Welcome to Year 3!

2023-24

In Year 3, our teachers are Mr Tickle, Miss Cameron, Miss James and Miss Jones. We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistant (LSA): Miss Wombwell. 

If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. You can speak to your child’s class teacher by phoning the school and requesting an appointment if they are not around at pick-up.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Curriculum Newsletters

• Year 3 Curriculum Newsletter - Summer 2024
• Year 3 Curriculum Newsletter - Spring 2024
• Year 3 Curriculum Newsletter - Autumn 2023

Updated - Friday 12th July 2024

We had quite a busy week in Year 3 - we completed our end of year tests in Maths which were very tricky! We have also started our final unit: statistics. We have looked at pictograms and bar charts so far and will look at collecting data and interpreting two-way tables next week.

In English, we have written our apprentice piece for our Aladdin topic. We wrote about the first few opening scenes of the movie, thinking about how we can use interesting vocabulary and various sentence types to bring our setting to life. 

As we come towards the end of our History topic, we had a lot of fun creating some freezeframes to show scenes from the withdrawing of Romans from Britannia! We have also been working through a series of questions which we have to discuss and then draw on all of our Roman knowledge before writing a response. 

Sports Day on Friday was very exciting, and it was great to see so many parents come along to cheer us on. Year 3 all showed excellent sportsmanship and it made the day so enjoyable and fun!

Updated - Friday 5th July 2024

As part of our final English topic, we watched a short clip of Aladdin! We had to order key story scenes and retell them in pairs using fronted adverbials and exciting vocabulary. We discussed the setting and the characters involved and have started to think about sentence types to make our writing more exciting.

We have now finished shape in Maths, looking at various 2D and 3D shapes and identifying their key features using our visualisation skills. Using multilink cubes, we could build our own 3D shapes to see the properties in front of us! We will be starting statistics next week. 

In DT, we have started the Greenhouses unit. We have looked at many different designs and identified which aspects of the design are important and which are more for decoration. In the coming weeks, we will develop our building skills to make our greenhouse in small groups!

Updated - Friday 28th June 2024

In English this week, we are preparing for our final piece, where we will write a guide on looking after a pet dragon! We learned about cause-and-effect conjunctions and thought about how we could use those to really improve our writing. We then planned what we would need to include in our care guide before writing it over two days. We will know exactly what to do if we find a dragon!

We learned about what words like transparent, translucent, and opaque mean in science by testing different materials to see if they would let any light through. We also noticed that different materials cast different types of shadows, leading us to consider how the colour of a shadow can be affected by an object's transparency.

In History, we examined a range of unknown Roman artefacts. We discussed our initial thoughts about them in groups before reading up on where they came from and what they were used for. We realised just how much Roman culture came into Britain during the Roman occupation and were able to discuss how we think the lives of people here could have changed as a result. 

Update - Friday 21st June 2024

This week, as part of our Light and Shadows topic in science, we took advantage of the sunny weather to go outside and think about how we can create different shapes using our shadows. We had to think about where the sun was and where our shadow would be cast, as well as how we might be able to make letters out of shadows!

Many of us were very pleased to finish our time unit in Maths, and we will now move on to shape. Everyone must keep practising telling the time, as that is the only way the skill can improve.

In history, we have been studying Roman inventions and thinking about their impact on our lives today—we have looked at roads and toilets in particular. We were quite disgusted to learn that there weren't generally toilets in homes before the Romans brought over public toilets!

Updated - Friday 14th June 2024

On Monday, we found something very curious hidden on the school grounds—a dragon egg! We know from our Reading topic last half term that dragons can be unpredictable and messy, so we have decided to write a Dragon Care Guide to help anyone who comes across these naughty creatures.

In Science, we finished up our Plant Nutrition and Reproduction topic. In groups, we planned and carried out an experiment testing our hypothesis on plants. It was very exciting to see how much changed, and needing to draw our own conclusions about why it happened really stretched out our brains! We also started our new topic, which is all about light and shadows.

We have continued telling the time in Maths and are starting to focus more on digital time and working out the difference between the two times. 

Update - Friday 7th June 2024

After a restful half-term, we got stuck straight away! We started learning about time in Maths—we have started to tell the time in both 5-minute and 1-minute intervals. It is a challenging topic, but we will keep practising over the coming weeks. 

In English, we have finished our Twisted Fairy Tales topic. Our final piece involved rewriting the story of the Three Little Pigs with a twist. One of our characters was different! Some of us changed the pigs and wrote stories like the Three Little Rabbits, and some of us changed the wolf and wrote stories where the pigs were being chased by animals such as dragons or bears. We worked on using expanded noun phrases, alliteration, similes, fronted adverbials, speech, and complex sentences.

