Year 3

Friday 16th September

We have had a very happy week in class and Roald Dahl Day yesterday was great fun.  To start our day, we watched a clip featuring Roald Dahl.  This showed the hut in his garden, which is where he wrote all his books. He had a routine for his writing set up – I wonder if your child could tell you about this?  A big thank you to Mrs Flint, who then kindly came in to read a chapter from ‘The Witches’ to the class.  Many children have now expressed an interest to read the rest of the story.  Following this, we then explored our focus text for the day ‘Matilda’ and the children enjoyed a drama workshop in the hall.  It was brilliant to see the children coming out of their shells and acting in different roles.  After break, we discussed the character Bruce Bogtrotter.  In the story, he is forced to eat a ginormous chocolate cake.  We had a brilliant baking session with Year 6, making our own chocolate ‘mug’ cakes, which the children enjoyed after lunch. It was lovely for Year 3 to pair up with Year 6, helping one another and afterwards, they used a compass to draw a circle and make a Matilda coaster for their cup.
 

In other news this week, the children have been working on different noun types in GPS.  When reading their first narrative, I noticed that the children do not always use capital letters for proper nouns.  I hope that our work this week will have helped them.  Perhaps you could ask them to give you an example of a proper noun.  I have attached some work below which is optional homework. Should they wish to complete this over the weekend, I would be very happy to mark this next week.  All children have now been set their own personal target for writing.  I hope that they will be able to meet this target 3 times over the next few weeks, so that I can set them a new target to keep improving their writing.

In maths, we have continued with place value.  Children have worked hard to understand the value of each digit and can recognise this is both pictorial and concrete way. We have started working in the Year 3 Maths No Problem books.  Today, I introduced the class to a times table grid for the 2s, 5s and 10s.  I have attached one below for your own use at home.  There is a straight option and a mixed option.

In History this week, we have started to explore the people, food and settlements of the Stone Age, which has been fascinating.  The class were a little disturbed by the model images some of the humans that lived during this era!

I hope that you all have a very enjoyable weekend.

Mrs Glover

Friday 9th September, 2022

A very warm welcome to Class 3.  It has been such a pleasure to see all the children (and their well equipped pencil cases-huge thanks!) this week and everyone has settled back into the routine of school life with ease.  For those of you who I don’t already know, I am very much looking forward to meeting you all over the next few weeks. We have a curriculum meeting for Year 3 in the diary for Friday 23^rd September.  During this meeting, I will talk through the Year 3 curriculum and expectations for the year. I appreciate that this is a few weeks away so in the meantime, please email me via the office should you have any questions at all.  

The children returned to school on Tuesday and went straight into PE with Mrs Golds.  We then spent the rest of the day getting to know one another and the children explored the classroom.  I read a couple of my favourite stories to the children.  One of these, ‘Only One You’ is all about being unique and the importance of making the right decisions. We then created our own fish to add to our class fish tank!
 

In maths, we have started investigating place value and exploring 3 digit numbers. We have compared the value of 100 to 10 and 1. We would all definitely prefer 100 smarties to 1! The children have been using the denes to build 3 digit numbers.  We have also practised our times tables.  In Year 3 we recap on 2s, 5s and 10s before moving onto 3s, 4s and 8s. By the end of the year, it is expected that all children will have these times tables on the tips of their tongues!  Any support you can offer at home with learning times tables would be hugely appreciated.

In literacy, we spent some time story mapping and planning an adventure story. Today, the children have used their plans to write their story, with a fish as the main character. I am really looking forward to reading these over the weekend. To encourage good spelling and a breadth of vocabulary, we will be spending time practising spellings in class every day.  These will be ‘tested’ through a dictation every Tuesday, starting from 20^th September.  I have put together a spelling plan for the term, which you will see below.  There will always be a spelling rule focus plus a couple of high frequency / common exception words. Please do speak to me should you have any questions about this. I hope that all children have now been issued with a reading book.  We encourage children to read as much as they can at home and would be grateful if you can sign their reading diary as you have done in previous years.

Creating a human time line in class seemed the best way to introduce our new topic ‘Through the Ages’.  The children now have a better understanding of BC/AD and we have travelled right back to the Stone Age, understanding how this era was split into three stages as the Neolithic, Mesolithic and Paleolithic.  Children were astounded to discover that the stone age lasted over a million years!

I expect the children will be a little tired after the first week so I hope you all have a super weekend.  No homework other than rest and enjoy.

Mrs G

Friday 15th July

The end of a phenomenal week in Class 3.  The children should all feel very proud of their achievement this week but I am sure they are all utterly exhausted.

We had a fabulous trip to Temper Temper yesterday and I hope all the children enjoyed themselves.  They were all beautifully behaved and had so much making chocolate as well as learning so many incredible facts about how chocolate is made. We spent the afternoon prepping smoothies and cookies for our Fairtrade stall today.  The children did a brilliant job, working in teams and perfecting their DT skills.  The stalls today were a real success  - we have some real entrepreneurs in Class 3! 

In maths, we have been learning all about perimeter and the children worked hard to investigate the perimeter of a variety of shapes.  They have done a really good job with this and have learnt to tick the sides off as they count along.

In literacy, the children have been writing newspaper articles and recipes galore.

I hope you all have a happy, hot and healthy weekend!

Mrs G

Friday 8th July, 2022

It was splendid to see so many of you in school for our Open Evening.  Thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed the evening as much as I did.  The children were very proud to show you their work and for those of you who didn't get to see it all - do not worry, it will all be coming home with them at the end of the year!

We have had a busy week in class.  In maths, we have continued to work on angles and shapes.  2D and 3D shape knowledge is a gap for the whole class so perhaps this is something you could reinforce at home before the children move into Year 4.  We have also been considering different lines including parallel and perpendicular lines.

We have had so much fun putting together our class recipe book.  The children have worked really hard on this and I hope you will enjoy looking through the recipes when they bring their copy home.  Thank you for your support with the homework for this activity.

The class are now busy preparing for the production.  I am so proud of the dance they have created and look forward to showing you all next week.  

Next week, we have a busy week planned in class.  We are also going to Temper Temper chocolate factory on Thursday morning. Please could everyone be on time on Thursday morning as we plan to leave school shortly after registration. Please note, there will be no forest school on Thursday afternoon.  Instead, we plan to bake in class and prepare for our Fairtrade smoothie and cookie stall which will take place in school next Friday.

Wishing you all a very happy weekend in the sunshine.

Mrs G

Year 3

Silent Letter

island

answer

write

wrapper

knife

Challenge Words

knock

thumb

Friday 1st July

Another week has flown by!  Firstly, a huge well done to every member of Class 3 for their outstanding effort during Sports Day.  They should all feel very proud of their achievements and it really was super to watch them all take part.   

Thank you to all the children who have already given in their recipe as mentioned on the class page last week.  I would love the rest of the recipes in next week so that I can start to compile our class recipe book.  Another thank you for sending in costumes for the production - I am really grateful for all your support.

