Welcome to Year 3S

St Martin de Porres

Teacher: Miss Sullivan

Autumn 2

Welcome back to school. I trust you all had an enjoyable half-term. We are pleased to welcome back Ms. B who will be working with Year 3 each Monday and Friday, providing interventions and support for children who need a little more help. We have lots of new learning so read on to find out more...

Please remember that children in the Rose Room also have PE on a Friday.

Religion

We will start by thinking about what promises are. What promises do we make to family and friends? We will then link our understanding to promises made to God through the Sacraments with a particular focus on Baptism. If you have any photographs of your child’s Baptism that you are happy to share, then please send them in with your child. We promise to look after them. We will then begin to learn about Advent as Christmas approaches.

English

Thank you to all of the parents and carers who listen to their child read at home regularly. It is so important that children have a chance to practise the skills learned in class. Research shows that children who read every day from primary school, outperform their peers by up to two grades in their GCSEs. That might see like a long way off, but by putting the work in now, you are helping your child to reach their full potential. Children earn Golden Time minutes by reading at home which can then be used for free time activities on a Friday: football, forest area hide 'n' seek, games, watching Operation Ouch or painting with watercolours. Children also receive a raffle ticket for each day their Reading Record is signed and are entered in the draw during Friday's celebration assembly to win a book of their choice.

During lessons, we will be focusing on writing descriptions using adjectives, expanded noun phrases and similes. We will also begin learning about adverbs to describe how an action is carried out as well as where or when. When reading Grandad's Secret Giant, we will describe the settings then when we read The Twits, we will describe some really revolting characters.

Maths

We will continue to add and subtract in Maths. Although we will learn how to use the column method, in Year 3, the emphasis is still very much on using mental methods. You can help your child at home by practising the number bonds to 10, 20 and 100; counting backwards from any number up to 100; counting forwards and backwards in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10; adding and subtracting 9 to any 2-digit number by + or - 10 first then adjusting; as well as doubling and halving numbers to 100. 

We will then move onto multiplication and division where we will recap the 2 and 3-times tables before learning the 4 and 8-times tables. Children all have logins for Times Table Rockstars or I can give paper homework if preferred.

P.E.

For P.E., children still need to come into school wearing their PE kit every Thursday. Both indoor and outdoor PE sessions will be taught on this day. This consists of plain black shorts or jogging bottoms (no logos), a plain white t-shirt and their school jumper or plain hooded top. Please make sure all PE kit is labelled with your child's name.

P.S.H.E.

We are continuing to learn the importance of developing healthy relationships, minds and bodies. In school we will be using a variety of ways to learn, including using journals, drama and giving presentations. At home we encourage children to write down or draw your thoughts and feelings to help recognise and regulate emotions. This half-term, we will focus on Anti-Bullying Week and World Children's Day alongside our curriculum learning.

Topic

After our walk around the local area, we will begin to think how Withington has changed in the past. In History, we will compare our local area as it is now and how it was in the past, especially finding out how the Industrial Revolution caused Withington to become an urban area and the impact this had. We will discuss how transport compares from the past to now. Art and DT will link to our learning about Withington as we create prints and collages based on designs found on older local buildings before creating our lanterns linked to a local architect.

Autumn 1

After a rainy end to August, the sun appeared in September ready for the start of the next academic year. I trust that you have all enjoyed the holidays and that the children are ready to begin the next chapter of their learning journey in Key Stage 2.

Together with Miss Mulryan (SENDCo), Mrs Douglas (Spanish teacher), Mr Siddall (Sports Coach), Ms. Dirkin (Music teacher), Miss Yu (class support) and all of the other adults who are here to support your child, I am excited to start the academic year ahead to see how your children flourish and reach their full potential.

At the end of this page is the topic overview for Year 3 along with homework information and spelling sheets.

Autumn 1: Settlers and Our Local Area

English

For our Guided Reading sessions, we will read and variety of texts including stories, poems, play scripts and information books to focus on our VIPERS skills. These are areas which you can also work on when listening to your child read at home.

We will continue to apply our growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes, both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words that we discover. We will also be reading further exception words, noting the unusual correspondences between spelling and sound, and where these occur in the word. An important focus of our sessions will be discussing our understanding of the key 'Wh' questions and summarising what we have read.

