From Fallen Pegs to Emergency Evacuations – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up

This week, our big topic highlight was the highly-anticipated den building! After lots of fantastic contributions to our construction resources, Thursday arrived and we couldn’t wait to get started.

First, in class, we discussed what a den actually was, and all the equipment we would need to be successful. Our first task was to group ourselves into teams of four, which was easier said than done!

We divided our building resources between our groups and found an area in the hall. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed something!

One of the hardest parts was tying our resources together and making everything secure, but we worked together in our teams to make our dens as strong and sturdy as possible. There were a few times where an emergency evacuation was needed to rescue children from inside falling bed sheets, but we lived to tell the tale…

Some of us had the brilliant idea of having strength in numbers and decided to band together to form larger teams! What a great idea! (This came in very useful when it came to packing away some very confusing clothes horses.)

Once our dens were assembled, we walked carefully around the hall to give feedback to each group and to note ideas for how to improve our own!

Next, to enjoy the fruits of our labour, we all relaxed inside our dens with our books, using torches, and listened to music. We think we have the explorer life cracked!

We even invited other classes to come and see our hard work, and we escaped with only one collapsed den!

Finally, it was time to clear up. This was probably the most tiring part! We had to work together really well to make sure everything went back to how we found it.

We had a brilliant, but exhausting, day and we couldn’t have done it without your generosity, so thank you very much for sending in your supplies once again. We do, however, send our apologies to the fallen pegs that didn’t make it home.

Please look through our pictures from the day below!

-Mrs Burgess and Miss Wilson

 

From Ghosts and Ghouls to Colouring and Councillors – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up

This week’s Living and Learning theme was: “I know I live in a democracy.” Children were tasked with writing a speech to run for School Councillor or a Talk Time about the importance of voting. I was bowled over by the quality of these speeches and the passion and confidence each candidate showed.

There were some fantastically creative campaigns!

A very exciting part of our week was our long-awaited trip to the Forbidden Corner!

Although the excitement seemed to get a bit much for some!

When we arrived after our long journey, the first thing we did was eat our lunch. We were starving and it was only 11:45!

We were even joined by two visitors (but we didn’t let them steal our quackers).

As we begun our journey into the unknown, we felt a little nervous, but we trooped forwards, just like real explorers would!

We even managed to spot Mr Catherall hiding in the trees!

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The Forbidden Corner was a very strange place with bizarre twists and turns. We didn’t know what was coming next!

We were worried we might never get out!

Spot the real statues.

Our explorations proved truly a-maze-ing!

Here is photographic evidence of Year 3 breaking the rules!

We were the kings and queens of the castle! What a lovely view.

Our trip gave us chance to show our teamwork and map reading expertise.

It felt lovely to be outside with nature.

There were some impressive sculptures. This giant woodcutter inspired us to complete some brilliant artwork as you will see below.

His axe was pretty heavy!

This week, we tested our rafts to see if they would float with the weight of five marbles. First, we predicted what would happen and jotted down our method. Some of our rafts successfully floated!

While some of our rafts had a slightly soggy end…

But the experiment was a great learning experience as we discovered which materials floated and which unfortunately sank!

We also tried our hands (or feet) at football, this week.

Of course, we had to practise our celebrations!

To round off our diverse and creative week, we used a photo taken at the Forbidden Corner as an art stimulus. We drew the same picture four times but changed the media used each time: graphite pencil, wax crayon, oil pastel or pencil crayon.

After each drawing, our partner gave us a star and a step for us to improve in the next picture.

This allowed us to experiment with different materials and find out which we liked best; exploring happens in art, too!

What an all-round fantastic half term for Year 3. We’ve made massive amounts of progress in only seven weeks and I look forward to seeing what else is in store.

I hope everyone has a lovely week off. Make sure you keep on exploring!

13 October 2017

This week’s spellings are all words with the prefix ‘dis-’ which has a negative or reversing force. We have used our spelling investigation to inform our list for this week. It may be useful to look at the root word and understand how the prefix changes its meaning.

disobey disagree distrust disappear disqualify
disconnect dislike discomfort disown dishonest

There will be a spelling test on Thursday 19 October.

