Yr3 Weekly Update – 28/10/16

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

 

Unit of Inquiry

This week’s focus has been on the incredible timeline of space discoveries. This is a complicated part of the children’s learning as they are beginning to learn about different countries and the space race. They are getting a sense of why human beings are investing large sums of money to carry out expensive and risky missions. The children have been viewing resources on Blendspace which has helped them to focus on the key words of ‘technology’ and ‘discovery’. Over the next few weeks they will narrow down their search and concentrate on technologies of interest.

We are very thankful to Henry Chan (Genie’s father) who came in as our guest speaker this week. He distributed 3D lens to each child and they viewed images through them. He shared other ways in which space technology has benefitted humans including heat resistant materials to help fire fighters and the uses of solar energy.

Thank you to all the parents who have reminded children to bring in old boxes and items that would be suitable for junk modelling. It promises to be a fun week for building models that represent different space technologies.

 

Maths

We have continued to expose children to arrays and multiplicative thinking. They have begun to spot arrays all around them and are beginning to express them as equations using either a multiplication or addition symbol. This is reinforcing the idea of multiplication being repeated addition.

 

Literacy

As we continue with non fiction text, the children have been immersed in a wealth of literature which is helping to enrich their knowledge and terminology of space. They are getting more aware of how to navigate large pieces of information. Images, captions, headings, titles and ‘skimming’ through the text all assist this process.

 

Home learning to share with the children

Can you continue to locate arrays in your environment? Look around at buildings, windows and pavements! Can you write the equation to go with it? Bring in pictures or drawings to share with your friends!