Welcome back to the Spring term. It is lovely to see all the children, they have had lots to tell us about their holidays!

We are starting the Spring Term on a mini topic based on the book ‘The Rainbow Bear’ by Michael Morpurgo. The children began the week by exploring their own dreams, both the ones they have at night and the ones they have for the future.

The children then really impressed us with their knowledge on Artic animals. Seeing only the images the children were able to name most of them and come up with some really interesting facts. The children then asked questions about what they would like to know, before we revealed what the animals were and some information on them.

We then went on to read the full story and thought about The Rainbow Bear’s dreams and feelings throughout. The children have story mapped the story, ready to do some more work on the story next week.

In art we have looked at water colour images of artic animals and have begun to think about how we can recreate the images of the animals we looked at. The children began to sketch their animals thinking about the lines, shapes and shaded areas. Next week the children will be exploring water colours to use.

As part of our science this term we have The James Dyson Design Box, where we will be learning about design engineers, and testing our own design engineer skills. This week we thought about what a design engineer looked like and might do, before revealing the answer. The children thought carefully about the inventions and design engineers we know about. One we definitely knew was Thomas Edison!

In maths we have begun multiplication and division, particularly focussing on the 3s and 4s. We have used cubes to represent the times tables, drawn arrays and chanted the tables to help the children's understanding. Please keep practising these tables at home. In Geography, we compared two different climate zones; the rainforest and the arctic. The children used their knowledge from the previous term, as well as research skills to compare the differences of these two places in the world.

We had our first swimming session this week and it went brilliantly! The children all really enjoyed their first time in the pool and we look forward to beginning group lessons next week. 

On Wednesday 23rd January the class will be attending a handball and football tournament at Trinity High School. Please can you ensure all children are in school on time as we will need to leave at 9:15am and we will be back for lunch. We will provide the children with the school tracksuits to ensure they are warm whilst there. Any questions please come and see us.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

What talented and brave children we have in year 3! We are so proud of their perserverence and energy in putting together 'Straw and Order' alongside year 4. We hope you enjoyed the performance as much as we did!

This week we have been completing a mixture of English and maths, alongside creating a host of Christmas goodies for you at home.

We had a lovely party day on Wednesday! We played lots of games and there were plenty of opportunities to win prizes. It was lovely to join in alongside year 4 for these. On Thursday, we completed our Jungle Book stories, reviewed what we have learned recently in maths, and looked at debugging in Computing, as well as seeing Father Christmas in school! The children all sang beautifully in the Carol Concert to round off a fantastic term.

 We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Mrs Horton, Mr Bennett and Mrs Feighoney.

We are still working hard in our penultimate week before Christmas in year 3. In the English the children have written the narratives they planned last week, thinking carefully about their use of expanded noun phrase, a range of verbs for said and inverted commas. They then went on to edit these and will finish them next week!

In maths we are finishing our work on bar models to support the representation of addition and subtraction. the children are really challenging themselves using these, thinking carefully what the question is asking, so they know which number is missing, then using a method to work out the calculation to then represent it as a bar model.

In RE the children have been looking at water and how this is used in baptism. This week the children focused on the differences between an adults and a child’s baptism.

In Forest School we enjoyed our last session by roasting some marshmallows on the fire. The fire was very warming on such a cold afternoon, and was an ideal way to finish off a brilliant term of Forest School!

We look forward to seeing as many as you as possible at our production next Tuesday. The children have been working incredibly hard on it. We know you are going to love it!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

We are really proud of the effort the children are putting into the rehearsals for our Christmas performance. The songs are really starting to sound wonderful and the children are working hard on their lines. Please keep learning these at home as next week we need to rehearse without our scripts!

In maths this week the children have begun to explore how to represent additions and subtractions in a bar model. The children have been presented with word problems, which they then had to work out if its addition or subtraction, use a method to work out the problem and then represent it in a bar model. For example:

In English the children have planned their own retelling of a scene from The Jungle Book. They have thought about the key features to include and have written notes of what narrative points to tell in the stroy. They will start writing the stories next week! In Geography this week the children have practised using atlases and maps, this time to locate cities in the UK. We have covered a wide range of Geography skills this term and the children are really developing as Geographers!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

This week the children have had a sneek peak of our Christmas play. We asked the children to think really carefully about what role they would like: singing, dancing or acting, and the nwe aim to give them all a role that would like to do. We're really excited for rehersals to start next week.

In English this week we have continued our work with narratives, securing where the key features are used, how they might be planned for, and how to use the key features in different contexts. We have focused on enpanded noun phrases, invereted commas and a range of verbs for said.

In maths we have continued our work on subraction and we have moved onto renaming. The children have really worked hard to rename tens to ones to enable calculations such as, 234 - 126. We also moved on to renaming in the tens column, which we have found quite tricky, but have perservered with and will continue to keep working hard at next week.

Today, we have had a fantastic day at Colmore Junior School. It was brilliant seeing a school so much bigger than ours, although the children still spotted many similarities. We walked together around Kings Heath, and used I-Spy cards to spot features of an urban environment. The children were using their Geography skills to compare the urban environment of Colmore School to the rural environment of Tardebigge. Some things we spotted were double decker buses, busy roads, shops and restaurants and traffic signals. We also visited All Saints church, where we noticed many similar features to St Bartholemew's; like a pulpitt, font and an alter. The children behaved brilliatly, were focused throughout and represented Tardebigge very well indeed!

Readathon invites will go out Monday for this Friday, congratulations to those who have achieved it this term. Please do keep up the wonderful reading at home!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Horton and Mr Bennett

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.