We will begin the term by looking at fairytales involving giants to recap the learning from Year 2, including using different sentence types with full stops, question or exclamation marks and descriptions.

Ready for Black History Month, we will then use books to research about the life of Nelson Mandela. We will begin to learn about different conjunctions to extend sentences.

Maths

Maths begins with learning about Place Value so that children can read, write, count, estimate, compare and order numbers up to 1000. Please help your child by helping them to notice numbers in our environment, especially larger numbers and where there are patterns, for example, house numbers. Once we have a good understanding of number, we will begin to add and subtract using mental and written methods.

Children need to know by heart their number bonds to 10, 20 and 100 so that their working memorty can be used for new learning. They should also be able to count in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s. Throughout the year, we ask that children try to play on TTRockstars each week. Even 10 minutes 3 times a week can make a huge difference to your times table recall.

All children will be provided with logins for Timetable Rockstars and My Maths which have activities that your child can complete at home. If you have lost your logins, please see your class teacher.

Here are some useful websites:

https://ttrockstars.com/

https://www.mymaths.co.uk

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games

https://nrich.maths.org/

P.E.

This term children will need to come into school wearing your PE kit on every Thursday. Both indoor and outdoor PE sessions will be taught on this day. Please make sure all PE kit is labelled with your child's name.

P.S.H.E.

Underpinning all of our topics is the importance of developing healthy relationships, minds and bodies. In school we will be using a variety of ways to learn, including using journals, drama and giving presentations. At home we encourage you to write down or draw your thoughts and feelings to help recognise and regulate emotions.

Topic: Our Local Area Then and Now

We are going to be learning about Withington and its proximity to Manchester in Geography and History as part of our Local Area study.

In Geography, we will find out about the human and physical features of our local area. We will develop our map-reading and navigation skills by drawing our own maps of routes we have experienced. We will discuss how our local area has changed over time and how Withington has grown from a rural village to an urban village: an extension of the city of Manchester. We will explore our local area to map land use and think about how Withington might further change in the future.

Science and Design Technology

This term we will be finding out how animals, including humans, stay healthy. We will group animals according to what they eat. We will learn about different types of food and how they help our bodies grow and stay strong. We will learn about the Eat Well plate so we know how much of each food we should be eating every day. Linking to Design Technology, we will create a healthy lunch to enjoy as a picnic.

We will compare our skeletons to a range of skeletons from different animals and will learn about their functions. Finally, we will learn how our muscles work.

Religion

Year 3 is a very special time because many of our children will be making their First Holy Communion later in the school year. As a class we will plan and take part in Collective Worship based on the Gospel shared in Church.

Using Come and See as a starting point for our religious learning,  we will be talking about our family before moving on to how we are part of God's family. We will think about our relationship with God and the world He has created.

Homework  

Here are the Home Learning tasks that pupils should complete each week. If you need any support accessing these resources, please do not hesitate to contact me. All Year 3 children bring home their homework book on a Friday which should be returned by the following Friday. 

1) Reading - Pupils should be reading for 10-15 minutes every night. Pupils can change their books as and when they need to in the Class Library or the Key Stage 2 Library. Please listen to your child read aloud every day then sign or comment upon their reading in their Reading Record. Listening to your child read can support their fluency, develop their comprehension skills and help them to progress. Research shows that children who read every day outperform their peers in exams.

2. Reading Eggs – Children have a weekly comprehension assignment to complete on Reading Eggs.

Reading eggs makes learning to read engaging for children, with great online reading games and activities. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning.

3. Maths  - Children will have a weekly printed Maths activity to practise their fluency with numbers, for example, number bonds to 50, adding and subtracting 9 from any 2-digit number, x tables or doubling and halving. They will also have a weekly activity to complete on MyMaths that will help them to practise the skills we have been learning in school. Pupils can also access Mathseeds (using their Reading Eggs login) and TT Rockstars for  multiplication and division fluency practice.

4. Spellings – practice daily

Pupils have 10 spellings to learn per week, on which they will be tested every Friday. A copy of the spellings is available below. 

5. Learning logs –  In Autumn 2 (November, December), pupils will have a home learning project to complete. At the end of the half-term, they will bring in their project to share and celebrate with their peers.