Yr3 Weekly Update – 21/10/16

Advancements in technology enable people to discover more about Earth’s place in the universe.

 

Unit of Inquiry

It may have been a short, three day week but the children’s excitement and enthusiasm about space exploration continued to build! As inquirers we are learning to ask questions about space and to use several ways to answer them. We’ve watched incredible videos about the interior of a spaceship as described by an astronaut. It has helped to dispel misconceptions such as children believing that astronauts only wore space suits on board. The children were amused by the revelation that when brushing teeth, the astronauts swallowed toothpaste to avoid the trickiness of spitting in a weightless environment! Our mother tongue session introduced new vocabulary and reinforced or clarified familiar words. Our hope is that over the coming weeks the children will use space-related terminology in their conversations and when accessing a range of media.

The student initiated action has continued as the children have brought in books, made posters and wrote their own books about space. Next week we will focus on the timeline of important space advancements as we attempt to learn more about man’s curiosity about space and the discoveries made.

 

Maths

This week the learning in mathematics has been around multiplicative thinking and an introduction to the idea of the same number of items in groups. This was introduced through a challenging task where children were asked to think of sentences which had the same number of letters in each word. The children were definitely out of their comfort zones and they enjoyed the challenge. Some were thinking of sentences with 5 words and 5 letters in each. They realized that they could either use their knowledge of skip counting in 5s to find the total or to count each letter and end up with the same answer.

 

Literacy

Tuesday morning saw the children bursting with news of their mid-term holiday. Writing recounts is a way for them to share how they spent the week. Skills that they are learning include planning their writing, using good words and writing in detail.

By Year 3, the children are aware of nonfiction texts and their main features. Starting from this week, we have begun to go more in depth about how these features assist in locating information more easily and how we can take notes.

 

Home learning to share with the children

Can you go on an array hunt in your house? An array is an arrangement of objects, pictures, or numbers in columns and rows. Draw them or send in pictures to share with your class. Why do you think they are arranged this way? The examples below might give you some ideas!