Overview of Year 3 lessons this term

22 November 2018

The first term has been a busy time in Year 3. Everyone has settled in well to their new classroom. All the teachers have been very impressed with how the children have matured in a short space of time to meet the expectations of behavior and work now they have become part of the Junior age range. Rather than focus on one large event, this update will give an overview of all that has been happening recently in Year 3 lessons.

English

‘Talk for Writing’ has been a great success in Year 3 so far this year. The children have been working so hard to learn text types and try to remember new vocabulary and sentence structures. There has been a strong focus on self-assessment and children have been thinking about their learning and what they can do to improve. We have been doing some phonics starters at the beginnings of our English lessons. These have included finding or making words with specific sounds or playing phonic games in groups.

Maths

Year 3 students have been exploring number by using the four operations to solve problems. They have been learning and using a variety of methods and checking their calculations to see if their answers are accurate. Lessons are always engaging and challenging and the students have loved using a variety of mathematical tools such as number squares, number lines, numicon, spinners and large dice as well as interactive and traditional games to reinforce their learning.

IPC

We are learning all about Chocolate in IPC. We began thinking about everything we know about Chocolate already and made a Mind Map - we will add to this each week as we learn more interesting facts about Chocolate. Each class is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka asked us to think of a new Chocolate bar for his factory. We used our senses to test different flavours unfortunately garlic was not a popular choice! We have now moved onto History and are investigating the origins of Chocolate in Mesoamerica and learning about the Aztecs and their use of Chocolate.

Science

The children learned about the rock cycle in a new and innovative way. We used different types of chocolate and added pressure, manipulated them and melted them to show what happens when sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks are formed on Earth. Of course the best part of this experiment was eating the chocolate after it had cooled down! We are currently learning about magnets and forces. It can be challenging when children have to make careful observations and ensure their investigations are fair.