English
In the Summer term, year three have been focussing on writing biographies, persuasive letters and non-chronological reports.
After completing our research, we wrote a biography on Mary Anning – who is our focus scientist in Year 3. Next, we wrote a persuasive letter to the Council explaining why they should / should not build houses
First of all, we read all about the Tongo Lizard before creating our own fantastic beasts – a hybrid of existing animals. Some were very formidable! We then thought carefully about creating headings and organising information to write in note form. Once this was done, we created a non-chronological report on our own beast.
Following this, we used our volcano knowledge to create a non-chronological report on ‘Vicious Volcanoes’, organising everything we knew into different sub headings and paragraphs. We also created a glossary for all that new technical vocabulary.
Maths
In Maths, the children began the new term learning about Fractions, money, analogue and digital time and duration of events. We then moved on to the world of shape where we examined 2D shapes and started to add to our vocabulary from Year 2 to connect the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. We learnt about different angles, plus how to identify parallel and perpendicular lines. We also learnt the vital life skills of measuring accurately plus categorising and sorting shapes with different properties.
Our final maths unit was statistics where we learnt about bar charts, pictograms and two-way tables.
Science
This term, we have been learning about Plants and observed over time the experiment of planting bean seeds in soil, sand, and just water. We then observed the changes each week and recorded these observations over time on a table. At the end of the experiment, we planted the beans plants outside and we have been studying a biology unit – ‘Animals including Humans’. We have learnt about different types of skeletons in animals including comparing human and animal skeletons. We have become budding doctors, learning the names of major bones and muscle groups. For our Dinosaur Day, we even created Dinosaur skeletons from art straws!
Then we moved on to nutrition, studying what is needed for a healthy diet, the names of food groups plus how to examine food packaging. We were very surprised at the nutritional content of some of our favourite fast food items!
We also really enjoyed SAW week (Science, Art & Writing) where we researched dinosaurs and wrote a haiku onto our artwork.
Art
We have learnt about Jeannie Baker and her collage work in ‘The Window’. We emulated this with natural materials using the views from our windows at home as inspiration.
As part of our SAW event, we created a beautiful sunset silhouette for our dinosaurs using a watercolour wash. Following that, we created a dinosaur skeleton ‘X-ray’ using white art straws on a black background.
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Geography
We have loved our latest topic of Volcanoes. We have been fascinated by what is underneath our feet, learning about the layers of the Earth. We have learnt why volcanoes erupt, the stages of eruption plus the different types of volcano. We have also learnt about Tectonic plates and how they are connected to ‘The Ring of Fire’ around the Pacific Ocean. We used our learning to write some brilliant non-chronological reports and also loved watching our volcano explode.
RE
This half term our big question has been ‘What is philosophy? How do people make moral decisions?’ with a focus on Judaism.
We had an introduction to philosophy by considering philosophical questions such as ‘What is true happiness’ and ‘What makes you, you?’ Then we learnt about the ten commandments and religious symbols in Judaism. We learnt about spiritual thoughts by considering the story of ‘Abraham & The Stars’ and designed a special meal based on the Shabbat meal.
We rounded off our year of R.E. with a school trip to Norwich Cathedral where we combined art, science and R.E. investigating light, colour, symbols and patterns. We learnt how bible stories were shown through the stained glass windows, mosaics and paintings, we met a shepherd from the time of Jesus and created our own modern stain glass window.
PE
This term, children have enjoyed learning how to play cricket. We have worked on our bowling skills trying to improve accuracy. We then worked on our fielding skills, being able to stop a ball and return it quickly. We have also been mastering batting skills, firstly by hitting a ball cleanly from a tee, then progressing to a bowled ball that proved a bit harder. We have really enjoyed taking part in our Sports week where we recapped our Tennis knowledge as well as continuing our cricket skills. We ended the term with a fabulous race day where we took part in a hurdles, sprint, relay, and egg and spoon race. We finished the race day with a parent race!
Computing
In the Summer term, Year 3 have covered stop-motion animation and branching databases. The Year 3s loved taking a sequence of pictures
To make a branching database, pupils first learned how to ask specific yes/no closed questions. We then looked at the characteristics that we could sort our data into. Pupils then created a paper branching database where they physically sorted pictures of animals with different characteristics such as diet, colour or habitat. Finally, pupils transferred this branching database to our online software on J2E.
Spanish
This term the children consolidated their prior learning of greetings and simple sentences. Recapping their understanding of numbers, colours and body parts. The children used this knowledge to have a conversation with each other and write descriptive sentences.
Music
Children are now getting confident with their ukuleles with many able to change fluidly between 2 and even 3 chords in the songs we’ve been playing. It’s lovely when you see that moment when children realise they are able to make music and really are musicians. (Mr Hardy hopes to see some of them in Ukulele Club next year.
We also had Toft-o-Vision song contest – our annual interclass singing competition. It’s really interesting to see how each class’s character comes out in their performance. A very close run competition this year, a big thank you to all the children and their teachers for putting their hearts and souls into this!
D.T.
We designed, created and evaluated a seed bag using a number of materials and stitches (running, over and back stitch). We also made a meatless pasty, making out own dough, gravy, and filling. They were absolutely delicious and as one child said “I was surprised I liked them because they didn’t have any meat in them!”