Year 3

Welcome to our Year 3 Class at St James’

Welcome to Year 3. My name is Mrs Randle and I am the Class Teacher. We are supported by various Teaching Assistants in Year 3 throughout the week. In Year 3, we aim to have fun whilst learning. Our main rule within class is that we always try our best.

Year 3 Noticeboard

Homework is to be given out each Friday and returned the following Wednesday.
Spellings are handed out on Fridays and tested the following Friday. Please make sure spelling books are returned each Friday. Should the children misplace their spellings, spares are readily available.
Accelerated Reader – Reading record books will no longer be handed out, a record will now be kept in school. Children should bring their reading books to school every day in the plastic wallet they’ve been given with their name on. This will allow us to read with the children at various times throughout the week. Wallets should be brought into school each morning and taken home each evening.
PE in Year 3 is on Wednesdays. Make sure you have your full St James PE kit.
Please bring fresh water daily.
We pray every day in school. Please help your child to become familiar with our prayers here Little Book of Prayers Lower KS2

Spring Term in Year 3

Welcome back! I hope all of year 3 and their families enjoyed a peaceful and happy Christmas break.

As we begin the spring term, our DT unit focuses on the carbon footprint of fruit. We will design a fruit crumble, considering packaging and ingredients that will reduce our carbon footprint.

Our geography unit is all about the journey of a river and the water cycle. The children learn about local flooding and explore waterfalls.

In science we will investigate forces and magnets and test out if all metals are magnetic.

We study journeys in RE and we ask the BIG question ‘Is life a journey?’. We begin to recognise the liturgical calendar and the meaning behind each season.

Tips on how to help your child’s learning during the Spring Term:

Encourage your children to continue practising the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, as well as the 3, 4 and 8 times tables. Times Table Rock Stars or Top Marks are great resources to do this.
Support your child with spelling practise by segmenting the words on their list and saying them aloud slowly.
Talk about the importance of our carbon footprint with your children. Think about any ways your family could reduce their carbon footprint. Take a look at this website https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z4g3f8
If you remember ‘Thunder Thursday’ flooding in Newcastle you could chat to your children about what your experience was.

Its the end of the Spring Term

This term year 3 have embraced all ascpects of the curriculum.
In English we have written our own stories inspired by The Great Kapok Tree. We then moved on to writing leaflets, focussing on the importance of sub headings and writing in paragraphs. The children enjoyed researching and planning out their ideas. In maths, we have completed our length and perimeter unit and are now working on fractions. Year 3, love to work outdoors so we have enjoyed a lot of active maths in the playground.
Geography has been very interactive. We have been lucky enough to work with Tyne Rivers Trust to take part in a workshop in school. We looked into flood risks and the importance of minimising floods by using plants and nature in our gardens to absorb the rainwater.
Our learning continued on our trip to the pond where the children listened to nature and recorded what the could hear. They idendified lots of bugs and vertebrates that they found during pond dipping and then headed back to school to record their own music inspired by underwater sound, with a sound artist. It was a beautiful and calming experience which brought our learning to life. Our visitors were really impressed with our vocabulary knowledge and our water cycle rap song that we’ve been practising all term.

In DT we are in the middle of our Design a Fruit Crumble unit. The children have explored where fruits come from and how far they travel from other countries. We decided to improve the carbon footprint of fruit by selecting locally grown and in season fruits for our crumbles. The children are looking forward to cooking after Easter and seeing their ideas come to life. In science we have been busy learning all about the earth acting as a giant magnet. The class have been fascinated with the Earths magnetic field and making predictions about how strong the force of a magnet will be.
We have ended the term with lots of focus on Easter and Lent, trying hard to remember what Jesus gave up for us and to follow in his footsteps to be kind and generous to others. The children had a lot of fun at the Easter disco and put so much effort into the egg decorating competition.

Autumn Term in Year 3

Our learning is well under way in Year 3 and our new juniors have really stepped up to the mark, displaying a mature and responsible attitude towards their study. The children have been fully engaged in the KS2 curriculum so far.

In English, they have thoroughly impressed me with their passion and enthusiasm for creative writing. We have written our own twisted tale based on Hansel and Gretel and the children had some very unique ideas about how they wanted to change the traditional characters. We had a lot of fun describing our own version of Hansel and Gretel.

In Maths, our focus has been Place Value. We have been concentrating on 3-digit numbers and really understanding the value of each digit. Incorporating active Maths into our lessons is something Year 3 love and it is certainly helping to support their understanding of new concepts. Their favourite activity so far was building the human number line.

We are ‘digging’ into our science unit and have been investigating rocks and soils. The children are beginning to understand the process of fossilisation. It has been fantastic to hear them make many cross curricular links to the women in history unit they studied in year 1, which covered the life of Mary Anning, the famous fossil finder. I think we may have some future archaeologists in our class and we are so proud of the knowledge they have retained from year 1.

Our little historians have been studying the Stone Age and have been extremely interested in how people in the Stone Age lived and communicated. We are looking forward to exploring Stone Age artifacts from Tyne and Wear Museum to help develop a deeper understanding of this period of history.

In year three we are ALL artists and so far, we have been researching the work and life of artist Michael Craig Martin. We have explored his use of vivid colours, bold outlines and the way he records ordinary, everyday objects. Focusing on these features, we created our own line drawings by collecting objects from around the class and overlapping them, considering the composition of the drawing.

RE lessons have been a time for lots of discussions about homes and showing love. We have talked a lot about how we can show love at home and at school, or in the community by being kind to others. We learned about the first and second commandments and agreed that the second commandment “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” was something we were already trying to live out because our class motto is “treat others as you would like to be treated”.

PSHE lessons have been a great opportunity for class conversations and a chance to develop listening skills. This half term the PSHE unit covers relationships. Year 3 have participated in a lot of group work and had some very thoughtful conversations. The children will also be participating in Kidsafe sessions with Mrs Gofton.

As juniors now, Year 3 have had the opportunity to engage in Mini Vinnies, which they were extremely keen to be part of. This is a wonderful extra curricular activity which provides the chance to help the community and live out the gospel values. Next half term, year 3 will also participate in our after school sports club, which is run by SAFC.

It’s the end of our Autumn Term

The children in Year 3 have been very busy during November and December. They enjoyed participating in maths Week England which aims to foster a love of learning maths. We took some of our learning outdoors, worked in partners and teams to solve maths problems and recorded our answers using chalk on the yard and chalk pens on tables inside. The children were enthusiastic about continuing this style of learning after maths week, so our lessons have been very interactive and practical.

In English lessons, we have explored the text Stone Age Boy and written diary entries focussing on the key features. Our history knowledge of the Stone Age has been very helpful this term.

We celebrated Remembrance Day by making poppies and wreaths to display around school in memory of those who gave us their lives. We also worked on some art skills for or Cafod, Climate Justice exhibition. The children decided to create their art on some old newspaper and they thought of positive slogans to paint to raise awareness about climate change.

During December Y3 have been particularly busy rehearsing for their performance of A Prophecy Predicted. We were so impressed by their dedication and enthusiastic attitudes. They should all be super proud of their wonderful performance.

We ended the year on a high, with a fantastic Christmas party in the school hall. Y3 danced the afternoon away, played some lovely party games and even took home a special treat to enjoy at home.