In maths this week we have finished off fractions and moved on to our new topic 'angles'. All children have been working hard in the unit and have made good progress at recognising angles in a shape and whether an angle is 90 degrees or not.  

In topic work, we have been planning our Bake Off recipe of scones which the children baked today.  We had so much fun baking and the children should feel very proud of their baked goodies. Mr Miles ran a computing lesson and the children designed an excellent Powerpoint presentation about their 'Bake Off.' 

We are very much looking forward to our visit to Temper Temper chocolate factory on 14th July - I hope this will be the perfect ending to a lovely year together. 

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Glover

Year 3 Spellings 

Words ending in the /chuh/ sound spelt with 'ture'

lecture

literature

mature

miniature

mixture

Challenge Words

puncture

sculpture

Friday 24th June

Thank you to all of you who were able to join us at the Maypole festivities on Thursday.  Class 3 really enjoyed learning their song 'Food Glorious Food' and I was really proud of everyone for their enthusiastic delivery.  We now have a few Oliver Twist enthusiasts in class which is what it is all about! 

We have had a fun week in class.  In topic we have been learning about food from around the world, food miles and local, seasonal produce.  We have also been looking at how certain foods are produced such as cheese. In Literacy, the children have been inspired by our class book to write our own story about an adventure in a chocolate factory.  Our GPS studies this week have included revision of prepositions and adverbs.

Homework:  Please could children think about their favorite food they have at home.  This could be from any meal time or perhaps it is a baked goody. Please could they write our the ingredients and the main steps/recipe on how to make it.  This could be typed or handwritten and presented with pictures if they wish.  If it were me, it would have to be macaroni cheese! I am hoping to produce a class anthology of Class 3's favourite recipes.  I would be grateful if this could be handed in to me by Tuesday 5th July. 

In maths, we are nearing the end of our fraction unit.  The children have been simplifying fractions and time table knowledge/ division facts have really helped the children with this.  We have also been comparing fractions and started to order them depending on their size. (www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/simplify-fractions)

Now that Oliver is complete, we move to Mary Poppins.  A reminder about costumes.  All children will need:

A pair of white or cream leggings

A plain, striped or suitable t-shirt for a jockey

A pair of black, navy or dark wellie boots / leather boots

A cap (red school cap is fine)

Please could costumes be in school (in a named bag) by Thursday 30th June to allow time to make adaptions to them.  With many thanks in advance.

On Monday, in our topic lesson, we will be looking at healthy eating and nutrition.  If possible, please could you send your child in on Monday 27th June with a nutrition label from a piece of food packaging.  This can be from any food type.  Many thanks. 

Finally, I have organised one last exciting trip for Class 3.  I will send out a letter about this separately.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G 

Spellings: creature picture nature furniture capture  Challenge Words: culture moisture

Friday 17th June

Well done to all the children for working so hard during a very hot week, especially since it has been assessment week in school.

We managed to complete our assessments during the earlier part of the week.  This has meant that we have been busy preparing for our Maypole festivities for next Thursday.  We hope that many of you will be able to come and watch.

We have also been finding out about our role in the Summer Production 'Mary Poppins.'  Class 3 will be jockeys and will sing the one and only; 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!'  I would be very grateful if you could help with the costume preparations. All children will need:

A pair of white or cream leggings

A plain, striped or suitable t-shirt for a jockey

A pair of black, navy or dark wellie boots / leather boots

A cap (red school cap is fine)

Please could costumes be in school (in a named bag) by Thursday 30th June to allow time to make adaptions to them.  With many thanks in advance.

In other news... in Literacy, we are really enjoying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  The children enjoyed designing their own sweet and wrote a piece of persuasive text, explaining why their sweet design should feature in Willy Wonka's factory.  They wrote some very convincing pieces. We have also been exploring where our food comes from with a particular emphasis on Fairtrade and bananas.  The children were fascinated by the journey of a banana.

In maths, we are enjoying fraction work...exploring equivalent fractions and how to simplify a fraction.  The children have really begun to make connections with fractions and how their times tables can help  Therefore, for homework this weekend, please see attached times tables activities below. This is something that still needs a lot of practise for lots of children who don't have their 2s, 5s, 10s, 3s, 4s and 8s on the tip of their tongue.  It would be so helpful if you could work with your child on these times tables before they move into year 4. 

Have a super weekend

Mrs G 

Year 3 

Term 6 Week 2

Words ending with a /zhuh/ sound spelt with 'sure'

treasure

measure

pleasure

enclosure

leisure

Challenge Words:

pressure 

composure 

Friday 10th June

Welcome back to Term 6 - our final term together which I can’t quite believe.  I am pleased to hear that you had enjoyable half term break.

We have a full on ‘Chiddingstone’ week starting with Jubilee celebrations followed by rock band workshops and Pentecost prayer stations!  Lots of fun a round.

In Class, we have begun our new topic ‘Scrumdiddlyumptious’ and this week the focus has been on food groups.  Thank you for all the super homework on Fairtrade.  I have sent feedback home in the children’s bags today.  Their research projects will be so helpful, as we hope to set up a Fairtrade stall at the end of term. 

In Literacy we have started our class book for the term.  We are really enjoying ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and the children have written some excellent diary entries from the point of view of Charlie.

Fractions are the new topic in maths.  We have recapped on fractions from KS1 and understand the difference between the numerator and the denominator.  The children have been working on equal parts of a whole and have been comparing fractions to find equivalents.

Thank you to those of you who have restocked pencil cases.  It makes such a difference to the practicalities in the classroom.

Have a super weekend in the sunshine.

Mrs G

Spellings: natural, occasional, actual, accidental, medical Challenge Words: national capital 

20^th May 2022

I can’t believe it is the end of Term 5 and we are nearing the last term of Year 3.  This last term has whizzed by but we have really packed it in. 

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate every member of my class for delivering such an array of fantastic poems this week.  I am so proud of all the children as it is never easy to stand up in front of others, let alone recite a poem. We heard such a variety of poetry and I hope that this week will inspire the children to enjoy reading poems in the future.

In other news, over the last few days, we have had a great time in class writing a narrative ‘The journey of a coin’.  The children wrote about the many adventures a coin has had and were very excited to write about a coin that is older than Mrs Glover!  On that note, in our topic work, we have been investigating which metals are magnetic.  The class were astounded to find that some pennies are magnetic whilst others aren’t.  See if your child can explain why!  We then conducted an experiment to see which liquid would clean a tarnished penny best – vinegar was the clear winner, followed by tomato ketchup!

In maths, we have finished data collection and we are now ready to move on to fractions next term.  We will revisit learning from Key Stage 1 so if there if any of you would like to visit halves, quarters and thirds over half term, this would be greatly appreciated.

Apart from the poems, the other highlight this week was our class creation of a friend for the Iron Man.  A huge thank you for all your metallic contributions.  The children had great fun coming together as a team to create a spectacular model.  Please look out on Instagram for photos.

