Welcome to

Our half-termly overviews give a broad outline of the type of work we will be doing each half term in different subjects.

So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall.” — Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Year 3 children are at that lovely age when they  can read lots of words by themselves but still love to be read to.

They still enjoy all the traditional stories but are ready to read and discover the wide range of excellent contemporary authors such as Michael Morpurgo, Enid Blyton, Lauren Child, Ronald Dahl, Dorothy Edwards, Dick King-Smith and Jill Murphy to name but a few.

The more your child reads with you and shares the creativeness of quality writing, the more their imagination will be fired and their ability to explore and communicate in the world will grow.

Your child might also love science books and travel books, books about animals or space! Please help them find what interests them and help them share it with you.

In Year 3 we  focus on building the tools for independent writing and children are encouraged to take inspiration from texts they have read and enjoyed.

You can help your child by finding new ways to describe the same object or place, playing games such as finding as many different ways of saying “said, look or walk” by reselling the day’s events to another person in time order giving as much detail as possible.

Through their writing we will be showing your child how to write:

• Recounts such as diaries and letter.
• To retell stories such as fables and folk stories.
• To be able to write reports for science, history or geography.
• To study and research the lives of others in biographies.

Within these  genre we will be embedding correct use of grammar including correct use of verbs to say whether an action happened in the past, is happening now or will happen in the future. We will be extending your child’s vocabulary to include adjectives and adverbs.

Each week I will choose two “Writers of the Week”. These children will then have their work published on the Pobble website so their work can be shared.

Spelling test words are given out at the beginning of the week and the children are tested on Fridays.

Each week children will be provided with a spelling list giving example words for a particular letter string, spelling rule or word part. Please encourage your child to learn these words at home.

We will be working on the Year 3 word list which is being sent out to you at the beginning of the Autumn term. Please help your child with these words at home, practice them while driving/ walking, sticking them on the fridge and making a game of spelling and putting them into sentences.

These are statutory word lists provided by the government and children must learn to read and spell the words below.

In Year 3 we learn, practice, investigate and solve problems using number, shape, time, measure and statistics. We use a range of apparatus and practical equipment to build visual understanding of maths concept. We try to make as many lessons as possible practical and will use the wider school environment to investigate where possible. It would really help your child if you can look for ways to help them notice and use numbers in the rest of their lives. Practice times tables regularly, perhaps as they skip along the pavement! Choose a bedtime times table and say them together, check if they not only know that 2 X 5 = 10 but also 10 divided by 2 = 5 etc.

Please continue to read with your child nightly checking they understand the story, can they stop half way through and predict the end, can they say what type of characters are in the story and why they think that? Also as mentioned in the maths section its really important that our children become really confident with their times tables, a skill they need to practice whenever possible to gain speed and fluency. We will be asking you to do a project each half term with your child. The aim is to give you the chance to be involved with their learning and for them to have a way of sharing it with you.

Extra things you can do to get involved are:

• Talk about time during the day, calculate how much time has passed, work out how long a TVs show is going to be
• Discuss the cost of your shopping and look at the ingredients on the packets, discuss the healthy options with them
• Grow some plants or vegetables talking about each part of the plant and how it develops
• Go on a hunt for different types of rocks and identify their names
• Draw things from photographs or real life using as many different drawing materials as you can find