We just wanted to say how amazing you have been this week, Year 3 and that we are very proud of how hard you have continued to work. From now on, we will keep in touch over Class Dojo. Have a lovely weekend. Enjoy the opportunity to read lots of books, go for long walks, start jigsaw puzzles and play board games plus all of the fun ideas of things for you to do below.

What a week it has been participating in British Science Week. This week we have had a science focus each day to help us celebrate this wonderful week.

On Monday we focused on theme of the week ‘Our Diverse Planet’. We thought about what makes our planet diverse, it can be as simple as colour in nature or something more complex like habitats. Ask your children what they think makes our planet diverse.

On Tuesday we welcomed chemists Ruth, Lucy and Amanda from the University of Birmingham. They explored chemistry with us through looking at self-cleaning materials. The children explored how effectively water on paper, kitchen foil and plastic removed dirt, before repeating their experiment with a lotus leaf. We were all amazed with how the lotus leaf reacted with the water. Ask your child to explain what made us all gasp with awe and wonder.

On Wednesday we had a whole school physics day. Class 3 worked in every class across the school exploring a range of physics based activities. The children looked at friction, gravity, water resistance, static electricity and other forces through the activities. The children absolutely loved working in other classrooms and seeing science brought to life through a range of exciting investigations.

Thank you to the parents who popped in on the evening so the children could their learning from the day with them. We loved seeing you get just as excited as the children.

On Thursday, the children found out about hormones in their bodies and discussed their body clocks. We found out about how cortisol, melatonin, ghrelin and leptin affect us and created individual body clocks. In Maths, we completed very challenging problems involving length, which required us to use the bar model to represent the problem. We have been enjoying reading the book 'Niteracy Hour' in English and the children used their senses to think about what a head louse in the Ancient Egyptian times would have seen, smelt, heard and been able to feel. There were lots of gruesome repsonses! 

Today, the children presented what they have discovered about Science this week back to the class and completed a reflection. The children described this week as exciting and entertaining, which we would definitely agree with! 

• Magnet mayhem in year 1
• Exploring static electricity in year 1
• Floating fun in reception
• Planet adventures in year 3
• Exploring materials with the University of Birmingham chemists.
• Exploring materials with the University of Birmingham chemists.
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Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mrs Stevens

Thank you to everyone who attended parents afternoon/evening, it was great to talk with you all and share such lovely things about your children.

We had a wonderful day yesterday for World Book Day. We started the day with a catwalk to showcase everyone's brilliant outfits and we heard many different adults read some of their favourite books. The focus on comics was such good fun and the children really enjoyed sharing copies of the 'Beano' and 'The Dandy'. We completed comprehension based on a comic and then the children sketched Gnasher and Dennis in their sketch books. Many children did another copy that they took home with them yesterday. I am sure you will have been very impressed! 

This week we have continued our work in maths on length with word problems. We have been converting length whilst solving addition, multiplication and division problems. It has helped us to recap methods learnt earlier in the year too.

In English we have started work on first person narratives, focusing on the skills of using inverted commas for speech and conjunctions. After reading a section of a very funny book, 'Niteracy Hour' which is written from a head louse's point of view, the children composed their narrative written from a spider's view point, which really made us all think about how we treat spiders! 

In RE this half term we are learning about what makes Jesus inspiring. The children have been thinking about their inspirations and the qualities of these people. We will be looking at stories from the Bible and how these qualities can be seen in Jesus. 

Have a fantastic weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mrs Stevens.

Welcome back! It’s been great to see the children come back to school full of energy and enthusiasm for their learning.

We have become geologists in our science. We have looked at the different varieties of rocks; metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary and how these are formed. We then looked at rocks found locally and thought about which of these types they might be.

In maths we have continued our work on length by converting kilometres and metres. We know ‘1km is equal to 1000m, and 1000m is equal to 1km’, and have used this to support conversions of different measurements. We have also looked at word problems involving conversions of centimeters, metres and kilometres. The children have been using the bar model to support with this.

In English, we have written our persuasive letters to Howard Carter which we planned before half term. The children worked really hard to format them carefully and use a range of persuasive features to ensure Howard Carter doesn’t unearth the tomb of Tutankhamun.

As our Geography curriculum links to the physical features of rivers, we have been learning all about the River Nile and how settlements have developed. 

The children enjoyed swimming as always today! They are making good progress . 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mrs Stevens

We can’t believe we are half way through the academic year. We really appreciate the support across the year so far, and look forward to seeing you all after half term for parents evening. 

This week we have been exploring the decision of Howard Carter to enter Tutankhamen’s tomb through our English work. As a class we decided to persuade him not to enter the tomb and came up with persuasive reasons why he shouldn’t. We will continue this after half term.

In Maths, we have begun to look at length, and converting centimetres and metres and metres to kilometres. The children have explored measuring tapes also, and looking at how to measure objects more than a metre. 

At school we currently have the Royal Microscopical Society’s microscopes, and have begun to look at and use these in our science sessions. The children explored how water can be used to magnify. Then looked at magnifying glasses, before using the microscopes to explore everyday materials like coffee, teabags and newspapers and then describe what they could see.