Next term our topic will be Scrumdiddlyumptious which I am really looking forward to teaching.  We will be looking at different food groups, food miles as well as a huge amount of cooking!  In preparation for this, over half term, I would like the children to research Fair Trade. Please could they produce a fact poster about Fair Trade ready for Friday 10^th June.  This can be done by hand or computer. Our class book next term will be the one and only, Charlie and the Chocolate factory. As always, if your child would like to have their own copy to follow in class, that would be great.

A big plea – please could you restock pencil cases over the holidays. Lots of children have run out of ink but a rubber and a ruler would be much appreciated too.  We are really working on presentation in our final term of Year 3 but it is tricky when so many don’t have a pen or pencil.

Wishing you all a very restful and enjoyable half term break.

Mrs Glover

Friday 13th May

A very big well done to all the children for getting through another big week in school.  Swimming has been great fun and all the children participated and progressed well in their lessons throughout the week. 

We have managed to squeeze lots of learning in too!  We have continued with data collection in maths and have been developing skills in reading and interpreting data from bar graphs.  Next week we will move onto fractions. In literacy, we have been writing reports and explanations.  In our topic work, we have been doing lots of work following our trip to The Science Museum. The children have had great fun exploring magnetism both in class and at forest school alike.  The children are now designing a travel game using magnets.  Next week, we will be using different metals to design a friend for the Iron Man.

Next week, the children will 'perform' their chosen poem from the homework set three weeks ago.  I have attached a list to show which children will be reciting their poem on each day.  I hope this will help prepare the children for what should be a fun and memorable experience.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover 

Year 3

Term 5 Week 4

Word Families

instruct

structure

construction

instruction

instructor

Challenge Words

universe

union

Friday 6th May

Another busy week in class ending in an exciting adventure to The Science Museum.  We had a fabulous trip today and all children set a fine example for Chiddingstone School.  I felt very proud of them all.  We learnt so much about forces and materials in a fun and hands on way. We will extend our learning from the museum when we are back in class next week. Lots of photos are already up on Chidd Chat via Instagram. The disco was the best treat to top off any exhaustion felt.  I hope you all have relaxing weekends planned!

In other news this week, in maths we have started looking at recording data.  So far we have been working on pictograms which the children really enjoy.  They just need to be very careful when reading a key.

In literacy, we have been working on using inverted commas and looking at all the rules…there are many! Contractions seem to be a little problem for the class so we have also been working hard to make sure we place the apostrophe in the correct place.  We really enjoyed our visit to the Chiddingstone Literary Festival on Tuesday. The class learnt all about the Ancient Egyptians from Mr Dilly - lots of wholesome fun all round. 

Another exciting week next week with swimming taking place every day for Class 3.  A reminder that all children need their costume, hat and goggles every day.

I know that many children have chosen their poem for the last week of term.  Some children may feel ready to recite theirs next week.  If so, we may start early.  Thank you for all your support with this mini project.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Glover

Spellings: enough, young, touch, double, trouble Challenge Words: country, courage

Friday 29th April

First of all, thank you to all of you for your time over the last couple of weeks and coming in / zooming in for our consultations.  It was a pleasure to talk to so many of you about your children.

This week, we have continued with telling the time in class.  We have had to revisit some of the Year 1 & 2 objectives as these were missed during the pandemic.  After two weeks, we are all doing very well at telling the time but this is something that needs to be revisited and practised often.  We have also been working with the calendar and days in the months and year. 

In literacy we have continued with our class book, The Iron Man.  The children have written some superb descriptive writing with a focus on adjectives, personification and similes.  They have also written a letter of apology from Hogarth to the Iron Man.  

In our topic work, we have been learning about forces which the children can now identify.

Next week, we will be attending the Chiddingstone Literary Festival on Tuesday.  A reminder that the children will need a packed lunch on Tuesday as we plan to picnic in the castle grounds.  On Friday, we have our exciting trip to The Science Museum to look forward to - a letter about this trip has been emailed this week.

This weekend, please practise the 4s and 8 times tables.  I know many children have already selected their poem.  They could write this out (or part of it) to practise their handwriting.

Have a super Bank Holiday weekend.

Mrs Glover

Spellings: - woman, wonder, month, brother, above. Challenge Words: Monday, govern. Please also keep going with the Common Exception words that were put on the website in the last weekly update. I have attached a cursive handwriting sheet should you wish to practise these further. 

Friday 22nd April

Welcome back to Term 5.  I hope you all had an enjoyable time over the Easter break.  It is always lovely to welcome the children back to school and hear about their adventures.  One week back, and Easter feels like a long time ago!  We have begun our new topic 'Mighty Metals' and our book The Iron Man.  We have been looking at different materials and discussing the difference between man made and natural.  We had good fun spotting different materials around school and the village.  The children will be working on designing a new piece of playground equipment which has stirred lots of excitement.

Literacy this week has been based on The Iron Man.  We have been writing character descriptions, studying personification and onomatopoeia.  In maths, we have started our new topic, telling the time.  This is generally quite a gap for many of the children following the pandemic.  Any work you can do on telling the time at home would be hugely beneficial.  Just asking your child the time is really useful. I would also recommend the following game which gets progressively harder from 1-5. 

www.mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/116/telling-the-time

For homework, I would like your child to choose a poem that they could potentially learn off by heart to recite to us all in class.  The poem can be as long or short as they like. Of course, they can have the words if they need them.  We will be performing the poems in the last week of term w/c 16th May so hopefully this will give them time to choose and learn a poem. This project is something that I hope the children will really enjoy, as well as help them gain confidence when speaking aloud.  

I hope you all have a super weekend.

Mrs Glover

Year 3

Term 5 Week 1

Words ending in –ary

library

February

ordinary

primary

boundary

Challenge Words

necessary

dictionary

Friday 1st April, 2022

Happy end of term to you all!  We have had yet another brilliant term which was celebrated yesterday in true Greek style. Thank you so much to you all for all your support with Greek Day.  The children all looked brilliant in their costumes and enjoyed the activities throughout the day. 

I hope that you all have a very restful and enjoyable Easter break and I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday 19th April.  Our new topic will be 'Mighty Metals' which is a science based topic hence the planned trip to The Science Museum on Friday 6th May.

Mrs Glover

Friday 25th March

The sun has brought much cheer to the classroom this week.  It was fantastic to have a full class for photo day on Thursday. The children did their best smiles for the camera!

Pandora’s Box has been the theme in class this week.  We read the myth in our comprehension lesson, which astonished the children! The children then imagined they were Pandora and wrote a letter of apology to the rest of the world for opening the box.  In their letters, they had to include a list of vocabulary including; temptation, deceitful, apologise and curious.  We then of course had to make Pandora’s Box – lots of glitter and fun.

In maths, we have moved onto solving word problems with money.  The bar model is really helping many children become familiar with whether they need to add or subtract.  We are now doing a weekly ‘number bonds’ test on a Thursday as this is a definite gap for many children which I know will really help with mental maths.  I have attached the test below in case any of you would like to practise this at home over the weekend.  Their number bonds to 10 will really help them with these questions as they can use these to work out what they need to add on to the ones number.  We have done a lot of work in class on this.  The times tables test still takes place weekly on a Friday.

