Autumn 1 2018

Welcome back! I hope you have all had a fantastic, relaxing summer break and are looking forward to the start of the new school year. Mrs Boyes and I are excited to welcome you back and begin our learning journeys in Year 3. Keep a look out on this page to see what we have been learning about.

R.E. -The Christian Family

This half term we have reflected on what it means to be part of a family and part of the Christian family. We talked about ways we live our lives as a Christian and how we celebrate being part of God’s family. We considered our own unique gifts and talents and thought about how we can show our gratitude and give thanks to God.

Year 3 moved on to thinking about what happens when we are baptised. The children initially learnt all about Baptism as part of their homework and found out about their own. We the discussed as a class questions we wanted to to ask Canon Nunan about Baptism in preparation for our visit to St.Joseph’s Church. The children had lots of fantastic questions that we added to our R.E. working wall. Such as;

‘Can anyone get baptised?’

‘Do you have to be a baby to get bapitised?’

‘Why do babies wear white?’

‘Why does the priest pour water over the baby’s head?’

‘Why is it called Holy Water?’

‘What is the point of baptism?’

‘What is the bath called in church where babies get baptised?’

‘Is the water special?’

‘What happens when you are baptised?’

Year 3 then visited St.Joseph’s to find out what happens when you are baptised. Canon Nunan showed us the baptismal font where the Baptism takes place. He told us all about Holy Water and that it is blessed by God. Children from Year 3 then got into role as the parents and god parents of ‘Daisy Lillie’ and Canon Nunan showed us what happens when someone is baptised. He told us all about that we become part of God’s family and receive the gift’s of the Holy Spirit. He poured the holy water onto ‘Daisy Lillie’s head to symbolise life and to show that the baby is living in the life of Jesus. He also anointed the baby with the oil of chrism that had been blessed by Bishop Marcus to symbolise the gift’s and guidance from the Holy Spirit. Canon also lit the baptismal candle from the Easter candle in church to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world and that the light of Jesus’ love was with the baby.

Collective Worship

In Year 3, we have collective worship monitors who help prepare the collective worship table 4 times per week in class. They choose carefully what items they want to have on our table from our collective worship box and discuss what colour cloth they should cover the table and why with support from Mrs Boyes. For example one child chose a candle to symbolise that Jesus is the light of the world and one child chose a tree to symbolise that we grow in God’s love.  We always begin our worships with relaxing music, turning the lights off, lighting the candles and the collective worship monitors lead the Morning prayer. We then think about what our collective worship statement of the week is for example, ‘Giving thanks to God- I try to appreciate the beauty and the wonder of the world around me.’ After we listen to the Word of the Lord  sometimes by listening to a story or parable from the bible. We spend some time reflecting on the Word for a couple of minutes and we have our own time to talk to God. We think about how we can live out the word throughout the day.

The Rosary

Year 3 changed their collective worship table to reflect that October is the month of The Holy Rosary when we think about and pray to Mary the mother of Jesus. Each day the children take home a Holy Rosary prayer bag to pray with.

 

The Prayer Garden

Each week Year 3 and 4 go into the Prayer Garden for collective worship. We reflected on the the beauty and the wonder of the world around us and gave thanks to God. After listening to the Creation Story from Genesis 1 of the bible we took time to stop and look and listen to the nature surrounding us. We gave thanks to God through our own prayers and thoughts.

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

We finished by singing our school mission song together. ‘To live in Faith, Learn with Hope, Love in Peace and Worship and Celebrate in our Community.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maths-KIRFS

This half term Year three’s Key Instant Recall facts are; Count from 0 in multiples of 4, 8, 50 and 100. Find 10 or 100 more or less than any given number. The children practise these daily through singing songs, writing them day and playing games. They have also created their own games such as snakes and ladders with times tables questions to play with friends.

Place Value

Year 3 have been  recognising the place value of each digit in a three-digit number (hundreds, tens, ones) in a variety of representations and discussing the ways these numbers can be represented using numicon, base ten, number lines, cubes and place value counters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English- Stone Age Boy

We are using the book Stone Age Boy to link with our History theme as a focus for our writing. We began by looking at the front cover and discussing with our talk partners what we thought it was about and asked questions. We read some of the book and made predictions about what we thought would happen. In guided reading we answered questions about text and gave reasons for our answers based on clues in the pictures.

The children got into role as Stone Age boy and re-wrote the beginning of the story using adjectives and adverbs to bring the story to life. We tried really hard with our handwriting and presentation. We all gave 110% effort with our learning and got to show it to Miss Milli!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science -Rocks and Soils

We began our topic by thinking about what we know about Rocks and Soils and what we want to know. The children had to think of a question that they could investigate themselves, this was very tricky! They came up with some great questions such as;

‘Are all rocks the same?

‘Where do rocks come from?’

‘What is soil made from?’

‘Where does soil come from?’

We went into the woods to look for different rocks and to discuss if we saw any that were man-made or natural.

 

Year three were very excited when we received a letter from Stone Age Boy asking for help to find out what type of rocks Stone Age people may have used to make their own jewellery and use to make pictures.

We discussed some different types of rocks and then thought about working scientifically to identify, classify and sort the rocks as to which ones scratched.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History-The Stone Age

We began by using the book we are reading in English (Stone Age Boy) to ask questions about the past. We added these questions to our working wall.

We then looked at Stone Age cave paintings and got into role as Stone Age Boy (who grew up to be an archaeologist) and discussed what we knew for certain about the Stone Age and what we could infer might have happened. This was really tricky to do and something we are developing in our guided reading lessons.

 

 

Art

We used the ipads to research about The Stone Age and look at pictures of cave painting to inspire us to create our own. With Mrs Lowe we used water that had tea bags in it to stain paper to make it look old and like the wall of a cave. The children practised using pastels to draw their cave paintings. They discussed that the pictures had to be very simple with no detail on but they had to tell a story of what was happening. Some children even brought in burnt wood to practise drawing with it!

 

 

 

P.E.

Once a week year 3 are taught by Total Sports. They began with discussing the importance of warming their bodies up before any type of exercise. They looked at different ways of moving their bodies and played some different games.

 

The children practised being a coach and giving feedback to their team on how to throw the basket ball well to their partners and what they needed to do to improve this. The children tried really hard with this and gave some great feedback as to the next steps.

The children practised the skills of being able to defend and attack by playing dodge ball. The children had lots of fun doing this and practised even further by applying tactics to improve their skills.

 

 

 

PSHE- Mental health and wellbeing

Year 3 went outside to practise passing a hoop around in a circle without letting go of other each others hands. This was a very tricky challenge especially when we were timed to  do this in under 3 minutes! We discussed after what we could do to help one another if they were finding it tricky. We decided that being able to encourage our friends with simple instructions as to what they should do, in a calm voice would help.

We explained how it feels to be challenged, try something new or difficult and thought about how we can plan the steps required to help achieve a goal or challenge. We also talked about being able to celebrate our own and others’ skills, strengths and attributes

 

 

 

Scooter training

Year 3 went outside to learn how to ride a scooter safely when on the pavement. They had to practise going around cones, checking for cars as they passed drive ways, they learnt how to stop safely using the brake and cross a road safely. Year 3 had great fun and listened very carefully as to how to cross a road safely with their scooters.

Always walk across the road checking for cars coming in either direction whilst pushing your scooter.

 

 

 

 

Music

Autumn 1