This week we have really pushed forward with our science. The children have worked hard to understand some key stages of a flowers life cycle. We have looked in detail at pollination, fertilisation and seed dispersal. We have begun an experiment looking at where seeds might have been dispersed in our school environment. Ask your children how we used a sock to help us.

In English we have begun a new focus of narratives. This week we have looked at features and our key skills we will be looking at: inverted commas, using a range of verbs for the word said and expanded noun phrases. We have used the Lion King to help us generate some wonderful ideas.

In maths we have moved on to looking at subtraction. The children have really thought carefully about a range of methods to subtract, including number lines and using our part - part whole model to support the calculation. We have also used the more formal column method to subtract without renaming; which we will move onto next week. In our Geography, we have thought a lot about how humans can impact the rainforest, and discussed positives and negatives of this. The children are starting to have some passionate opinions on deforestation, particularly on how it effects the wildlife.

Thank you to all the children for continuing to bring in such wonderful homework. We are making our way through it all, we want to ensure all children have the opportunity to showcase their hard work and get their teampoints.

Mr Field, who is a student in Year 3 this term has been observing the learning and been getting to know the children over the last couple of weeks, and will now be teaching more frequently too!

Next Friday, we plan to take the children on a visit to Colmore Junior School in Kings Heath. As an urban school, Colmore have visited Tardebigge in the past to experience the differences found at a more rural school, and now we will be visiting them to continue to build links between our schools. More information will be given out regarding the trip at the beginning of next week.

Enjoy your weekends!

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

Welcome back! We have heard so many wonderful stories about the adventures of half term and we are glad to see the children so refreshed.

On Tuesday we spoke about poppies and why we buy them at this time of year, we discussed Remembrance Sunday and why there is a two minute silence. We held our own two minutes silence in class after the conversation and the children had lots of questions and thoughts to share. We then made our own poppies out of felt and turned them into a wreath which have been hanging in our windows for people to see. The children were really respectful throughout the conversation and showed a lovely amount of compassion.

In maths we continued with addition and renaming, looking at renaming both the ones and tens in the same calculation (see previous blog for examples of methods). We have also began subtraction by taking away ones from a 2 digit number without renaming. We have learned some brand new language regarding subtraction, including 'minued', 'subtracthend' and 'difference'. Please feel free to test your children to see if they can remember what they mean; we hope the meanings will become more clear over time.

In science this week we have looked at the flower in detail. The children dissected a lily and labeled the parts of a flower. We then looked at the roles they play in pollination and fertilisation. The children really persevered with a lot of new scientific language.

As there has unfortunately been a drop in homework and reading being completed, we have said to the children that they will be asked to read at lunchtime if their diaries are not signed, and will complete a page of maths homework at lunchtime if this has not been handed in by Wednesday. This is consistant with the expectations in Year 4. As important as it is, we do not like to think of reading at home being a chore. If you would like any suggestions or recommendations of books to really spark the childrens' interest, we would be happy to have a discussion with parents or children.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

Wow! The last eight weeks have flown by. The children have been working hard and all need a well-earned rest.

In maths this week we have continued with addition, and this week have begun renaming. See the below example. We began by renaming from the ones column, and then went on to rename from the tens column. We have looked at three methods to help the children secure the understanding of this. 

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In English the children have used their new plant knowledge from The Botanical Gardens, to choose three plants to write an information text on. The children had opportunity to research further information, plan their design and then create them. The children focused on our class ALF (always looking for) finger spaces, capital letters, joined handwriting, and full stops when writing, as a reminder of what we should see in every piece of writing.

In Computing the children have explored how to create an animation by creating algorithms on Scratch. They created a rainforest background, a rainforest themed 'sprite' and then experiemented with the different commands to see how they could bring the character to life!

We had a super Forest School session today! Although we began the session in sunshine and blue skies, we could see the weather was going to turn... As the wind picked up and the sky went grey, many of the children thought it was about time to build shelters. The shelters were then put to the test by a sudden hail storm! Despite the cold, Year 3 loved the sudden and unexpected change in weather!

We hope you all have a wonderful half term. Enjoy the break and the rest.

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

What a wonderful week it has been, with our first school trip in year three to The Botanical Gardens and the Harvest Festival.