On Monday, we were very lucky to have a visit from the Rev Bill MacDougall who came into class to talk about the Easter Story.  He also answered lots of questions that the children had written previous to his visit. We have continued to spend quite a lot of time in church this week, practising for our Easter dance on the last day of term.

GREEK DAY - OPTIONAL DRESS UP THURSDAY 31ST MARCH

I just cant resist and I'm sorry in advance but we are going to have a Greek day on Thursday with Olympics, headdress making, fire torch making and Greek food sampling. If your child would like to dress up, that would be wonderful.  Blue and white to represent Greece or full on toga (aka a sheet, belted at the waist!).  If they go for the Toga option, a change of clothes for forest school would be required!

I hope the sun continues to shine this weekend and that you all have a good couple of days (don’t forget bonnets and wellies for Friday!)

Mrs Glover

Spellings 

Term 4 Week 5

Words with a /sh. sound spelt with 'ch'

chef

machine

brochure

parachute

moustache 

Challenge Words:

champagne

chalet

Friday 18 March 

We have a had a super week in class.  

In maths we have continued to work with money.  I found that the children lack number bond knowledge to know that when giving change from a £1 for an item that costs 52p, the change would need to have 8p plus the tens.  Therefore, we have been doing a lot of this in class to enable children to make connections.  We have had a lot of eureka moments!

In Literacy and topic, the children have been working on retelling myths in many ways.  This week, we have looked at Theseus & the minotaur in more details and The Wooden Horse and Helen of Troy.  The children have completed some excellent illustrations of the minotaur this week.  Next week we will be looking at the myth Pandora's box and would really appreciate any small boxes (like a shoe box) to be sent into school.

We have had a very exciting time choreographing and practising our Easter dance in preparation for the Easter service on the last day of term.  We hope many of you will be able to join the service. 

Spellings: league, plague, rogue, unique, antique. Challenge Words: mosque, cheque.

I hope you all have a good weekend.

Mrs Glover

Friday 11th March

The sunshine has made a very welcome appearance to our busy week in class. We have had a brilliant week and the children have been working hard as always.

In literacy we have read and acted out the myth of both Daedalus & Icarus and also Theseus & the Minotaur.  The children have written some superb diary entries from the point of view of Daedalus.  The detail and emotion they are now able to include in their writing is so pleasing and I took great pleasure in showing their work to Mrs Haysom, our school literacy lead.  The children have also enjoyed creating comic strips about Theseus and the Minotaur.  We had some very detailed discussions in class on how many Greeks believed that the Gods were involved in the myths, especially when things went wrong.

In maths, we carry on with money.  Thank you to all who completed moneybox counting from last weekend – I now know who to come to when my piggy bank is empty!  This week, we have worked on subtracting money to work out the difference between two amounts and more importantly, giving change.  We are really working on counting back and forth in 10s from any number to help us with mental calculations eg: 22, 32, 42…  75, 65, 55…

Topic work this week has very much been based around the Greek myths and legends.  The children had good fun designing their own labyrinth, despite having to follow some very difficult instructions.  The results are up on display in the classroom.

This weekend, please practise the 8 times tables.  I would also recommend Top Marks money again.  This time, the children could work on the Toy Shop game but click on the pink icon ‘mixed coins’ for the change games www.topmarks.co.uk /money/toy-shop-money.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G

Spellings 

Week 3 Term 4

Prefixes re- and bi-

bicycle

biannual 

reappear

repay
reapply

Challenge Words 

redecorate 

bilingual  

Friday 4th March, 2022

Firstly, thank you for all your support for World Book Day.  It was tremendous to see the children dressed up and the excitement was high!  Thank you also for your book swap contributions – I hope that your child is pleased with the book that they brought home.  This morning, we continued the celebrations and Class 3 enjoyed a trip to Chiddingstone Nursery, where we read stories to the nursery children.  It was a real treat to watch year 3 interact so beautifully with the younger children.

In maths this week, we have moved on to our new topic, which is money.  We started with the basics, recognising coins and notes. The children then made different amounts of money with varying coins.  If you can support this at home, I would be very grateful, as it really is a gap for many children. I have attached some optional homework activities, which are also in the red homework book. I think that now we almost live in a cash free world this limits the experience of using coins for children.

In literacy, we have been working on 6 different noun types.  We have also been presenting our favourite god / goodness to the class and working on our presentation skills.

The Greek topic continues and we had great fun trying to write our name in Greek. Quite a challenge!  We have started enjoying some Greek myths, which includes the legend of Icarus and Daedalus.  We have had some fun designing our own labyrinth, which we will finish off next week.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Glover

Year 3

Term 4 Week 2

Homophone & Near Homophones

scent

sent

vain

vein

rode

road

Challenge Words

waist

waste

Friday 25th February

Welcome back to Term 4.  I cannot quite believe that we are already half way through Year 3. It has been lovely to welcome ALL the children back to class this week, the first time we have had a full classroom for many weeks.

This week, I have introduced the class to our new topic 'Gods and Mortals' predominantly a topic that lends itself to history, geography and DT.  We started on Tuesday with the question 'What do you already know about the country Greece and its history?' The children wrote their response to this question on a post it note and 'posted' it on our board.  I was genuinely thrilled to read the majority of answers as 'I know nothing' as this was an easy fix in lesson 1!  The children now know about the climate and geography of Greece and that 70% of the country is mountainous.  They also know that it is in Europe and the capital city is Athens.  The children also enjoyed learning a little of the Greek language,  Once this was established, I felt ready to go back in history to the ancient Greeks and the class were introduced to Zeus.  They have really enjoyed researching the King of Gods and have produced some excellent posters about him, which are up on display in our classroom. 

This week in maths, we have been doing lots of revision of column addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. The children have also completed their first Singapore Maths assessment based on the learning from term 1, 2 and 3.  We are now ready to move on to the second half of Singapore Maths for year 3.

I hope that you all have a good weekend.  A reminder that it is World Book Day next Thursday. I am already looking forward to seeing all the costumes!

Mrs Glover

  Year 3 Spellings

Term 4 Week 1

Homophones and near homophones

great

great

peace

piece

plain

plane

Challenge Words

rain

reign

Friday 11th February

We have reached the end of term with an explosion - literally!  Today, the children enjoyed 'blowing up' their volcanoes which we made earlier this week.  Using vinegar and bicarb soda to replicate lava, there was lots of fun to be had by all.  I apologise in advance (as I feel I have to do most weeks on here!) if any of your children come home, wishing to demonstrate the STEM project that we did in class today.  We tested different structures to see which would hold the most books - all linked to designing an earthquake proof building.  Hide all your books!

In maths, we have almost finished measurement by looking at volume and capacity and the different between them.

I hope you all have a wonderful half term and look forward to seeing you next term.  Our new topic will be Gods and Mortals.

