Geography Explorers – What have we learnt?
Here are a handful of amazing outcomes from what we’ve learnt across our Geography topic! Help at home by playing the ‘Urm’ challenge where you have to talk about Venice and/or York for as long as possible without saying ‘urm’.
Our next topic will be Design and Technology.
Writing – instruction
Instructions tell the reader how to do something.
Year 3 will be writing a set of instructions for a revolting salad recipe. We’ll be inspired by our food technology session where we’ll make a tasty salad. Then we can add in our own ideas like snozzcumbers and eyeballs!
Our R2s for our instructions are:
We’ve then explored different recipes to help us spot those R2s.
Help at home by finding and reading another set of instructions. It could be for a toy set, recipe or how to cross the road (Green Cross Code).
Living and Learning: Staying Safe Week
This week is a themed week all about staying safe in lots of different areas of life. We’ve had learning based around safety at home and visitors in talking about safety around water and the road.
Have a look at what we’ve been up to in Year 3:
Monday
D:Side came in to talk to us about smoking and vaping. We learnt about the laws and history of smoking and vaping and how we can protect ourselves from the harmful chemicals inside these things. We practised not giving in to peer pressure by thinking of an excuse as to why we shouldn’t smoke.
Road Safety – Road safety is essential whether you are walking, cycling or in a moving vehicle! There are many things we can do to keep us and others around us safe.
- Wear a helmet when cycling or scootering.
- Wear a seatbelt if there is one available.
- Stay seated if on the bus.
- Don’t distract someone who is driving.
Travelling somewhere by being active is a great option. Not only is it better for us, mentally and physically but it’s better for the environment too!
The children recapped how they can be safe around the road. The Green Cross Code:
THINK
STOP
LOOK
LISTEN
Tuesday
We had visitors in to talk to us about different bacteria (the good and the bad). We saw how bacteria transfers from one thing to another and how to wash our hands thoroughly. Help at home: Sing happy birthday twice while washing your hands!
Keeping our personal hygiene up is really important to stop spreading bacteria and virus’ to each other. We saw how soap helps to stop this spread. Black pepper acted as our germs…
Wednesday
Safety at Home – Home should be a safe and comfortable place to be but there are things that can be risky or unsafe. We identified things that could be unsafe and how we can make good choices around them! For example: a kitchen has things that can be hot (ovens, kettles) or sharp (knives) but when we’re with a trusted adult, they can help us stay safe when we’re helping cook.
We had a visit from BMMA – British Military Martial Arts. Many of the children have been to this club before so they were experts. BMMA could be used as self defence if we felt unsafe. However, BMMA will not be necessary in most situations.
Thursday
Water Safety – Rivers and Canals Trust spoke to us about safety around different types of water. We must if we or someone else is in trouble:
- Call for help
- Do not climb in the water
- Stay calm
- Float like a starfish
Germ Warfare – Visitors came into show us exactly what it looks like when we clean our hands.
Offline and Online Safety – Our digital footprints are something we need to think about as these could affect us years later. Not everything that we see online is or true fact so we must be critical users and tell a trusted adult if you’re unsure or you feel unsafe!
Science: Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?
Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?
Year 3 have set up a test to see whether the amount of seeds in one pot affects the growth of a plant and more specifically a dwarf 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, 8 and 12 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 to see updates!
Help at home by predicting what you think will happen to our 1, 2, 4, 8 and 12 seeds’ growth.
Living and Learning: the importance of exercise
Our latest Living and Learning sessions have been all about the importance of exercise and how we need to keep active to keep our bodies and our minds healthy.
During the school day, here’s some ways we move our bodies:
Travelling to and from school by walking, bike or scooter
Wake Up Shake Up
Running around at playtimes
PE: basketball
The NHS guidance states that children and young people should ‘aim for an average of at least 60 minutes (30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school) of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week’. We know that the exercise we need to do to achieve this, should increase our heart rate.
We spent part of our lesson moving our bodies!
Help at home – try a new physical activity out of school – maybe a local junior park run, tennis lessons or have a look at our local physical activity guide for more ideas!
