26 Oct 2018

Yr3 Curriculum Update – 26/10/18

Working together to achieve success for every child

Welcome to our 4th edition!

In each update, the Year 3 Team will bring you snapshots of what your children in Year Three have been up to every 2 weeks. You will see a variety of learning experiences exemplifying learning which is fun, exciting, challenging, innovative and/or creative…and whatever they are, we know that your child has worked really hard to get there and should you have the chance, you may want to share this newsletter with your child to find out the juicy details and discuss the great learning they have been doing!

 

Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!

How we express ourselves :

 ‘Artists can use scientific principles to create’.

We spent the first few weeks of the unit being curious about how light behaves as we explored the main principles of light. As students marvelled at the beauty of rainbows in prisms and the unusual properties of mirrors and other materials around us, we began to explore the artistic, creative aspect of this unit.

The Taster Day was a huge success and we continued with  it through dance. Mrs Parker shared with the children some key elements of dance such as using levels and different ways to move. After watching a video of dancers using their bodies to imitate the reflection in a mirror, students had opportunities to create short dance phases to show one or more of the principles of light they had learned about.

Each student then chose the one area he or she was most keen to explore further. This was an opportunity for them to unleash their creativity using their chosen medium while demonstrating an understanding of the principles of light. The children immersed themselves in the creative process completely. We are excited about presenting our Year 3 Gallery, exhibiting the final creations.

Literacy

In literacy, the students have been exploring explanation writing. The main purpose was to be able to explain clearly the connection between the scientific principles of light and their final artwork.

In order to do this, we have looked at the main features of explanation texts. We have discussed how writers organise ideas when they write. We have thought about using the correct vocabulary to support our explanations.

The children have worked hard to draft, edit and publish their written pieces to compliment their artwork.

 

Maths

 

In maths, we have continued to explore place value through games and challenging tasks. Students are beginning to use larger numbers. They are also beginning to partition numbers by breaking them apart according to the value of each digit.

An important part of our learning has been understanding and manipulating the Base 10 materials.

Students are thinking like mathematicians as they record their ideas, try strategies such as the 100s square and number lines to visualise numbers. They are also continuing to receive important positive maths messages such as the ones below.

 

At home you might like to…

  • have a conversation about the different foods you eat, what ingredients they contain and where they might have come from, as we begin our new unit
  • Notice numbers in your environment. You may want to discuss which ones are smaller and which ones are larger

 

Chinese

In the Chinese classrooms, we continue to focus on the concept of wellbeing and providing different learning opportunities for children to explore their own interests and promote agentic learning.

Here is a glimpse of some of our classrooms:

 

Reminders

A few key reminders for students and parents:

  • Please remind your child to pack his/her hat for school each day, as children who do not bring their hat will not be allowed to take part in snack or lunch play.
  • There are extreme peanut allergies in Year 3, so please make sure your child does not bring nuts to school or eat peanut butter or nutella for breakfast before he/she heads to school.
  • Please remind your child to pack his/her own cutlery as we do not provide extra sets of cutlery at school.

 

Key dates for the Diary

Thursday 1st November                     3 Way Conference (evening)

29 October to 1 November               Photo Days