Mrs Glover

Friday 4^th February

Another great week in class and can’t believe next week brings us to the end of Term 3.  We are really enjoying our topic Rocks, Relics and Rumbles.  Without any doubt, our history lesson on the story of Pompeii has been the climax this week.  The children were all so engrossed in their learning – so many excellent questions asked and I apologise in advance if there are any trip requests to Pompeii.  I was also asked if we could go there on a school trip!  You will see in the red homework books that I have sent home a text about Pompeii.  I would really like everyone to read the text.  If your child would like to have a go at the questions, to check their understanding, that would be brilliant.  There is no expectation for all 12 questions to be completed.

In literacy we have been working on publishing a final copy of the narrative that we wrote in class last week.  We also really enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year and read a super story about the animal race, which decided the Chinese Zodiac.  The children loved this story and were keen to work out which year all their family members were born in. We have also been learning about prepositions in GPS.

In maths, we have moved on to measuring mass.  We had so much fun estimating the weight of a piece of paper and a bag of sugar.  Once we established the bag of sugar weighs 1kg / 1000g, I asked the children to estimate their own weight.  Answers ranged from 4kg to 1902kg!  We soon put this right by setting up a set of scales and allowing those who wanted to jump on, to do so!  Now we have a far better idea of our own weight.  It’s really important that we put these areas of maths into context.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover

   Year 3 

    Spellings 

       Term 3 Week 5 

Creating negative meanings using the prefix dis-

dislike

disobey

discolour

discover

          disappear

Challenge words:

disapprove

discontinue

HOME LEARNERS - please refer to the Remote Learning tab which is at the top of the class page list.

Friday 28th January

Well done to all the children in the class, both at home and in the classroom.  I am so impressed with how they have all continued with their learning despite the somewhat difficult circumstances! I really am very grateful for everyone’s support and hope that the children at home have found accessing the classroom via zoom as near to ‘real time’ as possible!

In maths this week, we have continued the chapter on measuring length.  The children have been converting centimetres into meters and meters into kilometres.  They really are becoming proficient in this, which is excellent, as conversion is not easy.  They have also been working on a range of ‘length’ word problems, considering whether they need to add, subtract, multiply or divide.  This is certainly more challenging for all, especially when problems had more than one-step. Next week, we will move onto the next area of measurement, mass.

In literacy this week, the children have been exploring sentence structure and have been working with sentences which have a main clause and a subordinate clause joined by a subordinating conjunction. This is complicated stuff and the children have worked hard at identifying different clauses and conjunctions.  They have also been working on character profiles, writing a description of Razvani from our class book The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Over the last couple of lessons, the children have written a narrative from the point of view of Lila, the main character in the book.  I am astounded by the quality of the writing – it is definitely a book that has inspired the children to write.

Topic has been very interesting this week, as we have investigated the ‘Ring of Fire.’  Ask your child where this is and how many volcanoes have erupted within this area of the world. We have also been working in depth of plate tectonics and now understand that plates move in a different way and depending on this movement, can cause volcanos and earthquakes. Finally, the children have been researching a number of well-known volcanoes in preparation for learning about Pompeii next week.

This weekend, please can all children practise their 3 and 4 times tables.  We are still working hard on having them on the tip of our tongues. There is a timetables activity pack attached and you will find 3s and 4s there.  I’m also sending this home in the red homework books (for those in school).

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Glover

Year 3

Term 3 Week 4

Creating Negatives Using the Prefix mis-

misspell

mislead

mistreat

misbehave

mistrust

Challenge Words:

misheard

misuse

Friday 21st January

Well, firstly, I would like to thank all the children in what has been quite a strange week of both online and class learning.  It hasn't been easy for them but everyone has continued to work hard and do their very best.

This week in maths, we have moved on to our new topic which is measurement.  In the first few chapters, we have been looking at length.  The children have already had to convert centimeters into meters and meters into kilometers.  This can be very confusing for some brains so the more the children understand that there are 100cm in a meter and a 1000meters in a kilometer, the better.

In literacy, we are really enjoying Lila's adventure in our class book.  This has led to some beautiful descriptive writing which really blew me away.  Today the children have been writing poetry about volcanoes using onomatopoeia. 

Spellings this week are: 

Year 3

Term 3 Week 3 Spellings 

forgetting

beginning

preferred

preferring

occurred

Challenge Words:

forbidden

committed

Thank you for returning all the bus stop division homework to me last week.  I was very impressed by the standard of work.  There is no formal homework in books this week as I would prefer to wait until the whole class are back together.  Instead, please practise 4s and 8 times tables.

Have a great weekend

Mrs G

Friday 14^th January

Another action packed week in Class 3!

Through our topic work, we have become rock detectives and have been investigating igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.  Using a magnifying glass, the children had lots of fun looking at the rocks they collected during Forest School.  They were able to examine their features and decide which rock group they belong to.  There were lots of flabbergasted faces in class when we discovered that most rock types in Chiddingstone are sedimentary, suggesting that our village was once under water!

In literacy, we have been writing a diary entry from the point of view of Mary Anning, a famous palaeontologist.   We have also been reading on with our class book ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter,’ which has created a lot of excitement in class.  The setting of the book is very unusual and this has helped us with descriptive writing this week.

In maths, the children have now learnt the formal written method for division – bus stop division.  I have attached a crib sheet below so you are able to see the method that we use in class.  I imagine that this is the same method you would have used at school too!  There are also some questions that I would like the children to have a go at in their new homework book (red book in their bag).  Children can choose which group of questions they would like to tackle. They are welcome to do all of them or just few from one section.  It is not meant to be arduous and I am only setting this as homework to give them the opportunity to practise the method. If they have any problems please do let me know.  As I have reiterated to the children, the more fluent their times tables become, the easier division will be! 

Spellings which will be tested on Wednesday:

gardener, gardening, limited, limiting, offering

Challenge words: benefitted, benefitting

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover

Friday 7th January

A very warm welcome back to term 3 and a happy new year to you all.  I've been very pleased and mightily relieved to see the children back in school this week .  However, I do admit, it's hard to get back into the routine after becoming a total sloth over Christmas! I hope you all had an enjoyable break over the festive period. 

Over the last couple of days we have started our new topic 'Rocks, Relics and Rumbles'.  On our first day, I told the children that planet earth is very similar to an egg - today I demonstrated why. They were very pleased that I had boiled the egg but of course I didn't tell them this before I threw it into the air!  Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the structure of the earth, rocks, fossils, volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.  If any of you may be a geology expert - please do let me know!
 

In literacy, we have started our new class book 'The Firework Maker's Daughter' by Phillip Pullman.  The children have been working on character profiles and have spent time exploring some of the sophisticated vocabulary that we have already come across in chapter 1.  If anyone has their own copy of this book, do send it into school with your child. 

In maths, we have started column multiplication and can now multiply a 2 digit number by a single digit, with regrouping. 

eg: 23 x4 and 58 x 7.  The children have explored a couple of a different ways of doing this and I will send a crib sheet home in due course.  The actual column method didn't cause any issues for the children.  However, those that don't know their time tables find it more challenging.  A reminder that we are working on 2s, 5s, 10s, 3s, 4s and 8s.  Any support with this learning at home would be fantastic.  We continue to complete weekly grids in class as this is one of our New Year's resolutions - to become times tables kings and queens.  I have attached a grid below for home use. 

