Year 3 Dragonflies

Welcome to Year 3

Dragonfly Class

In Year 3 Mrs Graham is in class Monday to Thursday morning and Miss Legg is in class Thursday afternoon and Friday.  The class is support by Mrs Brown, Miss Vij, Miss Lownes, Mrs Gerrard and Miss Vaux.

The children have been very busy this term learning about Might Metals in their science and topic learning.  This included looking at where some metals came from around the world and which metals are magnetic and which aren't.  As part of this learning they investigated forces, which included how magnets worked.  To consolidate this learning and using their Design and Technology skills Year 3 investigated, designed, and evaluated magnetic board games.  For their music learning they learnt to perform simple patterns using the sacred Indonesian music Gamelan.

The children also learnt about what formal discussions were and when they might use them, this included some very exciting discussions on whether the world should be made of chocolate, should breaktimes be longer, would brings pets into school every day be a good decision and should we look after the environment.  The children really enjoyed looking at the arguments for and against these topics and suggested some really valid points.

Year 3 have also been practicing their mental strategies for addition and subtraction and have learnt some fantastic skills to enable them to start thinking about how they approach three-digit calculations using their number facts and which one of their new strategies would be most effective.

This term we have been looking at how plants grow and what all living things need to thrive.  Year 3 have also been investigating their local environment through the lens of urban art and historical monuments.  They have investigated, used and drawn maps and learnt why maps are useful to help you find your way.   They have enjoyed  looking at famous graffiti artists and practising their own graffiti style art and designing their own fantasy towns.  In literacy Year 3 are really developing their suspense writing skills and are producing some gripping stories which we will upload to the class page soon.  The trip to West Bay helped the children to visualise what the setting would be like for the characters.

Just before half term, as part of the Spring 2 Book Week, Year 3 visited The Lyric Theatre and took part in a creative writing class hosted by The Bank of Dreams and Nightmares.   They enjoyed the visit and are looking forward to receiving the book they collectively wrote on the morning.

This term we completed our learning of the Stone Age by looking at the Mesolithic and Neolithic period.  The children looked at how the people progressed from  hunter gathers to more permanent settlements where they would farm their food.   Year 3 also looked at how our use of plastics can be reduced and that the children have the power to make these changes by writing a letter to the parents to enable them to reduce the plastic in their lunches.

This term Year 3 were busy investigating Palaeolithic people and how they survived in the beginning of our topic 'Through the Ages.'  The children looked at their nomadic life style, what they ate and where they lived.

The children also spent some time looking at the waste that occurs in our homes and businesses for our Harvest celebration and discovered that fizzy drinks are in the top three wasted products in the UK so they decided to experiment with their own flavoured water to see if it was possible to find a more environmental and money saving way to have a tasty drink.  They used apple, mint, orange and berries to flavour their water and mostly agreed that orange and mint were their favourite.

In PE Year 3 enjoyed developing their knowledge of map skills and had fun seeking routes and making them.