Yr3 Weekly Update – 04/11/16
Advancements in technology enable people to discover more about Earth’s place in the universe.
Unit of Inquiry
It has been a week of more space exploration through reading, watching videos, doing space art and sharing ideas! The space art has seen an incredible amount of creativity. Everything from chalk, pastels, glitter, foil, cellophane and spray paint have brought alive their beautiful, vivid and unique paintings. The discussions around the art have involved conversations on space dust, galaxies, colours and planet sizes. They have learned how to shade planets using white and black to denote the direction of the sun’s light. The results have been stunning!
Next week children will be using their research skills to find out more about the specific technology they have chosen. Some classes have made a start on their junk models and others will follow soon. We will most likely need more junk for it! Please do send in anything you think would be helpful.
Maths
Arrays have continued to be our focus as we explore how to read and explain multiplication equations. Children have been searching for patterns in the times tables. They have been experimenting with making arrays from different numbers. This has helped them realize that all numbers cannot be made into arrays with more than one row or one column. So, the number 7 can be laid out in a row and the resulting equation is 7 X 1 = 7 or in a column and be written as 1 X 7 = 7. The big ideas emerging are that changing the place of the numbers still leads to the same total.
Some classes have created an Array City where the windows of skyscrapers have represented arrays. It’s been wonderful to watch them challenge themselves with larger numbers in order to make taller buildings!
Literacy
In keeping with our research skills, the children are learning how to write an explanation. This involves planning their writing into organized sections such as an introduction, paragraphs to explain why something is the way it is or why things happen and a conclusion. It will help them when they are recording their findings on their chosen technology over the next couple of weeks.
Home learning to share with the children
Help your child set up a home experiment to make a balloon rocket!
https://sciencebob.com/make-a-balloon-rocket/
If you’re feeling inspired by that one, here are some more!
https://sciencebob.com/category/experiments/
