Times Tables Rock Stars/NumBots
As you all know, Times Tables Rock Stars is an app and website that we use in school to quicken the recall of tables facts.
Here in Y3, we have been using this app on a regular basis and there has been progress in our recalling speed of our table facts.
This post is simply a reminder that it’s something that you can use at home, too. If you have any questions, send me an email and I am more than happy to help.
Each game is short so you don’t need lots of time – ten minutes each day would be ideal.
Regular practise has shown great progress with children’s times tables.
We also know that our times tables open up the door to many other areas of maths.
We’ve just signed up to Numbots, too. Perhaps more suited to younger children or children who need a bit of extra support with the basics, this is a great app and website for practising addition and subtraction facts. Your child can use it at home too – they login using the same details they use for Times Tables Rock Stars. There are 15 different games, each with a different focus. Topics covered include doubles and number bonds to 10, 20 and 100.
Thanks for all your support so far this year and as always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, send me an email: oliwain@spherefederation.org
Living and Learning
Our Living and Learning statement this week is:
In Y3, we have been reflecting on this statement all week.
For our homework, we talked about and wrote down some of the things that make us special.
We also enjoyed an assembly about how we are all the same and different. The children in Y3 had lots to share about this statement – it was great!
I’m looking forward to our L&L session on Friday where we will revisit working cooperatively and remind ourselves to do this all the time!
If you haven’t done so already, ask your child what makes them the same and different!
Reading as Historians!
Continuing our Ancient Greece learning, we have been looking at the Golden Age – this was between c. 500-300 BC.
Here are some pictures of us ordering key events from Ancient Greece’s history chronologically.
Ask your child what chronology means!
For us to be able to do this, we had to carefully read the different events throughout Greece’s history and match them up with the correct dates.
Keep up the hard work, Y3!
Odd socks day
Next week is Anti-Bullying Week.
This year’s theme is ‘United against bullying’ and we will be taking part in Odd Socks Day on Monday 16 November.
Odd socks day is to raise awareness of our differences, individuality and personal choice. There is no need for any payment – your child should simply wear odd socks and join in the fun!
Thank you for your support.
Athletics!
This week, we have started a new P.E. topic: Athletics!
Ask your child at home which activity there favourite was! Was it sprinting, shotput, speed bounce or something else?
Here are some pictures of us in action!
Being Reflective
On Friday afternoon, we spent ten minutes reflecting on our week. We reflected on what went well, what was tricky and what we enjoyed.
Olivia said:
When I saw our maths learning objective: ‘counting in 50s’, I was worried that it was going to be really tricky. When you taught us that it was really similar to counting in 5s, I found it a lot easier than I thought I would and now I get it!
This week, we also begun creating our own maze games based on ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’ – a Greek myth.
The children in Year 3 were so excited about this project. When we were reflecting on Friday, many of them put their hands up straight away to show it was their favourite part of the week.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
As you will know, this half term our Living and Learning focus is the 8Rs for learning.
Year 3 have shown one of the 8Rs in particular within maths lessons: resilience.
We have been looking at numbers to 1,000 and breaking them down (partitioning) into different parts, before plotting them on number lines.
We found it tricky to start with but we kept persevering and are now confident with it!
Showing resilience to overcome this has made us very happy indeed!
Science: classifying animals
In our current science topic, we have been learning about the different types of animals including: mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, amphibians and invertebrates.
We thought of our own yes/no questions to classify animals based on their characteristics. We called this a classification key.
Test your child’s knowledge of the different types of animals at home – they’re very confident!
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
For the start of this half-term, our Living and Learning focus is the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
In class, the children will focus on different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
Risk taking
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
Responsibility
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
Responding
This could be responding to their teacher in class or responding to feedback in their learning.
Ready
Make sure your child is at school on time for a prompt start.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
Resourceful
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
Resilience
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
Relate this ‘R’ to Humpty Dumpty and our current whole school topic, After the Fall.
Remember
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
Reflect
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about how they learnt, why they learnt it, when they’ll use their learning, how they would teach this to someone else, what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today…
This week, children will have the opportunity to not only reflect on their learning in general but also reflect on how the 8Rs supports their learning.
Of course, these characteristics are referred to throughout the year across all subjects to promote good learning behaviour.
Welcome back Y3!
I’ve been extremely impressed at how well Year 3 have adapted to life back in school! They’ve got on with everything so far with no trouble at all – it’s like they’ve had no time away!
This week, we have enjoyed lots of different learning.
In maths, we recapped our tens and ones and have moved onto learning about hundreds, too! We’ve been making silly stories involving aliens and sweets to help us with our maths learning!
In reading, we made predictions and inferences with our new class novel: After the Fall. Nobody was able to predict the plot twist at the end though!
In writing, we were remembering what makes a sentence and then starting sentences using different words, such as:
Humpty nervously climbed the ladder.
became
Nervously, Humpty climbed the ladder.
See if your child can remember the things that make a sentence! Tip: one of them is a capital letter to start the sentence.
We have enjoyed learning about different classes of animals in science, too.
Edith correctly remembered that reptiles can normally be distinguished by the fact that they lay eggs on land; have dry, scaly skin; and are cold-blooded!
To help at home, practise reading with your child everyday. This can be anything from reading instructions on how to make a cake, talking about what they’ve read at school, going on Lexia (logins to be sent home tomorrow) to reading this post together!
Make sure your child practises their times tables everyday, too. The logins for Times Table Rock Stars are to be sent home tomorrow as well.
Here’s to another successful week!
Mr Wain