Year 3 Class News

Triathlon

This week, thirty of our Key Stage 2 pupils took part in the Brownlee Foundation Mini Triathlon event at John Smeaton. This is always a great event and it introduces the children to the elements of triathlon – a swim, a bike ride and a run.

Well done to all the children for taking part.

If your child is interested in triathlons, please see more details in our physical activity guide or have a look at this bike and run offer at the Brownlee Centre.

Living and Learning – I know that being physically active is healthy mentally and physically.

Over the last couple of weeks, Year 3 have been discussing how to stay healthy mentally and physically.

Physical activity helps to:

• strength our muscles
• develops our coordination
• improves our fitness
• maintain a healthy weight

We discussed our day to day lives to work out if we are being active enough. These are some opportunities we have to be active; walking to and from school, Wake Up Shake Up, PE, swimming, clubs, playtimes.

Help at home: Have a look at Uma’s day. How could she be more active? Have a look at your own day.  How can you be more active?

Physical activity helps to keep our minds healthy too. Being active releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel good – boosting your self-esteem and helping you concentrate as well as sleep well and feel better.

Science – sunflower update!

Hello,

Does the amount of seeds in one plant pot affect the growth of the plants?

Lots of us predicted that the plant pot with 1 seed would grow quicker and taller than the others because it has more space to grow in the soil and doesn’t have to share its nutrients and water with other seeds!

However…

At the moment, our plant pots with 8 seeds is growing quicker and taller than any of the others with the tallest being 8cm.

Help at home: Can you think of a reason why this could be happening? 

Writing – The Flood

In Writing, Year 3 are planning a narrative. A narrative is a story that entertains and interests the reader. Our narrative is going to be based on this picture book called ‘The Flood’.

Features to include:

• description
• action
• dialogue (direct speech)
• different sentence lengths

In today’s lesson, we spent time generating vocabulary to use in our narrative. We tried to describe nouns like the storm, rain and clouds.  We used the iPads to find synonyms of words we could think of. Here’s what we found!

Help at home: Can you think of any more adjectives to describe these nouns?

Science – Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?

Does the amount of seeds affect the growth of a plant?

Last Friday, Year 3 set up a test to see whether the amount of seeds in one pot affects the growth of a plant and more specifically a sunflower!

What are we measuring?

We are measuring the height of the plants in centimetres every week.

What are we keeping the same?

We are keeping the size of the pots, the amount we water them and conditions (windowsill) the same.

What are we changing?

We are changing the amount seeds in each pot: 1, 2, 4 and 8 seeds per pot.

We went out in the sun to plant these and to plant our own individual sunflower seeds too!

The children will measure how these grow over the weeks and take them home.

Check back here every week to see updates!

Living and Learning – I know the importance of a balanced diet.

Year 3 have been discussing how we can make sensible choices that help our bodies stay healthy.

One way we can help our bodies stay healthy is having a balanced diet. The children have previously learnt about what a diet is and a balanced diet in Science earlier this year.

A diet: the foods a person or animal eats.

A balanced diet: eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions.

We discussed our own diets and whether they are balanced or not. Here are some questions we thought about…

Are you having your 5 a day?

Are you getting enough protein whether its from meat or other sources?

Are you allowed a treat here and there?

Here’s a guide to the amounts of food we should be having.

Help at home: Can you plan your next meal using these proportions to help you?

Writing a promotion – Venice and York

Year 3 have written a promotional piece about either York or Venice.

A promotion persuades and tries to sell a product or experience.

These were our R2s:

• present tense
• adding connectives
• alliteration
• rhetorical questions
• commands

The children researched what they wanted to talk about in their writing. For example, specific landmarks or places tourists could visit.

Here are just a few fantastic examples:

The vocabulary they’ve used it great and reading them definitely makes me want to visit York and Venice!

Living and Learning – health and prevention

Year 3 have been learning about how we can keep our bodies healthy. For example, we have learnt about what germs are and how to prevent spreading them.

We started off the lesson by talking about the different types of germs there are; bacteria, viruses and fungi. These can be all around us and some are helpful and some are harmful.

The children then discussed how quickly and easily germs can spread. Wetalked about the need to wash our hands to help prevent this spread. We could use soap or hand sanitiser and to make sure we’ve washed them thoroughly enough, you could sing happy birthday twice while you do it!

Help at home: Discuss other ways we can stop germs from spreading.

Summer term after-school clubs

Science – How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?

Enquiry question: How does the distance between the object and light source affect the shadow created?

Scientific enquiry type (how we are being scientists): I can set up a fair test.

Predictions: What do you think? Have a go at home!

I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source closer.

I predict the shadow will become ______ when we move the light source further away.

What will we need to answer our question?

• torches
• opaque object
• pencil
• ruler

What will we measure?

We will measure the width of the shadow.

What will we change?

The distance between the object and the light source.

What will we keep the same?

The distance between the object and wall.

Here’s our fair test. We drew around each shadow with a pencil and then measured the width with a ruler.

Our findings:

Conclusion: The larger the distance from the light source to the object, the smaller the shadow became