Dear Parents/Carers

We are now a week into our final half term in Year 3 and the children are well on their way to being prepared for the next step. I wanted to start this week’s letter by saying a big thank you to all of you for supporting the children with their London Projects. All of them were fantastic and we had a wide variety of projects presented and an even wider range of topics. The children seem to have fully immersed themselves into the topic and I could not have been more pleased with how the projects turned out.

Spellings this week are slightly different. The children have a list of common exception words taken from a Year 3 and 4 list of exception words. The ones I have handpicked are words I see lots of the children regularly misspelling in their writing. Times Table rock stars has changed, and I have set the changing times tables for the whole term, so no weeks should be missed. Next week I will be giving the children more focused homework based on the time work we have been doing in Maths.

In maths this week we have needed a week of consolidating our knowledge of time. Unfortunately time is one of those topics where children come into it with a wide range of prior knowledge. This has meant progress on certain topics has been slower than usual, however I wanted to ensure all of the children were secure in their knowledge due to time being a very important skills. This week we have continued to learn about telling the time on both analogue and digital clocks, as well finding durations. Next week we will be having one final week looking at time, with problem solving involving time being more prominent.

In English we have started our new book for the term which is Paddington. Using Paddington we will be writing information pages about London transport and the children will be writing their own Paddington adventure story. Today in our English lesson the children learnt how to write in the present perfect tense, which we will be using in our information pages. In R.E. this week we started our new topic of Islam. The children will be learning about how Muslims live, and the similarities and differences there are between Islam and Christianity. In guided reading we have continued with Mary Poppins.

I hope you had a nice break and it is lovely to see all of the children have returned to school refreshed and revitalised.

This letter and the spellings will be uploaded to the Year 3 blog

As always if there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Mr Stocking and the Year 3 team

accident
answer
busy
circle
different
early
favourite
forward
heard
island
learn
minute
notice
possible
quarter

Dear Parents/Carers

The children have new spellings. One group is looking at adding the ‘ly’ suffix. The other group is looking at adding at the /u/ sound spelt ‘o’. They can access their spellings on both SpellingShed and on the sheets I am sending home. TT Rockstars will be changing on Sunday to a new set of times tables.

In maths this week we have been starting to explore time. We learnt about the months of the year and how many days are in each month. We learnt how to use Roman numerals and today we learnt to tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes. Next week we are learning to tell the time to the nearest minute, am/pm, 12 and 24 hour time and finding durations.

In English we have been learning how to use persuasive language. We have learnt how to use rhetorical questions to persuade as well as comparative and superlative adjectives. Today the children wrote their letters to the character Jemmy Button trying to persuade him to come to London with them. We had a lot of fantastic writing and the children have enjoyed learning about Jemmy Button a lot.

In our Topic lesson we became travel guides and created brochures talking about the different methods of transport around London. In Science today we looked at the bones in our body. The children created their own skeletons and we talked about the difference between the common names and scientific names of bones. In R.E. we have been exploring liturgy and how the church can help us to feel closer to God.

Next week we are having the St. Matthew’s book week. The theme of the week is pure imagination with a focus on poetry. We will be having an off-timetable mix up day on Tuesday and meeting a poetry author on Friday. I hope you have a good day on Thursday when the school is closed.

Half-term Project

The project this half-term is focusing on London. The children need to research something about London to present to the class. They can present it in any form that they choose. Last year we had PowerPoints, posters, models, stories and brochures. I have discussed it with the children and they understand what they need to do. It will be due in the week after half term – the 3rd of June

This letter and the spellings will be uploaded to the Year 3 blog

As always if there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Mr Stocking and the Year 3 team

Mr Stocking’s group

basically
frantically
dramatically
historically
nationally
emotionally
accidentally
automatically
traditionally
specifically

Mrs Sharon’s group

all
ball
call
walk
talk
always
fall
small
also
bald

10th May 2019

Dear Parents/Carers

The children have new spellings. One group is looking at changing words ending in ‘ic’ or ‘al’ to ‘ally’. The other group is looking at adding at the /or/ sound spelt ‘a’ before ‘l’ or ‘ll’. They can access their spellings on both SpellingShed and on the sheets I am sending home. TT Rockstars will be changing on Sunday to a new set of times tables.

In Maths this week we have been consolidating our knowledge of fractions. We did two small quizzes at the start of the week and then revised our learning on two of the more difficult steps we looked at – equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. This marks the end of our 6 week block on fractions and next week we will be moving on to time. In Year 3 the children will be learning to tell the time to the nearest minute, how to read both analogue and digital clocks, and reading 12 hour and 24 hour time.

In English we edited and published our acrostic poems. Today we started our new genre of writing – persuasive letters. The end goal will be to write a persuasive letter to the character from our story, Jemmy Button, persuading him to come to London. Today the children had a go at writing persuasive letters to Mr Quinn asking for new additions to our school. If Mr Quinn agrees to all of the requests we could be having swimming pools, trampolines, dance studios, rooftop spas and zip wires built around the school!

In our Topic lesson we learnt about the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. The children had to rush under their tables anytime they heard an air raid siren. In Science we became biologists and explored different skeletons. The children were fascinated to see a crab shedding its exoskeleton. In R.E. we have been exploring Christian pilgrimages around the world.

Half-term Project

The project this half-term is focusing on London. The children need to research something about London to present to the class. They can present it in any form that they choose. Last year we had PowerPoints, posters, models, stories and brochures. I have discussed it with the children and they understand what they need to do. It will be due in the week after half term – the 3rd of June

This letter and the spellings will be uploaded to the Year 3 blog

As always if there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Mr Stocking and the Year 3 team

Mr Stocking’s group

1. gently
2. simply
3. humbly
4. nobly
5. durably
6. terribly
7. incredibly
8. responsibly
9. wrinkly
10. possibly

Mrs Sharon’s group

1. patted
2. hummed
3. dropped
4. clapped
5. clipped
6. wrapped
7. napped
8. ripped
9. drummed
10. dragged

Dear Parents/Carers

We’re now well into our Summer term and the children have been working hard. I am sending home an extra maths sheet this week as a recap of the fraction work we have been looking at. It will have a variety of fluency and reasoning challenges for the children to work on.

The children have new spellings. One group is looking at changing words ending in ‘le’ to ‘ly’. The other group is looking at adding ‘ed’ to words ending in consonants. They can access their spellings on both SpellingShed and on the sheets I am sending home. SpellingShed participation has understandably dropped after not having it for a few weeks. If you could encourage the children to use it at home as it is an important part of the school curriculum. TT Rockstars will be changing on Sunday to a new set of times tables.

In Maths we finally finished our final objective for fractions. This week we have learnt how to compare, order, add and subtract fractions. The work I am sending home is the end of module quiz we have been doing in class. If the children could complete it over the weekend and bring it in for Tuesday that would be excellent as next week we are consolidating our learning before moving on to time the week after.

In English we have finished our work on acrostic poems. Today the children wrote their poems about the character Jemmy Button. From the ones I have read so far they are full of exciting descriptive language. We have had a focus on using exciting similes to help us describe Jemmy, his jungle and London.

In our Topic lesson we made timelines to mark important moments in the history and development of London, travelling from London’s founding in 43AD to the 2012 London Olympics

Half-term Project

The project this half-term is focusing on London. The children need to research something about London to present to the class. They can present it in any form that they choose. Last year we had PowerPoints, posters, models, stories and brochures. I have discussed it with the children and they understand what they need to do. It will be due in the week after half term – the 3rd of June

Blogs – This letter will be the first one that will also be uploaded to the Year 3 blog. I will also be posting both spelling lists on there if you are unable to access the children’s spellings.

As always if there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Mr Stocking and the Year 3 team

Here are some subordinate conjunctions the children have been using in class to make complex sentences:

Remember you can flip the sentences around.

I was eating an ice cream while my brother was building a sandcastle.

While my brother was building a castle, I was eating an ice cream.

Another strategy we will be learning is carrying or exchanging when adding or subtracting.  This is a new strategy to most children so may require some practise:

Any questions or queries please ask me.

Thanks,  Miss Hoffman