Year 3

Mrs Clarke, Mrs Corstorphine and Miss Croft

Autumn Term

Our Theme

Our driver theme this term is all about the Early Britons from the Stone Age to the Iron 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 and his search for soft trousers”. 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 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We will be inventing some new words just like Roald used to do. The children will be writing a story opening in the style of Roald Dahl.

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. We will be focusing on some Stone Age fiction and non fiction texts in our class reading sessions.

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.

In RE, we will be exploring a focussed enquiry question: Does joining the Khalsa make a person a better Sikh? The children will be thinking about what it means to belong to a group and how it makes them feel. We will then investigate the 5K’s and the Amrit ceremony. We will then think about what our celebration would be like if someone joined our class.

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.

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.

Computing

Our first unit in computing will be based around coding. The children will learn how to use flowcharts, timers and the repeat command. They will find out how to nest code and how it is important to test and debug. This is a great unit which the children will love to do. 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 Tuesday and Thursday. Children should come to school wearing a white T shirt, black shorts/joggers and trainers/plimsolls.

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.

Further information regarding homework will be sent to parents in the next couple of weeks. For now, if they can get into a routine of reading aloud to an adult 3 times per week and record this in their reading records. They can also use Timestable 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. Many thanks.

How you can help 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 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,

Mrs Clarke.

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.'

Useful links:

English: