Living and Learning: I know the importance of a healthy diet.
This week, Year 3 have been learning about having a healthy, balanced diet.
We recapped the five main food groups that we’ve learnt about during our Science lessons earlier this year.
- carbohydrates
- fruit and vegetables
- protein
- dairy
- fats
We need a balanced diet of these food groups to keep us healthy and strong. For example, carbohydrates give us energy and dairy is full of calcium that is great for our teeth and bones. We also need some fats as they give us energy and help us to absorb the vitamins and minerals that we eat through fruit and vegetables.
We had a go at creating our own balanced meal. Here are some of what we came up with…
Help at home by planning a meal with your child and checking that you have a balanced amount of each food group.
Computing: branching database
During our Computing topic, we’ve learnt about a branching database.
A branching database helps a computer sort and find information by splitting a group of items into smaller and smaller groups by using “yes” or “no” questions.
We had a go at playing with one of these databases before creating our own.
Have a go here: https://www.j2e.com/jit5?fileId=FDrqUQoSY1jKiBHN#branch
We then worked in pairs to create our own. There were lots of different categories of things to choose from. Some of us went with a beach theme, a space theme or an animal theme.
Have a look at some of our branching databases!
Help at home and choose some objects that have some similarities. What “yes” or “no” questions could you ask to split the objects into groups.
Maths: right angles
Last week, Year 3 were learning to recognise right angles.
A right angle is the same as a quarter turn.
There are four right angles in a full turn.
This links directly to our Computing learning where we’ve been using quarter turns in our algorithms.
Many 2D shapes, or polygons as we’ve called them, have right angles.
Squares and rectangles have four right angles.
A triangle that has a right angle is called a right angled triangle.
We’ve also had a go at drawing different polygons, some with right angles and some without.
Help at home: Can you name the polygons we’ve drawn?
Computing: Scratch programming
This half term we are improving our computing skills. The first few lessons have focussed on logical reasoning, including solving sudoku and number sequences. This week, we worked on using the Scratch program to create a Chatbot quiz. In our quiz we programmed the sprite to ask our name, respond with a greeting and then ask us a question. We were able to use the ‘if, then and else’ block to ensure that the right answer had a positive response and all other answers gave a different response.
We really enjoyed getting stuck in with the coding and we worked very well together with our partners.
Help at home by logging on to Scratch and letting your children experiment with coding at home.
Living and Learning: personal hygiene
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 e.g. some yoghurts have ‘live cultures’ in that are good for our digestive system.
The children then discussed how quickly and easily germs can spread. We highlighted that places where germs are common.
We talked 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 should sing happy birthday twice while you do it!
Help at home: Discuss other ways we can stop germs from spreading.
Writing – The Dragon Slayer
Across this half term, Year 3 will be writing a narrative about The Dragon Slayer. We’ve watched a short clip of an animated film that we will base our narrative on.
The purpose of a narrative is to interest and entertain.
We’ll catch the reader’s attention by describing the main character and their background. Then we’ll write about the journey he goes on to find his next dragon.
So far, we’ve learnt about what verbs we could use to help catch the reader’s attention. For example:
Tarragon, the dragon slayer, grabbed his sword.
Tarragon, the dragon slayer, clasped his sword.
Tarragon, the dragon slayer, gripped his sword.
Tarragon, the dragon slayer, held his sword.
We’re moving onto to adverbs next!
Help at home by thinking of synonyms (words of similar meaning) for ‘walked’.
06 March 2026
Here are the spellings for this week. Your child will have a spelling quiz on Friday 13 March.
knocker knocked wrapper knitter knitted gnawed gnasher friend
Please encourage your child to try practise the words by putting their words in a sentence using our handwriting guide. Also, look at the spelling activities guide for some ideas to practise these words.
World Book Day 2026!
Today is World Book Day! World Book Day is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Today has been filled with lots of opportunities to read and talk about books.
I asked the children to bring in their favourite books. We each shared our book and the reason why it’s our favourite…
Lots of our reasons were to do with funny stories, adventure or learning new facts!
We also had Mrs Charlesworth visit us and share her favourite books with us. The room was very calm and quiet – the perfect environment for reading! Help at home by finding or setting up a cosy place to sit and read. Is it warm? Are you in bed? Are you with someone else while you read?
We swapped with Year 6 and discussed our books with them too. We learnt about some new books that we might like to read in the future. Here’s some of us in action…
Finally, we took part in a live lesson on BBC. We heard loads of great recommendations from other children and schools.
What a fantastic day! Make sure your child reads everyday to improve their fluency and understanding.
World Book Day – Thursday 5th March
Thursday is World Book Day! World Book Day encourages more children and families to find the fun and enjoyment in reading, because reading for pleasure changes lives.
Read more here: https://www.worldbookday.com/about-us/
As part of World Book Day, I’d like the children to bring in their favourite books! This might be linked to the character they’re dressed as. We’ll have time to share and discuss their books which will give the rest of the class inspiration for their next book to read.
I look forward to hearing about them!
Thanks, Miss Birch
Trip to the Yorkshire Museum
Year 3 and 4 visited York to go to the Yorkshire Museum and to see the flood defences (in action).
Yorkshire Museum had exhibitions that were perfect for us to link to our History and Science learning; Roman York and Mary Anning Rocks and Yorkshire’s Jurassic World!
Here’s some pictures of us exploring and learning about the artefacts.
We also took part in a Roman workshop which recapped lots of the information we’ve learnt over our History topic.
Our second reason for visiting York was for the flood defences. York gets flooded quite easily after periods of heavy rainfall so they have built many flood defences around river to help the houses and buildings near. We’ll be learning about this during our Geography topic after the Easter holidays.
To no surprise, there were floods when we visited! Here’s what we saw:
We made sure to stay safe while walking through York and around the river by walking in pairs and behind the railings.
Help at home by asking your child one new fact that they learnt while at the museum! For example, I learnt about the different under water dinosaurs that existed millions of years ago.