Our History topic about the Romans is as interesting as ever. This week, we looked at significant events and power struggles, such as Boudicca's rebellion and how the Caledonians interacted with the Roman armies. There were lots of independent research tasks involved, and we really did feel like true historians. 

Update - Friday 24th May 2024

This week, we got stuck into our new Art project—Mosaic Masters! We spent time looking at mosaics across many different time periods and were able to link what we already learned about the Romans in History to this topic as well. We then designed and created our very own mosaic tiles. They look absolutely amazing, and they will be sent home after half-term when they have had time to dry fully.

We also had a very special treat to finish up our French unit, "Les glaces." A parent kindly brought in some ice cream, so after completing our assessment, we were able to use our French skills to ask for "une boule á la vanille"! Of course, we made sure to say "s'il vous plaît" and "merci" as well.

In Maths, we completed our topic centred on money and are ready to start time after the half term. We will learn how to read both analogue and digital clocks to the minute and apply our knowledge to problem-solving questions.

We hope everyone has a wonderful week off, and we look forward to seeing you all back on June 3rd.

Update - Friday 17th May 2024

We spent an afternoon sketching various fruits from different angles to wrap up our Beautiful Botanical art topic. We had a selection of fruits, from apples and oranges to dragon fruits and coconuts! The sketches turned out amazingly, and it was really fun to see some more unusual fruit. Some of us were expecting the dragon fruit to contain a baby dragon because we had been reading 'The Boy Who Grew Dragons', but what we saw inside the dragon fruit was also pretty cool.

Our new English topic is about twisted fairy tales. We have been reading different versions of the '3 Little Pigs' with interesting twists - what if the little pigs were ninjas? Or superheroes? What if the big bad wolf was good? To help us think more about the different viewpoints in the story, we created freezeframes from 'The 3 Little Superpigs' and had to explain to the class how our characters were feeling at different points.

In History, to help us understand how the Roman soldiers worked, we went onto the playground and became Roman soldiers! Armed with whiteboards and rulers, we completed Roman army marching drills. We discussed how the marching formations could protect Romans in battle and got to try them out for ourselves. It was great fun!

Update - Friday 10th May 2024

In Year 3, we persevered with our Lino carving and made some beautiful prints using ink. Our beautiful botanical designs have made wonderful additions to our sketchbooks. It was a messy activity, but we had a lot of fun.

We continued our celery experiments this week, examining what happens when we block a plant's vessels. We predicted that if a plant could not transport water, it would undergo some big changes—and we were right! After a week without water, our celery sticks looked quite floppy and sad. 

As part of our History topic, we have examined the hierarchy of ancient Rome. We compared it to the hierarchy of our school—we found out that Miss Charman is like a Roman emperor! This was a really fun activity, and it also involved using the Chromebooks to find the information we needed to summarise what we learned. 

Update - Friday 3rd May 2024

In year 3, we became scientists this week! We all took a celery stick and put it in plain and coloured water to see what would happen. The coloured stare changed the celery's colour, allowing us to see how the xylem and phloem transport water around a plant.

We have also tried our hand at carving into Lino tiles! We sketched our simple botanical design as part of our Beautiful Botanical topic in Art. We then had to carve them into tough Lino tiles. It was tricky, but some lovely pieces came out of it. Our next step will be to use ink to print our designs.

Our Mass and Capacity topic ended this week, and we have started to look at Fractions B, our next topic. We will build on the knowledge gained during Fractions A to start adding and subtracting with unit and non-unit fractions. 

Update - Friday 26th April 2024

This week, we celebrated Earth Day! On Monday, we spent the afternoon completing various plastics-related tasks and how they harm our planet. We researched Chris Packham, a famous person who cares about nature. We also created our own plastic pledges with promises to help reduce our plastic use. 

In Computing, we have begun filming for our book trailers. We used iPads to take different videos of a book so that we could eventually edit them together into a trailer with a voiceover, visual effects and more. 

We also continued our History topic by learning about the difference between the Roman Empire, the Roman Republic and the Roman Kingdom. We sorted out different facts and learned about the different types of power that people held in ancient Rome. 

Update - Friday 19th April 2024

We have had an action-packed first week back in Year 3. We started our new English topic, which is all about writing a persuasive letter to help us on our challenge to save the bees. We have done lots of research and started thinking about the key features we might see in creative writing.

In Art, we collected various natural materials (such as grass, flexible twigs and flowers) in our Forest School area. We then wove them onto a loom to create beautiful art pieces for our Beautiful Botanical topic. It was impressive that we learned a new skill quickly and worked well in small groups to make it happen.

