Welcome to Year 3 

Miss Sharma

Miss Richardson, Mrs Milbourne, Miss Hackleton, Miss Robinson and Miss Chisolm 

Autumn 1

Our driver theme this term is all about the Early Britons in the Stone Age.  We will be looking at the events on a timeline and understand why they were significant.  The children will find out what archaeologists do and how they inform us about things that happened in history.  We will then investigate Skara Brae and link the findings at this site to tell us about how the Stone Age people lived their daily life.             

English

In English we will be reading a range of texts linked to our theme. Our first book is called Ug- Boy Genius of the Stone Age by Raymond Briggs.  It is a great book and I’m sure the children will love reading it.  It is a comic style book and is very funny in parts. We will consolidate our writing skills from Year 2 and use these to work on developing our descriptive writing, thinking about both character and setting descriptions.  We will focus on our vocabulary choices to add more description, prepositions to link or start sentences and conjunctions to link ideas in a sentence.  We will also be reading Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura.  Using this book, we will explore the features of a diary entry and eventually write our own from the perspective of someone living in the Stone Age. 

Reading, as always, will be a crucial part of the children’s learning. The children will have a variety of reading lessons this year, whole class comprehension lessons, Little Wandle reading groups, AR quizzes, as well as one to one reading.  

Maths

In maths this half term, we will be focusing on number sense: what the children know about numbers and number facts. They will revise key mental strategies that they have encountered throughout Key Stage 1 and the learning in this unit will be revisited and practised frequently during Maths Meetings, which last for about 15 minutes every day and help to develop fluency and reasoning skills. We will also focus on the understanding of place value for numbers up to 1000. The children will develop a deeper understanding of the magnitude of numbers and develop useful mental calculating skills such as rounding and place value addition and subtraction. They go on to apply this knowledge to solve problems.      

Science

This half term we will be learning about light, reflections and shadows.  They will find out about different sources of light and how we need light to see.  The children will work scientifically and collaboratively to investigate reflective materials.  They will have some fun playing a range of mirror games and find out more about reflective surfaces.  Towards the end of the unit we will learn how the sun’s light can be dangerous and we will create an advert for a pair of sunglasses.  We will also investigate how shadows are formed.     

RE

In RE this half term we will be exploring the key questions why are nature and the seasons significant for religion and worldviews? We will take a look at how nature and seasons can influence religions and worldviews and reflect on what nature means to us too.  

Art

In Art this term the children will look at cave paintings and consider why they would have been used.  Children will look at patterns from different times of history and different cultures.  They will then move onto researching the internet about cave paintings and will look at the designs, patterns, shapes and colours.  They will experiment with using their hands to paint and look at using nature to make prints.

PE

This half term the children will be learning skills to support them to play handball.  They will concentrate on how to change direction, use speed and avoid collisions on the pitch and will learn how to control the ball more accurately.  They will learn the rules of the game and begin to think tactically how to use the skills to win the game.   The children will also be learning similar skills to support them to play football.       

Computing

Our first unit in computing will be based around online safety.  The children will learn how to create safe passwords, understand age ratings and have reminders of how to stay safe whenever we are online.  They can also access the resources at home through Purple Mash.  

PSHE

In PSHE this half term the children will consider many aspects linked to the unit ‘Being Me In My World.’ During this unit, the children will consider things like recognising their worth and identifying positive things about themselves, how they can face new challenges positively and understand why rules are needed.

Important information

• PE this half term is timetabled for Mondays and Tuesdays. Children should come to school wearing a white T shirt, black shorts/joggers and trainers/plimsolls (please put their name in all of their belongings).  

• The children will need to bring in their reading books and reading records every day. They will be able to quiz on their AR books during the school day. 

• Homework will be sent every week.  The tasks are outlined in the weekly email sent to parents and are explained in class.  There will be an English task and a maths task that links to the lessons we have been doing during the week.   Children will also need to read to an adult 3 times per week and record this in their reading records.  They can also use Timetables Rockstar to help them secure their multiplication and division facts. 

• Spellings will be sent home weekly in their yellow spelling books.  These will be a focus during our spelling lesson during the week.  It would be great to learn any tricky words at home. Please bring in the yellow spelling books on Friday so you can have the next set of words.  

How you can help your child at home

Children can access Purple Mash at home to do some extra games with the spellings for the week. They can also access the computing lessons for this half term.

Support your child in learning multiplication and division facts for the 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 times tables.

Listen to your child read at least 3 times per week and have discussions about the text (record the reading sessions in their reading records).

If you have any queries or questions about this information or any other concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Many thanks,

Miss Sharma.

Oxford Owl- provides access to free e-books (you have to create a free account to view them).

Your child has an individual log-in for this website. They can play spelling games based on lists of words. Please email Miss Sharma if you need reminding of your logins. 

Use these links to find an interesting image. What do you think is happening? Can you describe what is happening in your exercise book? Can you write a story about it?

On the Pobble 365 website, there is a different image everyday for you to use. If you click on 'Pick a Day' in the right hand corner of the Pobble 365 website you can select an image from any day. 

This website gives you access to thousands of free audio books, suitable for children to listen to once you sign up for free. 

Audible also has a large variety of free audiobooks for you to listen to. 

Spotify have recently introduced thousands of audiobooks to listen to if you have a subscription with them.

BBC Bitesize has lots of games and activities to revise spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG).

The School Reading List provides a variety of suggested texts that are appropriate for your children. 

This website has LOTS of age appropriate maths resources and they have produced home learning packs for each year group with helpful videos and activities for each day of home learning. 

This website has lots of fun maths games. 

Look out for updates on inter-class battles!

BBC Supermovers : Select KS2 Mathematics to find all of our times tables dances and routines!

3 Times Table song

4 Times Table song

6 Times Table song

7 Times Table song

8 Times Table song

Lots of free videos, games and presentations about different topics and themes, see what takes your fancy!

Once clicking this link, choose 'Espresso' from the drop down log-in menu in the top right hand corner. You have been given, in the front of your exercise books, a username and password for this website. 

Free resources to help learn more about Science, History and Geography topics.

With this link you can take a virtual tour around the British Museum, London. 

This website has lots of activities you can do in the garden, as well a lots of information about animals and plants for research tasks.

These games are the first steps of computer programming, they are very engaging for children. 

This is a typing game for children to become confident in typing on a keyboard. 

This website has fun movement videos for children.

We work with a company called SEND Supported at school and they are releasing newsletters each week offering support and guidance to parents of children who many have additional needs in school. Please find below a link to these newsletters:

There are also lots of other resources and information available on their website. The 'Things to do Issue 2 - Resources' file has some lovely activities for all children regardless of whether they have additional needs or not. There are lots of great visual puzzles and games for children to play so please have a look if you can. There are also resources available now to support with developing children's memory skills in 'Thing to do Issue 3 - Resources.'