No other homework this weekend - ease back in gently.

Have a good weekend,

Mrs G

Friday 17th December

And just like that....we reach the end of term.

Thank you for all your continued support over the last two terms.  Thank you also to all the children for their hard work each day.  We have had a splendid festive week in class and now it's time to relax and enjoy the next few weeks with friends and family.  I hope you all have a super Christmas and a restful, enjoyable holiday.  

I very much look forward to welcoming all the children back in 2022.

Happy Christmas to you all.

Mrs G 

HOMEWORK
1) Watch a Christmas movie with your family

2) Make a snowflake out of paper and stick it on your window

3) Sing your favourite Christmas song loudly

4) Feed the birds in your garden

5) Wear your pjs all day

6) Help your family cook a delicious meal or do some baking

7) Go on a hunt in your local area to search for Christmas lights 

8) Enjoy a warm hot chocolate and wear cosy socks

9) Make a news years resolution

Friday 10^th December

Firstly, many thanks for supporting your child at home with various pieces of maths homework over the last few weeks.  I have returned the marked homework so the children could see how well they have done.  After Christmas, they will have a homework folder, as it will be easier to mark and track.

We have had a great week in class developing our multiplication skills by using further multiplication.  We have realised that to multiply 3 x 40 we don’t need to know our 40 times tables.  We can just do 3 x 4 and make the answer 10 times bigger.  We are nearly ready to start column multiplication where the children will be multiplying a 2 digit number by a 1 digit.

In literacy, the children have been exploring similes and inventing some of their own to describe a beautiful cold morning.  The weather this week really helped to set the scene.  We have also written our letters of complaint to Cadburys, using persuasive language to try and convince the company to use sustainable palm oil.

In topic work, we are enjoying learning about parts of a plant.  We have grown a beautiful amaryllis that is perfect for class observations as it is growing so quickly and the children have been able to identify all parts of a flower. We have also been studying parasitic plants with a focus on mistletoe.

Spellings for this week:  high frequency words

believe, appear, often, group, breath challenge words: describe, height

Have a super weekend.

Mrs G

Friday 3rd December

The Christmas tree is up, lights twinkling and the advent calendar(s) are in full swing!  The countdown has begun in Year 3 although we are obviously still working hard.  If your child would like to send any Christmas cards to their friends, please send them into school. We have a Christmas post box in the classroom and we will distribute on the last day of term.

We have had a splendid morning today at Chester Zoo.  The children  visited various rainforests around the world.  They found out some incredible facts that I certainly didn't know, especially when it comes to pink dolphins!  They extended their learning about deforestation and I'm afraid they may be lecturing you about palm oil this weekend!

In maths, we have continued multiplying by 4 and 8.  We have also started working on division and how our times tables (the inverse)can help us solve questions.  No maths homework this weekend- life in December is busy for you all.  However, please continue to practise times tables as much as you possibly can.

In literacy, we finished publishing our fabulous tiger stories.  We have been exploring questions and how to ask and write them accurately – these came into great use during our Chester Zoo visit.  We have also been looking at a range of newspapers and have started to write our own reports using the past tense.

In topic, we have had lots of fun exploring carnivorous plants this week.  The children were amazing to discover how and why plants are carnivorous.  We had a go at designing a plant of own, thinking about all the features of a carnivorous plant.  The children are very excited that we now have a Venus Flytrap growing in the classroom – I’, hoping ti will be ready to catch flies by the summer!

Spellings for this week:  basically, frantically, dramatically, magically, tragically challenge words: accidentally, occasionally

 Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G

Friday 26th November

The cooler air this week has made me realise that this time next week, I will be writing to you from tinsel towers - aka Class 3 decorated for Christmas! The weeks are flying by and the children are working brilliantly.

We have been writing our own narrative stories, using the top tips from the visiting author who came into school last week.  We really tried to focus on her 2 top tips; imagination and 'show don't tell'.  We worked really hard on this as a class and have composed an excellent story about a tiger.  We have also been perfecting our GPS skills, working on expanded noun phrases, which worked well as our class target is to use 2 adjectives before a noun in our writing.  We had lots of fun on Thursday exploring collective nouns.  Together, we learnt many new collective nouns and it was hard to decide on our favourites.  The top contenders included; a tower of giraffe, a crash of rhino, a parliament of owls and a bed of snakes!  I hope the children will be able to tell you many more. 

In maths we have moved on to multiplication and division in Singapore maths.  This week, we have focused on 3s and 4s times tables.  S.O very kindly brought in her card game 'Mrs J's times table game' which I demonstrated to the class.  Lots of keen players and a card game I would thoroughly recommend for those wishing to perfect times tables without a screen!  I have attached 2 pieces of homework for the children this week.  I would be really grateful if the first piece could be returned to me by next Thursday. The second piece is an extension and totally optional.  No need to return it but if your child would like me to mark it, I would love to see it.  I have sent home a hard copy of the first piece to save printing at home.

Collective nouns, habitats and apex predators have been the focus of our topic this week.  Next week, we move on to looking at carnivorous and parasitic plants. We are also very much looking forward to our 'virtual visit' to Chester Zoo and the rainforest workshop.  I hope you all received my letter earlier in the week which gave details about this. 

Spellings:  gently, simply, humbly, nobly, horribly, incredibly, comfortably, 

Have a lovely weekend - I wonder if any Christmas trees will be going up?

Mrs G

Friday 19^th November

This week we have been exploring endoskeletons and exoskeletons.  We have been learning all about our own skeleton and how over time, our bones fuse from the 300 we are born with to 206. We had great fun looking at pictures of a range of skeletons from cats to birds to frogs and then made our creations, which are hanging in the classroom.

In maths, we have completed the subtraction and addition chapter. Please continue to practise the column methods at home as this will really help your child embed their learning.  A common problem occurs for all children when switching between the two and remembering what to do.  Next week, we move into our new unit, multiplication and division.  We have now started weekly times table grids which the children enjoy.  Currently, the children are perfecting 2s, 5s and 10s but we will soon be adding 3s, 4s and 8s.

Literacy this week has been very exciting as we welcome author Jo Clarke to our classroom.  Jo shared her top secrets for how to write a good story and really worked with the children on how to use their imagination and to give room in their minds to achieve this.  Class 3 produced some incredible narrative settings following their workshop.  The children have also been busy creating predator books this week.  Everyone chose their favourite predator, researched its habitat and diet and then organise their notes to write their fact file books.  We will use these books next week to create Top Trump cards.

Spellings for this week: happily, angrily, lazily, easily, busily Challenge words: greedily, clumsily

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G

Sunday 14th November update - please see below for the correct spelling words for this week.

Sorry to have messed you about. Mr Haysom

Friday 12th November

It’s the end of another busy and fabulous week in Class 3. We have now finished Stig of the Dump and move on to our next class text, The Sheep Pig by Dick King Smith.

