St Mark's Church Visit

We were very lucky to be invited to St Mark's Church for a second time this year. This time, the children were learning all about the Easter Story. The children were able to complete a carousel of activities all linked to different parts of the Easter Story.

Art Week - Sculpture

We have been hard at work creating sculptures this week in school. The children have been outside to search for natural materials to use in their sculpture. These materials were then placed into a gesso mixture arranged at varying heights. Once dried, the sculptures were then painted black and a final layer of metallic. They look incredible! Then, we moved onto looking at the work of Louise Bourgeois and created our own insect sculptures using fabric and wire. 

Paula White

Today Year 3 had an exciting visitor - the author and illustrator of The Baker by the Sea! We loved listening to her read the story and tell us all about the process behind creating a children's book.

Plants

We have started to learn all about plants! In our first lesson, we labelled the parts of a flowering plant and learnt about their functions. We then played a game of guess who (plant edition) using our knowledge.

Magnetism

In science, we have been learning about magnetism. The children have been working out how to make magnets attract and repel using a variety of different magnets. They have also learnt about gravity and thought about what the next Olympic Games would be like if gravity was halved!

Art Week

Art week this half term has been all about collage and textiles. The children have created some beautiful mandalas and have dip dyed and printed different fabrics to create a quilt inspired by artist Fiona Ringgold. 

Right Angles

Year 3 has been all about right angles in maths. The children have made their own angle makers and angle checkers to find as many right angles as they can in the classroom. We have then been looking at polygons and investigating if the amount of sides a shape has can change the number of right angles that it can have. 

Forces and Magnets

We have started our Science unit on forces and magnets this week. We have been learning about contact and non-contact forces in Science. The children have been investigating how many ways they can make a stationary ball roll without touching it or hitting it with a bat. We then investigated if more force is needed make a ball move or to make it stop and change direction. 

Carlton Marshes

To prepare for our next writing unit, we had a visit to Carlton Marshes to learn all about how littering impacts the wildlife and habitats. We had a day of bug hunting, bird watching and nature walks!

Science

This week in science we looked at comparative tests and investigated the question, 'Which leaf will fall to the ground in the shortest time?' We discussed how to make it a fair test and what the independent and dependent variables would be.

Elm Rewards!

On Friday, both 3SG and 3JH had their reward for earning 100 Elms! 3SG watched a movie with popcorn and 3JH had golden time. Well done Year 3!

DT

For our DT day, we investigated the question, 'How do we make a box out of fabric?' We tested different solutions to determine the most effective at stiffening fabric. Then, we made a box out of fabric using a template, practising our cutting skills.

Geography

We have started the new year with a Geography day. The children were learning about the 8 points on a compass and the difference between cardinal and intercardinal points. We then went out onto the playground and used compasses to identify what could be seen in each direction. 

St Mark's Church Visit

We had a lovely visit to St Mark's Church to learn all about the Christmas Story. Each station focused on a different aspect of the story and the children really enjoyed it!

No One Wraps Like an Elf!

The children have been working so hard on our Christmas play and we are so proud of them for an AMAZING performance. Hope those who have come to see it enjoyed it as much as we did!

Christmas Jumper Day

English - Coming Home Narrative

We have started our new English unit this week based on 'Coming Home' by Michael Morpurgo.  The children chose an animal for their character and then we spent some time exploring different settings that our animal could visit on their journey home. We gathered descriptive and prepositional phrases for each setting which the can then help us to write our own journey. 

DT - Food and Nutrition

We have been busy cooking away in year 3 today. We have been learning about balanced diets and seasonal fruit and vegetables in DT. We began the day by stewing vegetables to make a fruity yoghurt - which wasn't very popular with the children. Then, we spent the afternoon making popcorn and home made chips with a variety of seasonings. I think it's safe to say that the chips and the popcorn were the most popular!