In History, we have been learning about Egyptian Gods and this has really engaged the children. They were all very excited about the fact files that they created.

We loved seeing everybody’s outfits today and some children strutted up the Year 3 catwalk to strike a pose and show off what they were wearing! The fun continued when we went swimming because the children used persuasive techniques to convince us that they deserved a fun session for all of their hard work this half term. We had all of the floats in the pool and the music playing.

Have a wonderful half term. 

Mrs Horton and Mrs Stevens.

This week we have been working hard on our maths, applying our knowledge of bar models to support the methods of division we have learnt. This hasn’t been easy, but the children have really persevered at thinking about how using the bar model can help solve the problem.

In science the children have looked more closely at muscles, thinking about the different types of skeletons, vertebrate and invertebrate, and how they work together to move. We then looked at how we can keep skeletons healthy and what happens when we hurt our skeletons. We looked at the invention of the x-ray and how this has developed over time. Ask your children how the x-ray was invented.

Thank you for all the support and hard work gone into the children’s homework so far. Every child has the opportunity to share their homework with the class, and it’s been lovely to hear their film reviews, read their hieroglyphics and see the jewellery and artifacts they have created. We are looking forward to seeing what else they can create.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Horton

At the end of last week the children began to explore the topic of 'Tomb Raiders’ further with Mrs Friday, by looking at mummification. The children enjoyed the gory details and wrapping each other up as mummies. Mrs Friday is really enjoying exploring Ancient Egypt with our lovely year 3 historians.

This week we have welcomed a new adult to our class, Miss Taylor-Imms, she will be with us for seven weeks whilst she works towards her teaching qualification.

In maths we are continuing our work on further multiplication and division. The children have explored long division. They found this really challenging but their perseverance has been amazing. This has led on to solving word problems using the methods we have learnt in multiplication and division to solve them and using bar models to represent the problem.

In English the children have edited their setting descriptions thinking about the skills of cohesion in paragraphs and adverbs. They really enjoyed getting the handwriting pens out to redraft these. Their handwriting and efforts in presentation have really made us smile.

We have really worn our scientist hats this week. We are closely looking at skeletons thinking about their purposes: support, protection and movement. We’ve looked at different joints and how these move differently and at the different types of skeletons, including invertebrates and vertebrates.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Horton

We have certainly kept busy in year 3 this week. In science we have continued our work on nutrition thinking about how animals have different nutritional needs than humans and why this is. The children designed plates of food to match the nutritional needs of a dog, cat, parrot and human to show their understanding. Hopefully the children have been talking about his at home. We have also begun looking at skeletons. The children in groups drew a life size skeleton and labeled the bones with both the common names and the scientific names. The scientific names were definitely harder to place, but the children really worked hard to match them to the correct bones.

In computing we have begun a new unit of work called ‘We are presenters’. We looked at the closing credits to a sports show, and thought carefully about all the jobs involved in getting sports on our televisions. We then looked at clips from different sporting events; snowboarding, tennis and swimming and thought about where we could see these jobs in action. The children will be undertaking some of these jobs; director, camera operator, editor, lighting, for example, over the coming weeks when they put together their own presentations.

Through D&T we have begun looking at mechanisms, children have looked at mechanisms in motion, and thought about how the movements take place. We have looked at different shaped cams and thought about how this would impact on the movement.

In maths we have begun looking at dividing 2 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. We have thought about deconstructing the tens and ones, then dividing these separately before adding these answers back together. We have used base 10 to support our working out.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Horton

This week we have enjoyed finding out about nutrients in science. We looked at the difference between food groups and nutrients, and how many nutrients we should have on a daily basis. We also looked at the benefits of nutrients to help us live healthily.

In maths we have continued our work on multiplication, by multiplying 2 digits by 1 digit. The children have looked at deconstructing the 2 digit number, to allow multiplication of the ones, before the tens and then adding these together to come to the answer. Please keep working on the fluency of the multiplications at home, it really does make a difference to our work in school.

We have begun looking at our KIRF targets for Spring 1. The children have been enjoying battles by counting in fours and practicing their four times tables.

Last week the children were all amazing in their first swimming lesson. All the adults who attended commented on how exemplary their behavior was. We are all really proud of them.

Have a fantastic weekend,

Mrs Horton

Happy New Year! We hope you all had a wonderful few weeks. The children have been very excited to tell us all about their adventures and stories from their time off.

We have begun the new year with a new topic ‘Tomb Raiders’ and over the coming weeks children will begin to uncover more about this.

In English we have started to look at historical settings and the key skills adverbs and paragraphs. Children have looked at using adverbs effectively, ensuring that the adverb is appropriate for the verb it is describing. They have also thought about how to use paragraphs when describing the same scene.

In maths we have started to look at multiplication of 2 digits and 1 digit. The children are finding this a challenge. Any extra work you can do at home on fluency of times table facts would be greatly appreciated as this then helps reduce the number of steps needed for the children to complete these calculations. We looked at Timestable Rockstars in class and handed out their passwords again to ensure children can access this great resource.

In science we have begun a new unit on ‘Animals including Humans’. This week we explored the children’s current knowledge on nutrition and skeletons. It was a fascinating lesson and we look forward to exploring this area of learning further.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton