Classes
Year 3
Autumn Term 2019
Year 3 Curriculum Overview Autumn Term 2019:- Year 3 Curriculum Overview
Class Messages
11.12.19 – Tomorrow, we will be going on a school trip to Chester Zoo along with years 1 and 5. We ask that you wrap up warm – big coat (with a hood!), hat, scarves, gloves. You may also wish to wear a pair of jogging bottoms or leggings with your school t-shirt and jumper and/or extra layers. We will be departing at 9am so please, please, please ensure you get to school with plenty of time to spare. Your child will be provided with a drawstring bag to carry their packed lunches in on arrival to school. A letter has been stuck into your child’s reading diary containing more information. Thank you for your continued support.
09.12.19 – Our Lower KS2 Christmas Production is fast approaching! We will be sending slips home with anything your child may need for the performance day (mainly an item of clothing eg. plain tops, leggings). We would also appreciate any donations of old school uniform, in any condition, that may no longer fit your child. As you may already be aware, the children will be acting out a Victorian Christmas performance this year and any donations will be greatly appreciated.
Key Dates
17.09.19 – Year 3 Open Classroom – Letter sent home.
12.09.19 – Parent’s Evening (1 of 2) – Letter sent home.
13.09.19 – Parent Evening (2 of 2) – Letter sent home.
02.12.19 – Year 3 Christmas Craft Workshop – Starts at 2:10pm. (Parents Welcome)
06.12.19 – Jack and the Beanstalk Pantomime for the children – Starts at 1pm.
18.12.19 – Christmas Lunch – Children may wear a Christmas jumper today.
19.12.19 – Christingle Service for the children
19.12.19 – Lower KS2 (Year 3 & Year 4) Christmas Performance – Starts at 2:15pm. (Parents Welcome)
20.12.19 – Party Day & Visit from Santa – School closes at 2pm.
Important Information
PE: Outdoor PE lessons take place on a Wednesday afternoon with Miss Parr. Please ensure your child has a pair of trainers or PE pumps in school. PE kits including a pair of shorts and a t-shirt are supplied by the school. However, in colder weather, you may wish to supply a pair of jogging bottoms.
Homework: Homework is sent home on Fridays. All homework books are expected to be returned to school by the following Wednesday at the very latest. We also encourage children to have their reading book signed each night and change their reading book at least once a week.
Reading Books: Reading books must be signed and dated by a parent before they are changed by ourselves. Children should aim to read for 5 minutes a night. If your child’s reading book needs to be changed, we ask them to place it into a red basket as they enter the classroom each morning.
School Diaries: We ask that children bring in their school diary and reading book every day. Children are given the opportunity to read and use their diaries during the school day.
Water Bottles: Water bottles are supplied by the school. They are filled up each morning by our water bottle monitors and are washed and sterilised on a Friday afternoon.
Bug Club, Education City & Times Tables Rockstars: You can find the login details for these websites in the back of your child’s school diary. If you are having any trouble with passwords or logging on, please let us know and we’ll look into it for you.
This half term in Year 3:
| English |
Autumn 1 During our first term in Year 3, we will be focusing on the book “FOX” by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks.
Year 3 will be predicting, inferring, explaining and justifying alongside improving our comprehension skills. We will be exploring the effects of Bush Fires in Australia. We will write from the prospective of Magpie and also write a letter to Dog. Our first half term will conclude by producing a Book Review. Autumn 2 This half term, we are studying a new book called “The Wolves In The Wall”. The book was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean.
Summary of Book Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of their house—and, as everybody says, if the wolves come out of the walls, it’s all over. Her family doesn’t believe her. Then one day, the wolves come out. But it’s not all over. Instead, Lucy’s battle with the wolves is only just beginning. During our English lessons, we will be taking on the role of Lucy and producing short drama scenes and freeze frames. We will be incorporating the use of musical instruments too. |
| Maths |
Abacus Scheme of Work In our Maths lessons, we follow the Abacus scheme of work. We will continue to work on multiplication, division, addition and subtraction using word problems.
Times Tables Children are encouraged to practice their times tables – especially their 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 10’s, before moving onto 6’s, 7’s and 8’s. You could help your child by encouraging them to rapidly recall these facts regularly. Your child also has a login for Times Tables Rockstars at the back of their reading diary.
The children will be aiming for bronze, silver and gold stars in all of their times tables throughout the academic year.
Bronze – |
| PE |
Our PE lessons take place on Wednesday afternoons with Miss Parr and vary between indoors and outdoors. PE lessons will consist of a range of activities including circuit training, dancing and outdoor games. During the first half term, we worked with our specialist Manchester City coach, Connor. We learnt the skills needed for a number of invasion games and learnt how to be a good team player.
Please can you ensure that your child has a pair of trainers or PE pumps in school especially for Wednesday’s lessons. |
| Topic |
World War 2 (Autumn 1 & Autumn 2) We will begin our topic lessons by discussing what we already know about World War 2 and what we would like to learn during this term. Our learning will include:
We will link our topic work to other subjects including English, ICT and Art & Design. |
| Science |
Light & Shadow (Autumn 1) Our learning this term will include:
Throughout this topic, we will have plenty of opportunities to conduct Science experiments, learn through songs and games and also make shadow puppets.
Movement & Feeding (Autumn 2) We will begin our second Science topic of the year by taking part in a quiz about movement and feeding. We will be asked to create a healthy, balanced meal for someone using our prior knowledge before looking at what we need in order to have a balanced diet. We will understand the importance of food and the types of food groups and it’s purpose/functions.
This Science topic will be closely linked to our PE lessons. |
| Geography |
Autumn 1 During Autumn one, our Geography will be linked to our English text, “FOX”. We will be locating Australia on a map and exploring the effects of bush fires.
We will also be looking at the world’s continents and also locating cities on a UK map.
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| Art & DT |
Our Art and DT lessons are linked closely to our class topics. Autumn 1
Autumn 2
We will upload some of the art work to our class page. We will also have plenty of opportunities during Golden Time on Friday’s and during wet play times to create our own pieces of art. There will be a range of activities available including art pencils, colouring pencils, cray pas, water-colour paint pallettes, paints and collage resources for the children to explore. |
| RE: |
Called by God (Autumn 1) We will be exploring some key questions through discussion with a range of opportunities to reflect.
“Kingdom of God” – The Big Frieze (Autumn 2)
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| Music |
Recorders In Year 3, we have the opportunity to learn how to play the recorder with our music teacher, Mrs Compston. Our recorder lessons take place each Tuesday afternoon for an hour. The children will learn a range of notes and how to read music from the stave.
Singing
At St. Wilfrid’s, we follow the music syllabus, Charanga. On Tuesday afternoons, the children work with Miss Pointon on the different strands of musical learning which correspond with the national curriculum for music. These areas include Listening & Appraising, Musical Activities (warm up games, optional flexible games, singing, playing instruments, improvisation and composition) and performing. Autumn 1 – Let Your Spirit Fly Autumn 2* – Christmas Production Practice Spring 1 – Three Little Birds Spring 2 – The Dragon Song Summer 1 – Bringing Us Together Summer 2 – Reflect, Rewind and Replay |
| PSHCE | My Happy Mind
This term all children will be provided with their own personal My Happy Mind booklet. Children will participate in a range of activities both within the booklet and online. (Logins to follow.) The “meet your brain” module is all about how your brain works and how you can help it to be at its very best.
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| Computing | Microsoft Powerpoint
On Tuesday afternoons, we will be working with Miss Powell to develop our ICT skills. We will learn how to use a variety of software both on laptops and iPads. We will also continue to work on Scratch to develop our Simple Animation skills.
During our English and Topic lessons, we will be using ICT to proof read and edit our work. We will be using Microsoft Word to do this. We will continue to look at changing fonts, colours of texts and using suitable font sizes. We will learn how to save our work effectively so it’s easy to locate and print out.
Children must ensure they have their school diaries everyday as they contain your child’s logins for some of the software we use. |
Picture Gallery
03.12.19 – Willow Weaving Workshop
This morning, a lady called Sarah came in to teach us how to weave willow animals. The two chosen animals for weaving were butterflies and dragonflies. This links closely to our current programme with Chester Zoo; where we are looking at native animals to the UK and how we can protect them so they don’t become extinct. Sarah is currently working on an array of animal and reptile sculptures for Chester Zoo.
Year 3 were the first class to take part in the workshop and completed the butterfly and dragonfly bodies. It was a difficult task but we persevered and completed the task in hand. On completion, it was over to the rest of the classes (Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6) to add the finishing touches such as wings and antennae.
02.12.19 – Year 3 Christmas Craft Workshop
Thank you to all of our parents, carers, family members and friends who came to support us during our Year 3 Christmas Craft Workshop. The children enjoyed making reindeer themed Christmas cards, Christmas tree decorations, Christmas polka dot pictures and 3D Christmas tree decorations.
22.11.19 – Is is always wrong to lie?
The children worked in mixed groups today to explore the key question – “Is it always wrong to lie?”. This key question relates to our current book “The Wolves In The Wall” but also allowed us to closely link to RE.
The children displayed their work on large pieces of paper and then shared their ideas and beliefs to the rest of the class. Some of the children were aware of “white lies” which protect people.
19.11.19 – Singing
On Tuesday afternoons, the children work with Miss Compston to learn how to play the recorder. After this lesson, Miss Pointon takes over the class to look at our music syllabus. The song we have been looking at this term is “Let Your Spirit Fly”.
Video to follow.
15.11.19 – Comic Strips on Story Visualizer
As part of our English lessons, we are focusing on a book called “The Wolves In The Walls”. This morning the children had the opportunity to produce their very own storyboards/comic strips using the application, Story Visualizer.
The children had plenty of opportunity to share their work with the class. The children were able to listen to the story on a CD in the background which allowed them to pick out key vocabulary to include in their work.
14.11.19 – “Kingdom of God” Canvas
We have been working extremely hard to produce our class canvas to illustrate what the “Kingdom of God” means to us. The children have had opportunities to explore what the “Kingdom of God” means to them, what the “Kingdom of God” means to us and also produce an individual piece of art in their sketch books.
We then worked in small groups to produce our class large scale canvas. The canvas will be on display in the school hall once completed.
14.11.19 – Visit from Chester Zoo
A Chester Zoo ranger came to visit Year 3 this morning for an hour as part of the lead up to our visit to the Zoo.
The children were introduced to a game which enabled them to explore what would happen if certain aspects were taken away from an animals habitat.
The children worked hard in their small groups and noticed what would happen when certain items were taken away.
13.11.19 – Kingdom of God Canvas
We have made a great start to our class canvas – the “Kingdom of God”. The children will all have an opportunity to add their own ideas and pieces of art work. On completion, the canvas will be displayed in the main school hall alongside all of the other canvases.
07.11.19 – Visit from Chester Zoo – Native or non-native?
This morning, our Chester Zoo Ranger played a game with us. One side of the room was labelled “native” and the other side of the room “non-native”. We explored the definitions of both “native” and “non-native”. The Ranger then gave the children an animal species and they had to decide whether it was “native” to the UK or “non-native” to the UK.
We had lots of fun discussing each animal and trying to guess their names. We are looking forward to visiting the Zoo in the next few weeks.
06.11.19 – Drama for “The Wolves In The Walls”
This morning the children worked in small groups to produce a range of freeze-frames and short drama productions relating to our current text “The Wolves In The Walls”.
The children had a small selection of props to use including a range of instruments and also a handful of “wolves eyes”.
23.10.19 – Gold Award Time Tables
During our time in Year 3, we will be working towards the Mathemagician Awards. This consists of a bronze, silver and gold star when learning each times tables. Miss Pointon has stuck a letter inside each of the children’s diaries to explain what each colour of star means.
We recommend asking your child which times tables they are working on and the colour they are aiming for, as this varies for each child.
22.10.19 – Light & Shadows Experiment
18.10.19 – Gold Award Time Tables
15.10.19 – Recorders with Mrs Compston
09.10.19 – Non-Chronological Reports
This morning, the children explored different types of non-chronological reports. We were able to link lots of the non-chronological reports to animals as part of our upcoming trip to Chester Zoo.
The children were able to share lots of fascinating facts with the rest of the class alongside identifying the main features of the text type.
07.10.19 – Light & Shadows Dominoes
Year 3 have been working in the dark during their Science lessons as part of our current topic, “Light and Shadows.” This afternoon, the children were split into small groups and had to work with only the light of a torch to complete a game of Light & Shadows Dominoes.
04.10.19 – FOX Art
During this afternoon’s Golden Time, the children had the opportunity to create their own FOX pieces of art. Miss Pointon worked with the children to explore how to blend cray pas effectively. We used the iPads to research different scenes from the book.
04.10.19 – Multiplication Squares Game
What busy bee’s we’ve been! This morning, the children were put into pairs to complete a game of “Multiplication Squares.”
Each pair had one sheet of numbers, one dice and two coloured pens.
We had so much fun – even the teachers got involved! We were all extremely competitive!
04.10.19 – Light & Shadows Quiz
As part of our Science topic, we are completing lots of our Science lessons in the dark. The only source of light the children will have during these lessons is a torch one between two or between a small group.
02.10.19 – Light & Shadows
What a beautiful afternoon! This afternoon, we took the opportunity after our PE lesson to explore our Science topic. The children looked at how they can change the shape and size of their shadows. Our ultimate challenge of the afternoon was to “loose our shadow”. Of course, the children we extremely excited and were up to the challenge. We all eventually were able to “loose our shadows”.
Thank you for your continued support.
Miss Parr & Miss Pointon