We would also like to thank all the grown-ups who helped make Roman artefacts over the Easter holidays! Thanks to everybody's hard work, our museum was fascinating, informative, and fun. We looked at everybody's project and asked each other questions about their artefact and how it would have been used in Roman times. 

Update - Thursday 28th March 2024

We had a busy week as we've gotten closer and closer to the Easter holidays! We finished our English topic, and worked as journalists to write a newspaper article reporting on the recent theft of the Bona Lisa. We also got to have some fun taking our written pieces and using the laptops to design our very own newspaper with our article on the front page.

In DT, we finished our 'Making it Move' unit. Working in teams, we were able to plan and build our own toys with moving parts! We had to design and create cams, axles and followers and then put them together to create a working mechanism in our toy.

Our fractions topic has now ended in Maths, and we will be moving on to Mass and Capacity when we are back after Easter.

Everyone has worked so hard this term and it has been fantastic. We look forward to seeing everyone back on the 15^th April!

Update - Friday 22nd March 2024

We reflected on mechanisms in DT and considered why certain mechanisms create certain movements—like how a slider works, why a lever moves, and how a linkage can be used to make a paper man dance!

In Geography, we worked in teams to put together a short presentation of our findings from last week. We had to talk about what we learned when we investigated Quito last week and summarise our results. We remembered lots of information about the long—and short-term effects of earthquakes and the risks of living near so many tectonic plate boundaries.

We performed our final compositions in music based on traditional Chinese New Year music we have been listening to. Over the last few weeks, we have been practising using pentatonic melodies and writing them down, and this week, we brought everything together - including the dragon masks we made! It was a lot of fun, and we also got the chance to move around and create dances to go with the music performed by other groups.

Update - Friday 15th March 2024

In year 3, we became journalists this week in preparation for our new topic. We had to search around the classroom for clues and evidence that we hoped would lead us to discover who had stolen a priceless painting… the Bona Lisa! 

Having finished length and perimeter in maths, we have moved to our next topic which centers on fractions. We have worked on understanding what the numerator and denominator represent, as well as ordering fractions with different denominators. 

We have learned so much about our Geography topic this term, so we put this to the test by spending an afternoon looking at a city called Quito in Ecuador. Our task was to use our knowledge of earthquakes to find out how dangerous it might be to live there, as well as understanding the short and long term effects of earthquakes that happen there and across the world. 

Update - Friday 8th March 2024

We had a great time in Year 3 this week. Inspired by the Chinese music we had been listening to, we created our own melodies in Music using the pentatonic scale. After practising very hard in pairs, we performed in front of the class and discussed what we liked and could improve.

In Math, we have finished our Length and Perimeter topic. Now, we know how to measure and calculate perimeter for a variety of irregular shapes. We will move onto Fractions on Monday, beginning with learning about the parts of a fraction and how to understand them.

On Thursday, we enjoyed an off-timetable day for World Book Day! There were some amazing costumes, and we had a lot of fun participating in special reading activities. We performed some drama scenes we came up with, listened to our teachers' favourite stories, designed bookmarks and had a great time!

Update - Friday 1st March 2024

This week in year 3, we tried to draw parts of our school in the style of LS Lowry. We had to think about how we could use our skills to add tone to our sketches and other details. 

We wrote our apprentice pieces in English, thinking about how we could add suspense to a retelling of a chapter of Jumanji. Remembering our new skills - including how to punctuate speech properly - was tricky, but we worked incredibly hard on them. 

We also enjoyed Science Day - we spent the morning learning all about Louis Pasteur and conducting various experiments. It got slightly messy sometimes, but it was a lot of fun! We made leakproof bags, watched colourful water walk over the kitchen roll and made our drawings float on water using a whiteboard pen. 

Update - Friday 23rd February 2024

We have settled back nicely into our routine in year 3, and have gotten started on our new English topic - Jumanji! We had lots of fun reading the book together and started to think about how the characters feel at different points. We came up with many interesting ideas and started thinking about what suspense means and how we can identify it in a story.

In science, we have learned all about magnetic fields. We did different experiments using iron filings and two magnets so we could try and see the invisible magnetic field lines. Testing it out and feeling the magnets push each other apart was fun!

We were also very excited to return to our outdoor learning area this week - even though it was muddy, we had a great time! Next week, every child must have a change of shoes and kit to ensure nobody misses out when we go outside. 

Update - Friday 9th February 2024

This week, we finished our English topic by writing up full diary entries, pretending we were Arthur from our book “Me and Mister P”. We had to plan out our writing by picking out three main events from the story – our favourite part is when Mister P, the polar bear, got into the ice cream truck and ate all the ice cream!