On Wednesday we visited The Botanical Gardens in Birmingham. We arrived just before 10:00am and given a warm welcome on our entrance. We were shown to our classroom where our first activity was explained: Rainforest Challenge! The children in groups were given a backpack, clipboard with activity sheet and pencil. Their challenge was to use the clues in the backpack, written with an item attached, to find the plant and write down the name. There were blue clues for the subtropical glasshouse and green for the tropical glasshouse. The children loved the challenge as the clues were pretty difficult but in finding the plants they all learnt about things we see around us like vanilla, cinnamon and pineapples.

After a discussion about our findings we had a lunch and then a quick explore of the grounds. The children managed to have a play on the treetop adventure and then see some of the lovely gardens and birds, including the peacocks wondering around.

Our second activity was Rainforest Fun with Live Animals. The children met a range of live animals: stick insects, a corn snake, a bearded dragon and chameleon. They also saw a range of preserved animals and insects. Ruth, our guide talked us through all the animals, their habitats, diets and where they live in the world. We then went on to discuss hunting for tribes people, clothing and finished off with a little dance.

We had such a wonderful time. Well done year 3 on such brilliant behavior and manners!

The Harvest festival was lovely on Thursday, and Year 3 certainly did themselves proud with their song, 'Good Things'. Thank you to all the families members who were able to come and support the children and to everyone who generously gave donations this week. 

We hope you all have a lovely weekend before our last week of the half term!

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

It has been lovely to meet so many parents and carers this week during parents evening. We know you're as proud of your children as we are for settling in so well to year 3.

In maths this week we have begun looking at addition and subtraction. The children explored the communicative relationships between addition and subtraction facts with two digit numbers. They have used the base 10 and place value counters, alongside place diagrams to support their understanding. In addition, we have begun adding single digit numbers to a three digit number. The children have done very well at focussing on the ones column to add these numbers, and have been working hard to find their most efficient method.

In English the children have independently edited their persuasive letters, thinking specifically about their use of conjunctions, first person pro nouns and persuasive features. They have also thought about the features we are ‘always looking for’: full stops, capital letters, finger spaces and joined handwriting. The children then went on to redraft these using handwriting pens (something they were excited about using). The care the children have taken in their presentation has been so impressive, and they are clearly proud of their hard work.

On Wednesday morning we visited Trinity High School, where the children were shown skills in football, handball and hockey by the children there. It was a lovely morning to be out in the fresh air, enjoying the fantastic facilities on offer and playing some competitive games with other schools.

In Geography, we have been considering the human impact on our planet. We have talked about how humans have had an impact on the rainforest, and how this effects the animals and plants. We have also learned about some famous man made land-marks in the UK and located them on a map using ipads and atlases.

Next Wednesday is our school trip to The Botanical Gardens, please remember to ensure children bring packed lunches, water bottles and coats.

Have lovely weekends,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett.

This week we have certainly been busy. On Monday we recieved a letter from a very naughty lady at Worcester County Council, threatening to cancel our school trip. The children were obviously not happy and we have decided to write a persusive formal letter in response, telling her about why her reasons are not acceptable. Mrs Cutler and the Botanical Gardens have of course assured us that the trip will go ahead no matter what - but I'm sure the children's letters which they have now drafted will help change the Council's mind.

In maths we have come to the end of our place value unit. The children have been counting in fours and eights from three digit numbers, something they found particuarly tricky but they certainly perservered. They then completed their mind workouts - a problem where they can apply their growing knowledge of place value. Finally, they have finished our Number focus, by completing a review of everything they have learned so far this year.

In our topic work, we have finished using maps to locate continents and oceans, as well as researching information of a country in South America. Lots of topic homework has been coming in, and the children have been brilliant at showing the rest of the class what they have been busy making. The 'cook it' challenges have been particularly popular with the class! Thank you to all family members who have supported the children with their home learning so far.

In science we are continuing to look at plants through being Botanists. This week we have looked at how water travels through plants and have devised a class experiment where the children placed flowers in food colouring, in different parts of the school (thinking about the different temperatures) to see which temperature affects the speed of the water travelling. We are keeping a close eye to see which flower changes colour first.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

Firstly thank you to everybody for their enthusiasum with the topic homework so far - Monday was offically deemed '5 cake Monday' and was a very happy day for all in year 3! We really do appreciate all the support from home in getting these projects done. All homework will be shown and all homework is rewarded, we just can't promise it is on the day it is brought in. Those bronze tempoint cards are soon going to be filled in!

In English this week we have continued our work on persuasive letters, thinking again about the features and where they are in our example letter and how these features look in other pieces of writing. We have been reading about our trip to the Botanical Gardens, and thinking about how their website persuades visitors.