From Code Breakers to Saving Mr Owen – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up

Miss Wilson is reporting for Moortown Magazine.

Moortown Primary School, set in picturesque North Leeds, was where ground-breaking learning took place this week. Experts claim that Moortown Primary is home to some of the most hardworking pupils in the country.

This week, Year 3 has enjoyed: brilliant raft building, a confusing code breaker, phenomenal physical education, resilience in reading sessions, and fantastic fact files.

After being presented with the challenge of designing and creating a raft in order to save Mr Owen, who was stranded on a desert island, the students worked in pairs to meet the design criteria.

Will, a member of the class, said: “It was really exciting and fun.”

Jessica commented: “I liked using our own designs.”

On Monday, the students’ creations will be put to the test to see if they actually float and can save the poor Y4 teacher.

Problem-solving has also appeared in maths this week, where children were faced with a code-breaker situation. Number sentences were given to the young mathematicians, who had to use column addition to work out the answer. Their resulting number translated to a letter which formed a word. This is what the code breakers had to say:

Rayn, who enjoyed the task despite its difficulty, stated: “I found it really tricky to match the number answers to the letter codes.”

“It was hard because it was a race against other teams,” fellow classmate, Emma, said.

    

The class will apply this knowledge to their subtraction studies next week.

Year 3 were visited once again by local gymnastic experts. The focus, mirroring previous weeks, was balance and coordination alongside lots of elements of fun.

“I liked it because it was fun sliding on the benches using our bodies!” a visibly excited Yusayrah purported.

Leo claimed: “It was tricky bending down on one leg with the other one sticking out in front of you.”

Check out these epic slow-mo videos captured at the scene:

Stretching tall and jumping high
Balancing on the benches
Bunny hops

During reading this week, Year 3 has sampled a variety of tasks. One of these challenges was ‘Draw and Label’ where students listened to a description from their class novel and had to sketch out how they imagined the scene to look.

Hifza, who is soon to turn 8, said: “I thought this activity was interesting because I’ve never done it before.”

Meanwhile, Musa alleged that it was fun because he enjoyed labelling the drawing.

Continuing their geography theme in topic lessons (‘LO: to know about global regions’), Year 3 worked collaboratively to build a country fact file in pairs.

Regarding the task, Jemima remarked: “It was hard because some of the words were really tricky.”

“I enjoyed searching on the iPads,” said Mr Laverick, aged 7.

If you haven’t already guessed, this week and next week’s English theme is newspapers! We have discussed the features of news reports and learnt about the punctuation required for quotes and speech. (Ask your child what a colon means! “Hang on…”) This has been tricky for many, as it may be completely new, so when we did succeed with our learning, it tasted even more sweet!

It was great to meet lots of parents at the homework review on Thursday and I hope you enjoyed looking at and hearing about our amazingly creative homework! Here are some highlights:

I look forward to seeing you on Monday or Tuesday for parents’ evening.

From Decapolagests to Hellos and Goodbyes – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up

This week’s maths has been all about giving context to our calculations by telling a story and asking a question. For example: “Talha had 452 cookies. Kashif gave him 30 more. How many cookies did Talha have altogether?” We used our place value grids to tackle these calculations and these will help us with our column addition next week.

Collaborative learning has been a recurrent theme across the week, where we’ve given feedback on each other’s learning in English and worked together to find facts in a newspaper article…

… and used our sketching skills to draw a new species of animal we found on our exploration (Emily discovered a Decapolagest!). We did this by drawing its head, eyes and mouth and passing it to the next person. Next, we drew the body, arms and wings and passed it on. Then, we drew the creature’s legs and tail. Finally, we drew the animal’s feet!

It certainly produced some humorous results!

Our wacky pictures helped us plan a descriptive piece of writing.

  

Continuing the team work theme, in groups we have also researched our continents in our topic lessons, and presented our findings to the class!

   

Using our drama skills, we recreated a scene from a short film. When Miss Wilson shouted, ‘Freeze frame!’ we had to hold our positions whilst the audience discussed how each character would be feeling and why, using what we knew from the clip.

Here are some action shots from our PE lesson, where we practised our ginormous jumping and our huge handstands.

