Literacy

For literacy this half term, students have started to practise their first reading skill, prediction. The children have discussed the importance of being able to make appropriate predictions and have talked about how a blurb or an image can help to make a sensible guess about what will happen in a story. The children have engaged very well with this and their enjoyment is reflected in the predictions they have made and their thoughts and ideas about the characters.

In addition to making predictions, the children in year 3 have also completed a non-chronological report, which talks about school meals at Curwen. This was their first formal piece of writing since moving up to year 3 and though it was a challenge, the children all strove for success and completed something they can be proud of.

Can I partition numbers using concrete resources? 

In Year 3, there is a big push to make Maths accessible to all. Some people learn best by doing.  In fact, it is said that all children benefit from learning by doing.  Some parents have admitted, that they have even used kidney beans to explain addition and subtraction.

So far, we have worked on the Properties of Numbers, and have used the Dienes to represent hundreds, tens and units/ones.  The children were effectively able to find the answers to their Maths questions, and feel an overall sense of achievement.

In topic, we have been learning about our local area.  So far, we have learnt that Plaistow, our local area, is a town, which is within the borough of Newham. We also learnt that the smallest human settlement is called a hamlet and that counties are bigger than cities but smaller than a country. To help us understand place the settlements in the correct order, we created settlement hierarchy circles. We have also looked at 4-ficure grid references to help us locate place on a map.

Summer 1 Literacy – Year 3

In Literacy this half term, we have been writing our own narrative stories about volcanoes. We have been doing this alongside our topic lessons which have also been about volcanoes. We used a range of grammar skills such as fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases and prepositional phrases to make our writing more dramatic. We also used speech and powerful verbs to engage our readers. To help us visualise what a volcanic eruption might have felt like in order to create our narrative stories, we listened to a story on “Now Press Play” about the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii.

Geography summer 1

This term in geography we have been learning all about volcanoes! We have learnt about different features of Earth’s structure, tectonic plates and effects of natural disaster on the people and the environment. We have also completed some exciting work including locating 7 main tectonic plates on the map of the Earth and labelling volcanoes. The children learned that volcanic eruptions begin deep inside the Earth. The molten rock stored in the magma chamber rises and travel through the vents. As it travels up, gases expand and water becomes steam, creating pressure. When the pressure can no longer be contained, it erupts through the crater and secondary side vents.

Math Summer 1

In Maths this term we have been consolidating our knowledge of the four operations, and the methods we can use to decipher and calculate word problems.  After this, we have been delving deeper into fractions, picking up from where we began this work in Autumn 2.  We have begun adding and subtracting fractions, as well at looking at mixed and improper fractions.  Currently the children are working on properties of shape, and recognising the relationships between 2D and 3D shapes and how angles and lines can be described to help us identify certain shapes.

Topic: 

The Ancient Egyptians are the focus of our learning in Topic lessons this term.  The endlessly fascinating topic has the children across Year 3 exploring, investigating and researching the various elements that contributed to the success of this ancient civilisation. As well as creating timelines and fact files, the children were able to deepen their understanding with a fantastic trip to The British Museum!  Thanks to all the families who came along to help on the trips!

In Literacy, we have been doing exploratory learning with a focus on language, tone and authorial intent. Students have been looking closely at different words in order to understand why they were used and to discuss different attitudes towards a subject matter. In addition, we have also been working on our inference skills by looking at images and then transferring those ideas to the text for deeper understanding.

Year 3 Website update - Maths

In maths this half-term Year 3 has been learning about money. We identified the value of the coins and then made different totals. We also found different ways of making the same amount using different coins. Some of us also looked at world problems where we had to identify the correct operation looking at the words. 

In topic, we have been learning about our local area.  So far, we have learnt that Plaistow, our local area, is a town, which is within the borough of Newham. We have been completing lots of fun exploratory activities including drawing a map of our local area and completing four figure grid reference tasks that help us understand how places can be found on a map.on for your blog post here.