Fireworks were going off in the classroom yesterday as we tackled column subtraction with renaming (borrowing, which I now call stealing as we never return!).  The children have really enjoyed using this method and are able to subtract a 3 digit number from a 3 digit number.  Perhaps they can show you at home by having a go at the questions on the attached sheet.  I’m sorry I can’t print it off as our printer hasn’t been working this week.  You are welcome to note down the questions on a piece of paper – please don’t feel you have to print it off.  If you would like to send the work in for me to look at, I would love to see it.  Thank you all for sending the column addition work in.  I’ve sent it back home just so the children can see how well they have done.

In literacy, we have written and completed our persuasive letters to Boris Johnson, expressing Class 3’s strong opinion to stop deforestation.  Mrs Haysom, our school literacy lead, popped in to read the letters and was very impressed by both the content, persuasive language and stunning handwriting. The letters will be posted this weekend and we wait with baited breath so see if we receive a response!

In our topic work, we have been studying the teeth of carnivores and herbivores, which was really interesting.  We have now moved on to researching our favourite predator which we will publish a leaflet about next week.

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Mrs Glover

Maths 

This site might be useful and fun

https://www.mathswithmum.com/column-subtraction-of-3-digit-numbers-with-borrowing-practice-questions/

Year 3 Spellings

Week 2 Term 2

Creating adverbs by adding 'ly' to the root words.

A million apologies but, as you may have spotted, the wrong words were posted. These are the correct words now:

kindly, quickly, safely, rudely, sweetly.

Challenge words: finally, usually. These ones are sometimes require a bit of thinking as they already end with an 'l'; you still need to add and 'ly'.

These test scores will not be recorded this week.

As we appreciate that it many have already started to work on the ones that I had initially uploaded, we shall also be going over these in Class. If it proves too much of a battle to encourage your child to learn the new set, then please do just continue with the original set, below. 

Spellings 'el' 

camel 

towel

squirrel

travel 

tunnel

Challenge Words:

jewel 

vowel 

5^th November, 2021

A very warm welcome back to Term 2.  I hope you all had an enjoyable half term break.  It has been lovely to see all the children back in the classroom this week.  Lots of celebrations and many thanks to you all of you for sending in photos of the Diwali lanterns.  We have created a display in the classroom, which looks beautiful.  In our RE lesson, we have started reflecting on another faith, Sikhism which we will be studying this term.

In class this week, we have started our new topic ‘Predator’ by thinking about the food chain.  The children have been learning about producers, primary and secondary consumers, decomposers as well as well as herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.  We all decided on our own place in the food chain depending on our diet.  We also moved on to consider different habitats and this week we have focused on the rainforest.  Through class reading, we have found out some really interesting facts about the rainforest.  It would be wonderful if you ask your child why the rainforest is so important.  I hope that they can tell you at least two reasons why! Deforestation has been a topical debate in Class 3 and we have created posters this week to prevent it.  These will help us write persuasive letters next week to encourage people to save the rainforest – perfect timing with COP26 – watch out Boris, Class 3 intends to send their letters to you!

In maths, we have continued with column addition and the children are now becoming experts at ‘renaming’ (like me, some of you may remember it as ‘carrying’/ ‘put it under the doorstep’).  As this is such an important technique in maths, it is important to practise.  Therefore, I have attached 10 questions I would really like the children to do at home for me this week.  I am really hoping they should all be able to do the questions independently but of course, please do help and support them if they need it.  We have talked through the rules…1) always start with the ones column (units) and 2) only write one digit per column.  If there are any problems, please do annotate your child’s sheet for me.  I am also sending this homework home as a hard copy in bags today.

We still have a final few chapters of Stig of the Dump to read – it’s been a brilliant story.  Next, we move on to The Sheep Pig by Dick King Smith.  Once again, if anyone has a copy at home, please do send it in with your child as the children really do enjoy following along with their own copy.

Please see below for spellings and maths homework.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G

Spellings Week 1 Term 2

Creating adverbs using the suffix ‘ly’

kindly

quickly

safely

rudely

         sweetly

      Challenge words:

finally

usually

Friday 15^th October

I cant quite believe that we have already reached the end of our first term together in class 3.  It really has flown by.  Everyone has worked so hard for me this term and well and truly deserves a relaxing break over half term. nbjb

We have had the best end to our topic with our Stone Age day at Knole.  I was very proud of all the children who were beautifully behaved and showed so much engagement with all the activities that Knole arranged.  We spent the morning being history detectives and archaeologists, working with Stone Age replicas.  This included modelling animal furs, cave painting, digging for artefacts and examining tools. Lots of fun and a perfect way to consolidate this term’s learning.  We enjoyed our picnic lunch in front of Knole House in the October sunshine before a busy afternoon of activities.  These included weaving, making clay pots and a fabulous team building exercise as the children had to build a den with quite a few criteria including; making it waterproof and allowing 15 children to sit inside! Mission accomplished as the teams worked incredibly hard.

In other news, this week, the children have written their first narrative since being in class 3.  This involved a lot of build-up work on how to use paragraphs, adverbs and adjectives.  We have also worked really hard on using new and sophisticated vocabulary.  The finished stories are spectacular and the children are really proud of their work.  I hope that have all received my email with the Oxford Reading Owl suggestion for half term along with the passwords.  I hope your child will enjoy my suggestions.

In maths we continue to work on addition.  We can all use column addition successfully when adding 3 digit numbers. 

I hope you all have a restful half term break and I look forward to seeing all the children on 1^st November…in their PE kits!
 

Many thanks for all your support this term.

Mrs G

Time seems to be flying in Class 3 and I can’t believe we have one last week left of term 1.  We are very much looking forward to our trip to Knole House in Sevenoaks on Thursday 14^th October.  I hope that everyone received my letter with all the details.  If not, please do let me know.

This week in maths, the children have been counting in steps of 4 and 8 from any 3 digit number.  This supports solving number sequences which has been quite a challenge in class, especially when the sequence goes backwards.  For example, 204, 200, ? 192, ?  We will continue to work on this as part of our morning starters.  We have now finished place value and have moved on to addition and subtraction today.  The children know that addition can be done in any order ie: 130 + 20 = 150 and 20 + 130= 150  and that they should always add with the biggest number first.

In literacy, the children have produced some excellent fact files on a prehistoric animal from the Stone Age.  They had to research the animal and take notes.  Organisation of notes was key and they used this information to help lay out their final copy, using subtitles and bullet points.  We have found out about so many animals – I was also learning with the children. Handwriting is a big focus for the class.  When writing at home, please encourage your child to join their letters and to form using a consistent size. We have also started to learn about all the features that make a successful narrative with a plan to write our first creative story next week. 

Spellings:

Homophone pairs: here, hear, heal, heel, knot, not, main, mane

New spellings for next term will be announced in term 2.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G

Friday 1st October, 2021

The end of another busy week in Class 3.

In Literacy, we have really been getting into our class book Stig of the Dump.  The children are really enjoying the story and composed some excellent drama scenes earlier in the week. In GPS, we have been learning about using the article a / an and how to use these correctly.  We have also developed our knowledge of noun type. Finally, we have been looking at instruction writing, while learning about the importance of fire in the Stone Age. Watch out!  Your children know how to make fire!

