We have had a very busy Autumn term; all the children have worked hard and settled in very quickly to the new routines. Here are some of the things we got up to:
Music:
The children have all been having whole class ocarina lessons with Mr Hardy. They have started to recognise the names of the notes on the treble clef stave and relate this to what they are playing. The music the children have been playing has been a delight to hear across the classrooms! We have also been able to have Yr3 and Yr4 group singing again in assembly time and the children learnt two African songs, one from Ghana and the other South African – ‘Tue Tue’ and ‘Siyahamba’- celebrating Black History Month.
English:
This half term we have focussed on creating descriptive pieces of writing, using Roald Dahl’s The BFG. The children learnt to categorise different classes of words including adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs. They then created some lovely free verse rhyming poems after learning and performing Shakespeare’s ‘Double, double, toil and trouble’. We finally ended the half term with a piece of instructional writing, based on our Gaudi Tile print art work.
Maths:
We started the year exploring place value using concrete resources and pictorial representations for them. Most of the children demonstrated a sound understanding of the value of the digits in three-digit numbers. We finished the half term by introducing column method for addition and subtraction. We will continue to develop the use of this strategy after half term.
Science:
The children have enjoyed learning all about forces and magnets. They have been particularly fascinated by the weekly experiments and have touched on the different stages of an enquiry by predicting and reporting on their findings. At the start of the half term, they classified objects into whether they were magnetic or not and went on to test the magnetic field of the different magnet types. Their final investigation required them to investigate the effect of surfaces on 
friction.
Art:
We started Year 3, by looking at the sketching techniques below:
Connected to our learning in Spanish, we have explored Barcelona and specifically looked at an artist named Antoni Gaudi.
After learning about his work, they were inspired by the patterns in nature that he focussed on to create their own tile which they printed to create a repeated pattern.
Geography:
Year 3 began the year by recapping their year 2 learning about the continents of the world and the countries in the UK, comparing Birmingham and Norwich as two comparative cities. After that, we looked at human and physical landmarks in Europe and then the world, using grid references and compass points.
Computing:
We are very lucky to have a class set of tablets for each class. The best part is that we have been able to access TTRockstars.
We have also learnt about features of a device in our computational thinking sessions and the children created their own device, considering what inputs, processes and outputs they would have to consider.
PE:
Real Gym throughout the whole of the Autumn term has been a hit in year 3! The children have made great progress with learning a variety of shapes and using these when rotating or in a sequence. Throughout the unit the children have focused also on social skills, team work, giving feedback and how to set up the hall safely with mats.
Real PE
The children enjoyed the continuous relay warm up this term where they were focussing on spatial awareness and eye contact. They progressed through more challenging ways to travel by coordinating their footwork.
PSHE and RSE:
This half term we began by looking at labelling feelings and the benefit of compliments to those around us. As we reached Black History month, we recapped the life of Mo Farrah and Maya Angelou. We discussed equality and individual liberty and listened to some multi-cultural stories.
Spanish:
As children begin KS2, they begin to learn a Modern Foreign Language. Here at Toftwood, we study Spanish and the children have learnt how to greet each other, introduce themselves and have a short and basic conversation about how they are feeling.
RE:
We have focused on Christianity as our theological focus this half term and learnt about the Creation story. We thought about what it teaches Christians and how it shapes their values.
