Dear parents/carers,

Welcome back to Year 3. I hope everyone had a restful Christmas and New Year and are ready for the up coming learning.

English

To begin with, we will be looking at persuasive texts with a particular focus on adverts, hopefully we will be able to get to use our drama skills! We will be developing our diary skills and further work on our narrative writing. Ensuring your child reads for at least 15 minutes a day will help their reading skills to develop along with discussions around the text read. It is just as important to read to your child regularly along with listening to audio books. We enjoy finding out about new vocabulary in class and have begun using a thesaurus to improve our writing – if you are able to support your child with using a dictionary to check spelling and definition and thesaurus for improving word choices.

Maths

To begin the term, we will be continuing to deepen our understanding of multiplication and division along with developing our money skills and statistics. The children will also be developing their mathematical vocabulary to develop reasoning tasks. To assist with children’s mathematical development encourage them to handle real money and understand the value of coins and notes along with reading analogue and digital time in a 12hr and 24hr format.  Continue to practise the times tables and use Times Table Rock Stars and Hit the Button.

History and Geography

We begin the spring term with a geography topic – Climate Zones. In history we will be exploring Anglo-Saxons and Vikings.

Science

We will be finishing up our Forces and Magnets topic before moving on to Rocks and Fossils. This will give children the opportunity to find out about different rock types and how they are formed.

Computing

We will be continuing with ‘how to stay safe online’ which will an ongoing theme throughout the school year. Children will be using the school laptops to further develop programming on ‘Scratch’ and learning how to fix bugs when coding.

Art and DT

In art we will be developing our sketching skills and getting creative with a range of material through our study of Cezanne and Van Gogh. Through DT we will be looking at designing, making and evaluating a healthy, tasty treat!

RE

In RE we be looking at the story of Krishna, Holi and symbols of Spring at Easter.

PSHE

Our PSHE learning will continue to support children’s mental health along with the topic Living in the Wider World which supports ‘Belonging to a Community: The values of rules and law; rights, freedoms and responsibilities’ and ‘Money and Work: Different jobs and skills; job stereotypes; setting personal goals.’

Music

In Music we will be developing the skills of listening and appraising, musical activities and perform and review.

PE

The children will have PE at least twice a week, so please ensure PE kits are in school on a Monday ready for the week, all kits will be sent home at the end of the week.  Please make sure the PE kit follows the school policy.

French

Our French topics this term will revisit ‘Bonjour, ca va?’ and we will then move onto counting, dates and classroom vocabulary.

Homework

Along with listening to your child read, the children will be set spellings to learn each week ready for a test on Fridays; please assist them with look, cover, write, check activities to consolidate their learning or an alternative method that suit your child’s way of learning. The children will have one to two pieces of homework to complete each week: these will be English, Maths, Science or Topic work to help support their learning in the classroom.

Kind Regards,

Miss Morton