In maths we are continuing our work with place value, and this week thinking about number patterns. Mainly 1 less/more, 10 less/more than numbers in the hundreds, building up to finding 100 less/more. We have really carefully thought about how we build the number with the base 10 materials, and use these to represent the differences and help understand the pattern. 

In our class guided reading sessions we are reading 'The Great Kapok Tree' a truly beautiful story about the Amazon. Each page has the children thinking, exploring and learning. We will be working with this text for a few weeks to come.

Our RE focus moved on to Islamic Prayer and how Muslims prepare for thier prayers. The children though carefully about the importance of body language for Muslims and also their thoughts in relation to prayer.

Just a quick reminder - the readathon has begun again. We remind the children in the morning to hand in their dairies, but it is their job to hand them to us. Please can you ensure all reading diaries are in every day and reading is a regular occurance at home. It truly does make a difference to their progression.

Maths homework books have also been given out this week, and we ask that everyone aims to complete one page per week, which needs to be handed in by Wednesday. A teampoint will be given out if homework is completed on time, and although homework is never compulsory, we encourage the children to do it to embed their learning and prepare them for the routines of middle school.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett.

This week we have begun our new focus in English on persuasive letter writing. Having looked at a range of examples, we went on to explore a letter written to Mary Agnes Chase, the botanist we have been looking at in science, which asked her to visit us. We uncovered the key features and went on to focus on the features of first person, conjunctions and persuasive techniques this week. We will be building up to writing our own letters over the next few weeks.

In maths our Singapore maths has continued looking at place value, and understanding the value of each digit in a three digit number. We have compared and ordered these numbers, closely looking at the value of each digit and how that affects the size of the number. The children looked at the hundreds as the highest value place and the ones as the lowest. This helped determine which numbers were smaller or greater.

We have also been exploring the artwork of Henri Rousseau, answering questions on our thoughts and opinions of his artwork and recreating the illustrations of Mary Agnes Chase in our sketch books.

In computing, we have started to create animations using Scratch Jr on the iPads. The children created a background, designed a sprite and then wrote an algorithm to animate the character. These were all themed to our topic!

Despite a very windy forest school session, the children loved exploring and playing outside again. The swing and low ropes course have been a huge hit, while others particularly enjoyed digging this week. We look forward to seeing those holes after all the rain this weekend!

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

What a wonderfully busy second week it has been. In english we have explored the Tinga Tinga tales of ‘How Leopard Got His Spots’. The children retold the story, then went on to think about which rainforest animal they could write a similar story about. The children researched their chosen animal and then went on to plan their own version. They wrote their stories thinking carefully about what their chosen animal needed to become the animal we now know.

We have also begun our class guided reading, the text is ‘The Great Kapok Tree’, a beautiful book we will exploring slowly and carefully.

In maths we have begun our Singapore Maths. We are focusing currently on numbers to 1000 and understanding the value of each place within this.

In science we are now botanists and following the lead of Mary Agnes Chase, we have illustrated plants and labeled them, whilst thinking carefully about the jobs they do.

We have began learning about Animation in our Computing, and have evaluated a variety of different types of animated films; such as stop-motion, hand drawn and computer animated. We then had a go at editing an existing animation on Scratch by changing different variables.

It has been lovely for the children to start rediscovering Forest School. We have revised all the rules and routines they have remembered from when the children were in Year 1 and started thinking about projects to try while in Year 3.

We will explore more subjects and what we have been up to as the weeks go on, but we are certainly keeping busy.

Any questions at all please do come and speak to any of the year 3 team.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

Hello,

And welcome to the wonderful blog of year 3 - a place we aim to keep you up to date about what we have been doing on a weekly basis. Please do keep checking in as we do try and put some photos up occassionally and also reminders for what we have coming up.

We are so proud of the way the year has begun. The children have been beautifully behaved and have shown such lovely manners.

At the start of the week the children explored thier new topic 'rainforests' through discussing what they already knew and then discovering some new information through facts, photos, sounds and using magnifying glasses. This led them to ask questions about what they still wanted to know, hopefully something we can achieve by the end of the topic. They have designed what a good explorer of a rainforest should look like, thinking carefully about the weather, colours and equipment and then went on to design their own piece of exploring equipment. The class made these and then went down to our very own rainforest to see what discoveries could be made. Ask your child what they came across, it was defintiely scary in some places!

Home readers have already gone home, children can change these first thing every morning as and when they need to. Should you have questions, please come and see us about this though.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett.