes
• design a castle with key features which satisfy a given purpose
• score or cut along lines on the net of a 2D shape
• use glue to securely assemble geometric shapes
• utilise skills to build a complex structure from simple geometric shapes
• evaluate their work by answering simple questions

French - Les Saisons

This half term we will be learning about the four seasons, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer.

In this unit pupils will learn how to:

• Recognise, recall and remember the 4 seasons in French.
• Recognise, recall and remember a short phrase for each season in French.
• Say which season is their favourite in French and attempt to say why using the conjunctions ‘et’ and ‘car’.

Physical Education  - Gymnastics and Dance

This half term we will be learning about gymnastic balances. We will be learning to 

• hold a balance showing control
• hold a balance showing control and extension
• travel in a variety of ways
• create routines containing balances, and travel showing fluency from one balance to another
• Mirror/Match and Canon and Unison

This half term we will also learning about dance. We will be learning to

• respond in the correct manner to commands (inside, outside, freeze etc)
• repeat simple sequences of movements
• create ways to move to music
• create movement to stimulus
• move in a fluent and expressive manner
• plan, perform and repeat sequences of movements in a group

 

Indoors PE kit
Navy/Black shortsWhite polo shirt or t-shirt (N.B. This should be a different polo shirt to any worn as part of the school uniform)

(for gymnastics, a black leotard may also be worn).

Outdoors PE kit
Tracksuits will be allowed for outdoor games in cold weather; these should not be in team colours/fashion brands.

Trainers should be worn which are robust, sturdy and intended for exercise and not fashion.

Home Learning

Maths homework - 1 piece of maths homework will be given out every Thursday to be handed in by the following Thursday.

 Reading - Please aim for 15 minutes each day, sign the home reading record books and have them in school for book change on Thursdays. Building on from Key Stage 1, it is expected that children read a minimum of 20 times a month in Key Stage 2, children achieving this and beyond will receive a golden ticket for the half termly prize draw.

Times Table Rock Stars - Click here to play! (This takes you to an external site which we have no control over)

TTRS is an on-line programme to boost fluency and recall in multiplication and division skills. It is available on a range of devices, including mobile phones. You can play online at ttrockstars.com or download the TTRS app. Playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of multiplication and division facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact TTRS will have. Children will earn virtual coins to personalise their rock avatars and move up the rock leaderboard from "New Artist" to "Rock Hero"! In order to get the best out of TTRS children should regularly play for short bursts of time over the week, there are 18 stages to complete! TTRS uses the same log in details your child used for NUMBOTs in Key Stage 1.

If you have misplaced your log in details or are having trouble accessing the website, please email me to let us know.

 

Thank you for your support. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to speak to a member of the Year 3 team.

Mrs Rowe, Mrs Jones and Mrs Ridgeway.