Reading: current class novel
Year 3’s current class novel is…
The Last Firefox by Lee Newbury.
The children voted for this book from a short list and we’ve been really enjoying it so far!
We’ve added lots of words to our word wall (some fire related!):
- flammable: something that can catch fire and burn quickly
- disintegrate: to break into smaller pieces
- orb: a ball or spherical shaped object
Help at home: Have a look at some of his other books as they link to the one we are reading at the moment!
New year, new topic!
Happy New Year! We hope you had a great break from school and are feeling refreshed.
With a new year, comes a new term and a new topic. This half term, we are being geographers and learning about natural disasters, specifically volcanoes.
This week, we’ve learnt about what’s under the Earth’s crust…
The inner core is made from a mixture of solid metals (nickel and iron). It’s the hottest part of the Earth at around 6100 degrees Celsius!
The crust is the thinnest layer and is where the Earth’s tectonic plates are. These plates move underneath the Earth’s surface and cause natural disasters like volcanic eruptions.
Help at home: Research the location of different volcanoes around the world! Where are they most common? Is there a pattern to where they are? Your child can share their findings during our geography lessons!
Topic: Art, art and more art!
Here are our final collages that were inspired by Wren and Hadid’s architecture.
They turned out brilliantly with lots of different materials and layers to create new art!
We also used these to create your new calendars for 2025.
Help at home: What visual and tactile elements can you see in these?
- line
- shape
- texture
- shadow
- tone
- composition
- colour
Saturday morning cross country runners
Well done to all our KS2 pupils who took part in the third Leeds Schools Sports Association cross country race at Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley on Saturday morning.
It was great to have some first time runners this time and many improved their race positions from last time.
Thank you to parents who supported at the event.
There is one more race this season and information will be sent about these nearer the time. Please note there is a new registration system this year with all children being registered prior to their first race to take part.
Royal Ballet and Opera School Set Design
Today, Year 3 joined a live lesson to learn more about how someone set designs for the Royal Ballet and Opera’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Visit this link to see more about this production: https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-details
We listened to how a set designer starts with their drawings to building a prototype to their final sets.
A part of the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland set is the trees. We had a go at creating our own prototype trees using different materials.
It was quite tricky to create the cone shape but once we did, we tried to add texture to make it look realistic. Here’s some of our final trees… 
Help at home: You can join another of their live lessons at home too! Visit this link here…https://www.rbo.org.uk/schools/teacher-training/live-lessons
PE DAY CHANGE 2025!
Year 3’s PE day is changing to a TUESDAY rather than Thursday.
Your child needs to come into school in their PE kits on a Tuesday and Wednesday (plus swim kits) from the first week back!
Please remember to have your child in white or black trainers too.
Thank you!
Living and Learning: I can describe and use self-care techniques.
Last week in our Living and Learning lesson, we were learning about different stages we might go through that could cause different emotions.
For example, we might lose something or someone that we care and love. This can be a tricky time to navigate our emotions.
We drew how people might think about and react to different emotions…
Content: feeling calm, relaxed, kind to others and happy to go with the flow
Anger: feeling hot and easily irritated, needing time alone or to move our bodies
Excited: feeling like you can’t sit still, can’t concentrate, very happy and loud
If we can recognise these emotions, we can try to regulate them too. Some thing we can do to regulate our emotions is by talking to others!
“A problem shared is a problem halved.”
We could talk to a trusted adult at home or at school, a friend, a club leader, a teddy or Childline.
Help at home: List all the ways you can regulate your emotions… Have you got a safe place to relax? Is there an activity that relaxes you like reading? Do you have a person or teddy you can talk to?
Reading records!
Here are some great reading record activities that have been completed recently…
Each week, the children are given one activity to complete in their reading records. This activity shows us at school that they’ve been reading at home!
Even though the children do the same activity, they all are very different e.g. different vocabulary, different stories, fiction, non-fiction.
If you’re ever unsure what do, please ask or choose one of them yourself!
The comment section is a chance to say how your child has read that week and if they have enjoyed it or not.
Help at home by listening to your child reading and leaving a comment about how they got on after!
Topic – Art
Our Art Topic has been made up of two parts: art history and art skills.
Our art skills learning is building up to creating a collage inspired by the architecture we’ve been exploring. We’ve been looking at buildings by our chosen architects: Zaha Hadid and Christopher Wren.
To create our collages, we’re using lots of different skills…
- tracing
- observational drawing
- collage
and media…
- carbon paper
- different background materials
- pencils, pens
The media might be different colours like primary, secondary or complementary colours! 
We’re using a lot of line and shape when creating our art. We also might use shade to show darkness and shadows.
Help at home by spotting what shapes you can see on or as part of the architecture you see!
How to write a set of instructions
Year 3 have planned, written and edited their writing this week – a set of instructions.
A set of instructions tells the reader how to do something.
They had the freedom to choose what they wanted to write their instructions for:
- How to spend a day without technology
- How to fly a magic carpet
- How to control a giant robot
- How to survive a day at sea
We needed to include bossy (imperative) verbs, time connectives and adverbs to help give detail the reader.
We also acted out each scenario to see what we might need and to generate ideas!
Here’s some of our writing.
Help at home: Can you spot the verbs, time connectives and adverbs?