Tuesday was Internet Safety Day, so we had a special assembly and lessons reminding us about how to be safe on the Internet. We created posters to help teach other people about internet safety and remind ourselves of the top tips. As good digital citizens, we have a lot of ideas about keeping safe online.

We learned a new skill in Geography this week – we learned how to conduct our research and create a database based on it. We worked in pairs using laptops to create a database of knowledge about active volcanoes across the world so that other people could look up facts like the last eruption and height.

Friday was Mad Hair Day! We had a lot of fun showing off our crazy hairstyles, and we hope all the parents had a good time creating our wonderfully mad hair. We are all looking forward to half-term after working so hard the last 6 weeks and will see everyone back on the 19^th of February.

Update - Friday 2nd February 2024

This week in Year 3, we started our new English topic. We are learning about diary entries and had a lot of fun acting out scenes from a diary entry we read together! We have also been practising our scanning skills to pick out the key features from a diary example.

During Art, we have made some very interesting creations using our sculpting and painting skills. We got out the clay and used clay tools to create sculptures that looked like fossils or leaves as part of our Ammonite topic. After they had dried, we used our knowledge of the colour wheel to mix up the best colour to paint with.

On Friday, we had Number Day! The year group had some cool outfits that fit our digit theme. We had to complete some tricky maths challenges and crack some codes given to us by Buddy, the Number Day mascot, to try and earn a special prize at the end of the day. Our teachers showed off a maths magic trick they used to guess a number we were thinking of before asking us to figure it out.

Update - Friday 1st December 2023

This week has been busy with everyone designing and making their tacos. In doing this, we thought about what made a healthy, balanced diet and how our designs could use the guidance from the Eatwell plate we looked at in Science and Design Technology. Having made our tacos designed, we then enjoyed eating them!

Update  - Friday 10th November 2023

This week, we have been working on our addition and subtraction methods in our maths. Using our place value counters, we have started to use the column methods. We found it a little tricky but soon got the idea!

We have also just begun our new design technology unit, where we can apply our understanding of nutrition from our science lessons from earlier in the half term. As part of this, we looked at the five main food groups and categorised them into groups. 

Update - Friday 3rd November 2023

This week in our English we received a letter from another school asking us to tell them about the Stone Age. As a year group, we discussed if we wanted to write back to them and share what we have found and decided this would be a good idea. As a result, we completed some research and made notes on the different parts of Stone Age life to ensure we knew enough to write. Next week, we will begin to think about the skills involved in writing letters.

In computing, we have begun to explore Scratch in preparation for us to programme our own game. While exploring Scratch, we found we could program it to play sounds and move around the screen. 

Update - Friday 20th October 2023

This week has been exceptionally busy! In English, we have been writing our final piece based on 'Anansi the Clever Spider' linking to our Black History Month work. Through this, the children learned to use speech within their stories whilst remembering not to use too much speech.

Through maths, we have continued to work on understanding addition and subtraction and made some super progress, particularly in using resources to support our thinking. 

In art, we have completed our pots in the style of Bell Beaker pottery. We used the clay tools to help decorate the pots in the styles we had explored earlier in the unit. We are very proud of how they've turned out!

Update- Friday 13th October 2023

This week, we have been beginning to use clay to create pots in the style of Bell Beaker pots. As part of this, we have explored using the clay and how to create different patterns as well as how to stick clay embellishments onto the clay pots. 

In geography, we have been looking at climate zones and where these are in the world. We used an atlas to help us find the five different climate zones and then began to identify the key characteristics of these zones. 

Through our history sessions, we have been exploring historical clues and putting together the clues to deduce what happened to 'Cheddar Man'. Using these clues, just like historians, we were able to suggest possible reasons why his remains were found and how these helped historians to learn more and more about the Stone Age. 

Update - Friday 6th October 2023

This week, we have been working hard to complete our final piece of art. As part of this, we have been thinking about the different colours we can use to complement each other and how this will impact the final piece. We also had to consider the different colours and how to mix them. 

In our science, we have also begun to think about the different bones in the body and how they are used. We found out that babies have more bones than adults, which was a surprising fact!

Update - Friday 22nd September 2023

This week has been extremely busy! On Wednesday, we had a visitor in school to do a workshop for the children on the Stone Age, Iron Age and Bronze Age, linking to our topic on 'Through the Ages'. In this, the children learned about life in each time period. 

Stone Age life: using stone for making tools and weapons and transitioning from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming.

Bronze Age life: using metals, including bronze, to make tools, weapons and objects, and the creation of large settlements and social hierarchy.

Iron Age life: metals, including iron, to make stronger, more effective tools and weapons and fine, decorative objects. Farming was more efficient, and religion was an important part of life.