Maths: column addition
Year 3 have recently learnt how to add two numbers using column addition. Column addition is a great method for when we aren’t able to use reasoning and mental maths to help us add numbers together.
Top tips:
- Use HTO to help you line up your numbers.
- Use one digit per box to keep it neat and tidy.
- Always start adding from the smallest value column!
This is what your working out might look like if each column adds up to 9 or less.
We have then learnt what to do if a column totals 10 or more! We use these facts to help us:
10 ones = 1 ten
10 tens = 1 hundred
We must exchange the 10 ones for 1 ten and mark it underneath our answer box and do the same for 10 tens exchanged for 1 hundred.
Help at home by practising this method. Can you add two 3-digit numbers using column addition?
Living and Learning: Staying safe themed week 18 May
Our next whole school themed week, based around Staying Safe, will be taking place from Monday 18 May 2026. The key message is how to be safe in a range of situations – at home, at school, online and in the environment.
A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education including road safety (Leeds City Council); water safety (Canal and River Trust and RNLI); fire safety (West Yorkshire Fire Service); first aid; safety in our community (PCSOs), martial arts (BMMA) and drug education (d:side). Some of the events require parental permission and these letters have been sent out separately.
There are also some opportunities for parents and carers, from all year groups, to get involved in the week.
Thursday 14 May from 8:30am West Yorkshire Police bike register event
Pupils are invited to bring along their bikes to be registered at this bike security marking event at school. Registering your bike helps police and retailers identify and verify the legitimate owner of bikes that have been stolen or are being resold.
Tuesday 19 May 3pm – 3:30pm d:side drug education drop in information session (playground)
A representative from d:side, a health education provider, will be available to discuss details of your child’s drug education learning in the themed week.
The themed week is a good opportunity to continue to think about healthy, active and safe ways to travel to school. Children are encouraged to travel to school in a sustainable way, keeping safe along the way.
For a chance to win one of three £10 vouchers, we’d love to see their active travel staying safe photos, maybe using a traffic crossing or wearing their bike helmet (send photos to moortownoffice@spherefederation.org). Photos should be sent by 10am on Thursday 21 May and winners will be announced on the same day.
Due to the rising costs of visitors to school, this year, we are requesting a voluntary contribution of £2 per pupil to go towards paying for visitors. This can be made on Arbor. Thank you for your support with this.
Finally, can you help? Does your job involve an aspect of safety? If you are able to support our Staying Safe themed week by coming into school to speak to the children, please contact me via the office or your child’s class teacher.
We will keep you up to date about events during the week on the class news pages on our website.
Thank you for your support to keep Moortown a happy, healthy and safe school.
Writing: using inverted commas
Year 3 are going to be writing a recount. What is a recount?
A recount re-tells events and describes what has happened.
Our recount will be inspired by a picture book called ‘The Flood’ by Alvaro F. Villa.
In our recount we’re going to include; description, action and dialogue (direct speech).
We’ve began practising our use of inverted commas for direct speech…
Help at home by practising writing direct speech. Have a conversation with someone at home and write it down using inverted commas. Use the list of R2s above to help you!
Here’s some great examples from our learning.
New class novel
This half term is the beginning of our new class novel. Year 3 voted for…
All Miaow wants is to enjoy his peaceful, solitary life as a temple guardian catching mice. But when the Jade Emperor invites all creatures on Earth to compete in the Great Race, the reserved cat finds himself reluctantly entering – and worse, socialising!
Spirited and fiery, shapeshifter Ming is Miaow’s polar opposite, and she’s determined to make him her new best friend. But she hadn’t counted on Miaow making other friends too. As the race heats up, things start to unravel… Can the pair (and their friendship) make it to the finish line?
Year 3/4 football final
Well done to our Year 3/4 football team who competed in the Leeds Well School Partnership final at the West Riding FA. The team worked together to play some great football including some fantastic saves from our goalkeeper. The children should feel extremely proud they qualified for this final along with the six other best schools across Leeds.