Share Afternoon

A huge thank you to everyone who attended our share afternoon. The children really enjoyed sharing their learning from PSHE lessons with parents!

Maths - Place Value

We have been working hard in Year 3 to deepen our understanding of the composition of three-digit numbers. The children have spent time representing a range of different numbers using a different manipulatives and have been amazing at discussing what each digit represents with increasing confidence!

PSHE - Valuing Differences

We have starting our new PSHE unit on Valuing Differences and we have looked at respect and challenge. One of the tasks that the children had to do was design a playground game that we could all play. We then went outside to test out the games that had been designed.

Printing

We have started our second Art week in Year 3 and it is all about printing. We have been experimenting with different printing techniques using black ink and a roller. The children then explored the different marks that they can make when their paper is placed on textured surfaces. We then had a go at creating our own monoprint by sketching a design onto an pre-inked tile and placing different coloured paper on top to reveal our print.  

Science - Animals Including Humans

We have started our new science unit in Year 3 - Animals Including Humans. Our first lesson was looking at the food pyramid and how all of the different food groups help us.

Maths - Making 6

In maths, we explored different ways to make 6 through a problem-solving game.

Science - Rocks

This week, Year 3 started their our Enquiry unit... Rocks! We kicked off the unit with an investigation where we used Starburst to make sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks.

Library Lessons

Year 3 have been having lots of fun sharing stories in our weekly library lessons and we are loving using the new library system to check books in and out. 3SG have been loving using their library sessions to explore all of the new books we are lucky enough to have and the children in 3JH have loved sharing their own stories with their friends in these sessions.

History

In our final lesson exploring the Prehistoric Era, we worked as a team to complete a Venn diagram showing the similarities and differences between the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.

PSHE

In our PSHE lessons we have been learning about friendship and what makes a good friend through lots of discussions and role play.

Charity Bounce

The children were very excited today when they saw the bouncy castle blown up in the gym ready for our charity bounce. Each child got their 1 minute of bouncing time and we completed hundreds and hundreds of bounces for Elm Tree's chosen charity. 

Art Week - Starry Night

Using all of the drawing and painting techniques the children learned during the week, they recreated Van Gogh's Starry night. They used a mixture of impasto, sgraffito and tonking for their background and then used oil pastels and charcoal to make marks for their foreground. Their final products are amazing!

Art Week

Art week has gotten off to a fantastic start! In this unit, we have been experimenting with various materials, including paint, to create different marks. In our first lesson, we looked at cave paintings, rocks and fossils to inspire our mark-making. We have also been learning about tint and how to add white to a colour to make a gradient.

Maths

In maths, we have started our new unit of numbers to 1000. For our first lesson, we have been looking at how many ways we can represent 100 using maths resources. The children were really creative with their ideas and wrote additive and multiplicative sentences to go with their representations. 

English - The First Drawing

We have continued to focus on The First Drawing in English and the children have been writing expanded noun phrases to include more description in their writing. We have been looking at images of the woolly mammoth in the book and gathered effective adjectives to use in our writing. 

BSL

We have enjoyed our first BSL lesson of the year so far. The children were taught greetings including: Good Morning, Good Afternoon, How are you? and What is your name? We're already looking forward to the next one! 

This week...

We started our new writing unit, based on the book 'The First Drawing' by Mordicai Gerstein. In our first lesson, we found footprints outside our classrooms! We followed them and found cave paintings on the walls and child-sized footprints in the middle of our rooms. We discovered they belonged to an eight-year-old child whose footprint was found next to some of the oldest drawings in the world! Our classes are excited to learn more about the story.

First Week Back

We have had an excellent start to Year 3. The children have been working hard on adding three addends in Maths and have already completed their first piece of writing in English - a description of a dragon! In History, we have started looking at the three periods of The Stone Age and what they were like. 

We are also very excited to be starting our first class novel - The Boy Who Grew Dragons. We think that the dragon (Flicker) is going to get up to all sorts of mischief!