Class 3 Newsletter – Spring Term
Spring Newsletter – Year 3 Hedgehog Class
Happy New Year and welcome back to school. I hope you have had a restful and festive Christmas break and looking forward to a busy spring term.
English
In English we will be studying a variety of text types to help further develop your child’s writing skills. We will become familiar with a range of Greek Myths, explore – The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish, write a new version of The Diary of a Killer Cat, try – Performance poems and write non-chronological reports through studying Hogwarts Tour. Areas of grammar will be taught through activities based on these texts including complex sentences, 1st and 3rd person, how to puntuate direct speech, verb tenses and adjectival phrases.
Listening to your child read continues to be very important, as does discussing their understanding of the texts they are reading. There will be daily classroom time for reading, handwriting, grammar and spelling activities.
Maths
This term we will continue to build on their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills as well as developing the children’s times tables knowledge by learning the 6 and 8 times tables and improving their speed and confidence in mental calculation – doubles and halves to 100+ and number bonds. Some of the objectives we will covering this term are: Place 3-digit numbers on a number line, partition 3-digit numbers into 100s, 10s and 1s, compare and order numbers, add 3-digit numbers using expanded addition, subtract a 2-digit number from a 3-digit number using counting up, measure in metres and cm; convert cm to m and vice versa. measure in kg and g, convert g to kg and vice versa, place fractions on a number line (1/4s 1/2s, 1/8s), find fractions of amounts (1/4s and 1/8s), understand denominator & numerator and comparing fractions, division within tables with remainders and multiplication and division word problems
Topic (History/Geography)
Our topic is Mountains and Volcanoes we will locate the highest peaks, identify mountain ranges and volcanoes around the world, and research key facts about these. We will find out about the Kumaon region of India and learn about the life of a Kumaon child. We will study the fascinating Kumaon region and find out about the tallest peaks of the Himalayas. We will compare this region of India, to our own area of Essex.
Science
First half term we will be studying rocks and fossils. We will be comparing and grouping together different kinds of rocks based on their appearance and simple physical properties, describing in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock and recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter.
In the second half of this term we will be studying forces and magnets. We will compare how things move on different surfaces, observe that some forces need contact between two objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance, how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others, compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, identify some magnetic materials, describe magnets as having two poles and predict whether two magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing.
French
We will be building on the excellent start the children have made with their learning of French, continuing to practise greetings and numbers and adding to their vocabularies with some simple verbs and instructions, as well as learning the names of parts of the body
Computing
The children will develop their skills to combine text and graphics and will be consolidating their word processing and keyboard skills. We will also be starting to learn simple coding using Scratch.
Art and DT
Both subjects are linked to our topic work and we will be studying landscapes focusing on examples from different artists from around the world including the Japanese artist Hokusai and comparing his work with images of Mount Snowdon. In DT we will be focusing on food technology looking at traditional Indian food.
RE and PSHE
In RE we will be studying the life of Jesus and his parables. Later we will be looking at Hinduism and the festival of Holi. In PHSE we will talk about how to be safe and how to identify and manage risks.
Music
Year 3 will have a recorder lesson with Mrs Ford on a Thursday morning and on Wednesday mornings they will have lessons on brass and woodwind instruments as part of Wider Opportunities.
PE
PE will take place on Thursday and swimming on Mondays at Grange Paddocks. Mr Snelling will be working on gymnastics, striking and fielding games and invasion games. Each child will need trainers suitable for use on the field as well as the playground and warm outer layers to be worn over their PE shorts and T-shirts.
Homework
As previously, in addition to hearing your child read whenever possible, the children will be set spellings to learn each week on Friday, ready for a test on the following Friday; please assist them with look, cover, write, check activities to consolidate their learning. Children who take part in Spell Attack groups will continue to have work set regularly.
Maths, English or Topic homework will continue to be set on Fridays for return the following Wednesday.
Please support your child to ensure that they understand what has been asked of them and to make sure that their work is clearly and neatly completed.
If you have questions or concerns, please make an appointment to speak to me before or after school.
Best wishes for 2018!
Mrs Hall