Writing – The Flood
In Writing, Year 3 are planning a narrative. A narrative is a story that entertains and interests the reader. Our narrative is going to be based on this picture book called ‘The Flood’.
Features to include:
- description
- action
- dialogue (direct speech)
- different sentence lengths
In today’s lesson, we spent time generating vocabulary to use in our narrative. We tried to describe nouns like the storm, rain and clouds. We used the iPads to find synonyms of words we could think of. Here’s what we found!
Help at home: Can you think of any more adjectives to describe these nouns?
Science – Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?
Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?
Last Friday, Year 3 set up a test to see whether the amount of seeds in one pot affects the growth of a plant and more specifically a sunflower!
What are we measuring?
We are measuring the height of the plants in centimetres every week.
What are we keeping the same?
We are keeping the size of the pots, the amount we water them and conditions (windowsill) the same.
What are we changing?
We are changing the amount seeds in each pot: 1, 2, 4 and 8 seeds per pot.
We went out in the sun to plant these and to plant our own individual sunflower seeds too!
The children will measure how these grow over the weeks and take them home.
Check back here every week to see updates!
Living and Learning – I know the importance of a balanced diet.
Year 3 have been discussing how we can make sensible choices that help our bodies stay healthy.
One way we can help our bodies stay healthy is having a balanced diet. The children have previously learnt about what a diet is and a balanced diet in Science earlier this year.
A diet: the foods a person or animal eats.
A balanced diet: eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions.
We discussed our own diets and whether they are balanced or not. Here are some questions we thought about…
Are you having your 5 a day?
Are you getting enough protein whether its from meat or other sources?
Are you allowed a treat here and there?
Here’s a guide to the amounts of food we should be having.
Help at home: Can you plan your next meal using these proportions to help you?
Writing a promotion – Venice and York
Year 3 have written a promotional piece about either York or Venice.
A promotion persuades and tries to sell a product or experience.
These were our R2s:
- present tense
- adding connectives
- alliteration
- rhetorical questions
- commands
The children researched what they wanted to talk about in their writing. For example, specific landmarks or places tourists could visit.
Here are just a few fantastic examples:
The vocabulary they’ve used it great and reading them definitely makes me want to visit York and Venice!
Living and Learning – health and prevention
Year 3 have been learning about how we can keep our bodies healthy. For example, we have learnt about what germs are and how to prevent spreading them.
We started off the lesson by talking about the different types of germs there are; bacteria, viruses and fungi. These can be all around us and some are helpful and some are harmful.
The children then discussed how quickly and easily germs can spread. Wetalked about the need to wash our hands to help prevent this spread. We could use soap or hand sanitiser and to make sure we’ve washed them thoroughly enough, you could sing happy birthday twice while you do it!
Help at home: Discuss other ways we can stop germs from spreading.
Summer term after-school clubs
***Update***
The following clubs have availability and there is still time to sign up.
The after-school clubs for this term are available for booking from this Wednesday. We hope your child/children can get involved with our extra-curricular activities.
This term, clubs will run for 10 weeks rather than 8 weeks starting week commencing 29th April.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the after-school clubs.
Science – How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?
Enquiry question: How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?
Scientific enquiry type (how we are being scientists): I can set up a fair test.
Predictions: What do you think? Have a go at home!
I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source closer.
I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source further away.
What will we need to answer our question?
- torches
- opaque object
- pencil
- ruler
What will we measure?
We will measure the width of the shadow.
What will we change?
The distance between the object and the light source.
What will we keep the same?
The distance between the object and wall.
Here’s our fair test. We drew around each shadow with a pencil and then measured the width with a ruler.
Our findings:
Conclusion: The larger the distance from the light source to the object, the smaller the shadow became
Maths – fractions and times tables!
Hello! I hope you all had a lovely break and are ready and raring for the Summer term.
Year 3 are getting stuck into their fractions this half term.
What is a fraction?
Fractions are parts of whole things.
e.g. a part of a whole object
a part of a whole shape
a part of a whole amount or number
We started with elephants!
“The tusks are a part of the whole elephant.”
Then shapes…
“There are 4 parts and one is shaded.”
Then numbers!
Times tables
Year 3 made amazing progress in their times table checks before the holidays. To keep this ball rolling, your child should be practising their times table for 5 minutes every day or 10 minutes every other day!
This practice can be on Times Table Rock Stars, handwritten on a piece of paper or I can provide you with a times table pack for at home.
Please let me know if this would benefit you and your child!
Thank you, Miss Birch
Big Walk and Wheel final position
After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.
In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 20th place out of 459 schools with an average of 89.81% active journeys to school. We achieved the highest national (20th) and Northern England (3rd) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
With a total of 1655 active journeys across the two weeks, this is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
Help at home: By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.
PE – dance!
Year 3 are exploring dance in their PE lessons and the first session was all about ‘space’. How can we use the space? How can we move across the space? How does the music change our dancing?
We danced to ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)!’ by James Brown which is an older song from 1964 so some of the children hadn’t heard it before! The tempo is quite fast and it’s very upbeat with different instruments and singing. This guided the children to move with the beat or to the trumpets.
They thought about if their movements were curved, angular or free form.
Here’s some pictures of the children creating their routines.
Help at home by dancing to the song around the house. Can you do partner work or create a routine?