 

 

We even got the benches out for some balance and stretching, for the first time! It was very exciting!

Sadly, this week, we had to say goodbye to two of our classmates: Maya and Setayesh. You will both be deeply missed and we wish you lots of luck for your new schools, but we’re sure you will both be fantastic!

A humongous welcome to our new friend Talha, who joined the Year 3 team on Thursday! Already, you are a valued member of the class and I look forward to getting to know you better.

06 October 2017

This week’s spelling activity is an investigation. You need to find words that begin with the prefix ‘dis’. For example: disappear.

The prefix ‘dis’ is a negative or reversing force! How many words can you find? Can you spot any patterns? Can you show your words in a creative way?

We’ll discuss our investigation on Friday 13 October.

06 October 2017

This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Thursday 12 October:

I can show why I would make a good explorer.

Parents are invited to come and see our homework review process! Children have been asked to demonstrate why they would make a good explorer. We have spoken about our flying ship’s crew, made up of people such as a zoologist, navigator or anthropologist. Some ideas we had in class were:

  • Making and describing animals you might discover – perhaps a new species
  • Studying and describing the people in your family
  • Artwork involving maps
  • Making items you would pack into your travel bag, e.g. a compass
  • Making models of your exploration vehicle of choice
  • Play/presentation about your geographical knowledge

When completing this Creative homework, as per the name, be as creative as you like! Make sure you chat about ideas with your child: could the homework be in the form of a poster, a letter, a comic strip, some writing, a PowerPoint…? Could it use photos, drawings, fold out ‘extras’ on the page…?

We are practising the four times tables this week. This is a new times table for most, so this week, children should focus on becoming familiar with this. It may take some time to learn a new times table, but as long as the practice is little and often, they’re sure to get it in no time. Make sure to reiterate division facts, too.

For example, if we know 5 x 4 = 20, we should know 4 x 5 = 20, 20 ÷ 5 = 4 and 20 ÷ 4 = 5.

From Addition Missions to Egg Rolls – Year 3’s Weekly Round-Up

We took on the role of spies this week in Maths, with secret addition missions to accomplish. We also practised how to mark our own answers and we’re shaping up to be independent and responsible learners.

For a more concrete representation, we have used place value grids to help us visualise how to add a 3 digit number to a 1 digit number.

Our maths talk this week has revolved around explaining what happens when we solve these calculations.

In English, this week, we have analysed what makes a good description. This helped us write our own as a group…

… and then move to more independent writing by the end of the week. I have been blown away by the quality of the children’s writing, especially their use of expanded noun phrases and prepositions.

As we continue our journey with our Explorers topic, we identified and described human and physical features of geography. Our flying ship was cut off from its communications with HQ this week, so we had to describe our location using photos taken out of the portholes.

   

PE was a highlight of the week again, as we continued to work on our flexibility and coordination in gymnastics. Some of the stretches were a little tricky but I’m sure our core strength will be improving as the weeks go by! Why not try a back support or an egg roll whilst you’re watching TV or even doing your spellings!

We’ve discussed what it means to be a part of a team, alongside our Living and Learning theme this week: “I am resourceful. I am resilient.” We talked about our goals and how we will need these two Rs for Learning to achieve them.

Well done to certificate winners Leo, who is a great example of someone who doesn’t give up when they face a challenge, and Nryan, whose spelling investigation impressed me greatly.

Another fantastic week in Year 3 – well done to everyone!

 

 

29 September 2017

This week’s spellings are all words where you need to drop the ‘e’ for an ‘ing’. If you’re not sure what any of them mean, find out. We may ask children to spell similar words that follow the same pattern. There are some easy words and some tricky words this week so make sure you continue to practise little and often.

decide/ing exercise/ing joke/ing write/ing use/ing
make/ing dine/ing hope/ing love/ing describe/ing

Learn this pattern in preparation for the test on Friday 06 October.

29 September 2017

This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and is due in on Thursday 05 October:

I can revise place value.

Children been given a sheet of questions which revises learning which we’ve done in class over the last few weeks. If there are any questions, children should come and see us for help before the date it’s due in – we like helping!

We’re improving our 3 and 5 times tables this week.