Year 3 are excited to share with you some of the wonderful learning they have been doing this term. Click on the posts below to find out more...
Year 3 have been busy with 2 design and technology projects this week. Firstly, they have evaluated existing sandwich packaging before designing and making their own shell structures to safely hold a tasty lunch. They have also been evaluating different ingredients and have planned their own nutritious sandwich. They will make the sandwiches on Thursday morning, place them in their packaging and finally get to eat them on an afternoon picnic.
Year 3 had a super exciting day out at Kew Gardens on Tuesday. This trip supported their geography (rainforest), science (plants), history (local area) and art (botanical drawings) learning so many areas of the curriculum were supported whilst we also had some fun in the sunshine. A highlight of the day was seeing the Titan Arum plant in flower. This was a real privilege as this plant from the rainforests of Sumatra only comes into flower once every 3 - 7 years. Luckily for us it opened on the night before our visit. This meant that its pungent 'corpse' smell had cleared before we saw it.
Year 3 have learnt several new art skills this term whilst studying plants. They have improved their sketching and shading skills, created closely observed botanical drawings and made rubbings of different textured objects to produce a frottage piece of work. Their final work in the unit was based on the wonderful abstract work of Georgia O' Keefe. Each child used a viewfinder to focus in on a part of a flower which they then used as their inspiration for the above beautiful paintings.
Year 3 children are enjoying learning new tennis skills every Thursday afternoon at the courts on Sheen Common. We are very lucky to have Ben from Community Parks Tennis giving us these free tennis lessons in this wonderful venue. The children have been learning underarm and over arm service and have even begun to learn how to score a tennis game. In other news, we have loved seeing your rainforest dioramas; thank you for all the parent involvement in this homework.
Last week's Ancient Egypt day was a great success as the children enjoyed a morning filled with marketplace activities dressed in their fabulous costumes. The afternoon was spent celebrating the new high priest with the Pharoah and Queen Nefertitti in attendance. There was entertainment provided by each class in the form of dance and storytelling and food was served by the slaves. Thanks to all the parents who helped on the day - hopefully you learnt some new skills too!
Over the past two weeks, the year 3 children have been working with fractions. In the photo, you can see them building a fraction wall as they begin to understand equivalent fractions. In English we have been focusing on imagery in poetry and the children have written some wonderful metaphors. In science we have been using magnets and in geography, we have been learning about the River Nile.
We are all looking forward to performing in our assembly next Tuesday morning. We hope to see the year 3 parents there at approximately 9am.
While we have been writing limericks, we have been learning how to edit our work. This is an important but difficult skill to master. We set up editing stations around the classroom where the children can check their writing for errors and find opportunities for improvement. To learn the skill, we have begun with the children editing adult work which has deliberate errors. In science, we have been investigating magnets this week and we can now explain that magnets have a north and south pole and that the opposite poles attract.
Year 3 children have been busy measuring the length of objects around the classroom in maths lessons. They have learnt how to convert from millimetres to centimetres and from centimetres to metres and have also been adding and subtracting measurements of length. The photo shows children measuring how far they can jump. This knowledge will be useful in next week's science lesson when they will investigate how far a toy car can travel on different surfaces as part of our understanding of friction as a force. Before the week is over, they will also have learnt how to find the perimeter of a quadrilateral. Lots of wonderful maths learning!
Year 3 have been inspired by George's Marvellous medicine to design their own bottle of medicine to cure grumpy, grouchy grandparents. They have used their new skills in persuasive writing to create a label for their potion. Next week they will write an advert to accompany this bottle. Watch out complaining grandmas, these mixtures contain some revolting ingredients! The children have returned to school in 2024 full of energy and have been enjoying their new topic in history: Ancient Egypt.
Christmas is nearly here so year 3 have been busy designing and making Christmas decorations for their D and T project. Once they have finished evaluating their end product to check that it meets all their design criteria, the beautiful decoration will be coming home to adorn your Christmas tree. It is designed to be reusable so you can look forward to many years admiring your child's sewing skills.
We're still working hard in our maths and English lessons as well as practising our songs for our concert next Wednesday. See you all at 2pm in the church.
Year 3 have been busy this week learning how to write newspaper articles. We have been looking at lots of examples of newspapers to decide what the key features of this genre of writing are. We have also begun to write our own articles together based on the adventures of Lila, Chulak and Hamlet in The Firework Maker's Daughter. To relax from all this hard work, we have been painting pointillism pictures this afternoon.
Our science topic this half-term is rocks and soils. The children have learnt the 3 types of rock; sedimentary, igneus and metamorphic. Ask them how each type of rock is formed. This week, they have been investigating the properties of some different types of rocks. In our English lessons, the children have been describing the scene at the Full Moon Festival in our class book; The Firework Maker's Daughter. It is a magical occasion with colourful lanterns hanging from the trees, the shimmering skirts of dancers swaying in the moonlight and fragrant candles floating across the emerald lake. There have been some beautiful descriptions.