In numeracy we are making great progress with place value.  This week, the children have been counting in groups of 50 – we now know our 50 times table in class 3!  I asked the children to count in 50s up to 1000 but then they just kept going.  A little confusion when they got to 1050, 1100 and why it wasn’t 1050, 2000 but once we ironed this out, we were on the way to 6000!  We have also been looking at adding 10 and 100 to any number and what this actually does to a number ie: which column will change.

Cave painting and tool crafting have been the focus of our topic this week.  Lots of imaginative creations while having fun and learning at the same time.

Spellings for next Wednesday are: earth, early, learn, heard, earn challenge words: pearl, rehearse

The following week the spelling focus will be homophone pairs: here, hear, heal, heel, knot, not, main, mane

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover

Friday 24^th September

I can’t quite believe we have only been together in Class 3 for 3 weeks.  The children have adapted so quickly and are working very hard, it feels as if we have been together for months.

It has been assessment week in school this week and I am really pleased with the effort and hard work the children have put in.  The assessments really do help to inform my planning so are very useful.

We have 30 budding historians in Class 3 and this week Stone Age settlements have been our focal point, with a particular focus on Stonehenge.  I am really sorry if your children now ask for a divert to the A303 this weekend! The children have been so interested in doing their own research and they have published fabulous posters about Stonehenge. I wonder if they may share a fact or two with you this weekend.  Of course, no study of Stonehenge is complete without a salt dough miniature version… look out for the photos on Instagram! There was much excitement when I told the children that Knole Park is a Neolithic site and I look forward to taking the children to the National Trust property in October for a ‘Stone Age day at Knole.’  More info to follow.  

The daily spelling practise and support that you are giving at home is clearly having an impact, so thank you very much.

Next Wednesday the children will be tested on: straight, contain, brain, stain, praise  Challenge words: complaint, afraid

The following week, we will be looking at: earth, early, learn, heard, search Challenge words: rehearse, pearl

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.

Mrs G 

17^th September, 2021

It was lovely to ‘see’ so many of you in our curriculum meeting yesterday – thank you for joining.  I hope you have all received the powerpoint via email but if not, it is attached below.

Another super week in Class 3.  I can’t believe we have only been together for 2 weeks!  Roald Dahl day (morning) was a huge success and the children really enjoyed the drama workshop about Fantastic Mr Fox.  They retold the story through drama and freeze frames, which was super to see. Today they have created a follow up comic strip and they are superb.

The children have finished their final copies of their diary entries for our narrative piece of literacy this week.  They are stunning and on display in the classroom.  In GPS, we continue to work on the past tense – really not easy with so many irregular verbs.  If you hear your child say a verb in the past tense incorrectly, I would be very grateful if you could correct them eg:  I runned, I eated.  We have also been working on some interesting non narrative / non fiction texts about the Stone Age.  These have really helped us understand how life changed and developed through the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic ages. 

Spellings this week which will be tested on Wednesday 22^nd September: they, obey, grey, prey, survey  challenge words: convey, disobey

Spellings for test on Wednesday 29^th September: straight, contain, brain, stain, praise, challenge words: complaint, afraid

In maths, we continue with place value, working to secure 3 digit numbers, especially when 0 acts as a place holder in the tens column eg: 507

This term in PE the children are doing football on the sports field.  As the weather turns cooler, please send in their PE jumper / jacket as it will be very useful.

Next week, the children will be doing some assessments in class to help me inform my planning.  Nothing to worry about, but they may be tired by the end of the week - apologies in advance!

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G  

Friday 10th September

We have had a buzzing and busy week in Class 3 and the children have all been working really hard. 

In Literacy, we have really started to get into our class book ‘Stig of the Dump’.  Through our reading, we have been looking at proper nouns and common nouns.  The children have written some excellent diary entries from the point of view of Barney.  They have written about his first encounter with Stig, using first person and the past tense.  I am looking forward to reading these over the weekend, so the children can write them up in neat on Monday.  We have already prepared ‘tea stained’ old paper for our final copy!

In maths, we have started Singapore Maths and have been working on place value.  In class 3 we are working with 3 digit numbers and understanding the value of each digit and the importance of 0 as a place holder.

We have become inquisitive historians this week with our topic ‘Through the Ages’.  On Monday, I asked the children ‘How old is the world?’ which sparked some very interesting responses.  We have been learning about BC and AD and found out that the world is 4.6 billion years old.  We are now working on the Stone Age and finding out about life during this time. Fascinating!

I hope you all have a very restful weekend.  Happy birthday to QH and PG. Look forward to seeing the children on Monday in their PE kits!

Friday 3rd September

Welcome to Class 3 and Key Stage 2!

A very warm welcome to Class 3.  It has been an absolute pleasure to welcome the children back to school over the last two days.  Although it has been a very short week, the children have settled very well and have been an absolute pleasure to have in class.  The new lunches are going down well, especially fish and chips today!

We have started our new book Stig of the Dump by Clive King.  If anyone has a copy at home, please do send it in with your child so they can follow along.  No problem if not.  I try to put the text on the board so they can read and hear the words at the same time. Today, the children thought about Barney’s adventure and wrote about an adventure they would like to go on.  I am looking forward to reading these over the weekend.

RE and French on a Friday afternoon and today we visited the story of The Good Samaritan, which is our school Bible story.  The children then produced some fabulous artwork to go on display to show the meaning of the story to them.

We are working hard to update reading books.  Hopefully, your child will have brought a new book home in their bag.  I do hope to listen to every child read myself at least once a week.  Please do sign the reading diary each time your child reads at home.  If you can put an H too that would be very helpful.  Starting from today, 5 x H before next Friday will allow an entry into the reading raffle.  Today, we have spoken about our class aim which is to love reading  - fingers crossed!

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend and I look forward to seeing the children on Monday morning, in their PE kits.

Mrs G

Friday 9th July

We have made it to Friday and ending with a bang - sports day!  

It's been a busy and tiring week in class and I imagine Monday morning may feel the same.  It is fabulous that so many children are feeling passionate about football coming home.  

This week, we are beavering away in maths and have been learning all about angles - not angels!  In literacy, we have completed a lot of work on pronouns and contractions.  We tried to have a whole day without using contractions in our spoken language but Mrs G failed miserably.

The children have been working really hard on their dance for the productions - you are going to be impressed.  They organised themselves into groups and have choreographed their whole song themselves.  I am so proud of what they have achieved in such a short amount of time.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and let's see if football is coming home.  If not, I wont be in class on Monday as I already know the children will be disappointed so everyone must keep everything crossed!

Mrs G

Friday 2nd July

Well this message brings us to the end of what has been a smashing week in Year 3.  Mrs G has been able to put her feet up while the children have stood at the front of the class!  I am so very proud of each and every child in my class.  Thanks to them, we have all learnt so much amount a vast variety of buildings from all over the world and nearly every continent.  The presentation skills have been wonderful to watch and it has been lovely to hear voices that I don’t always get to hear for an extended amount of time.  A big thank you for all your support with the presentations, I’m just sorry you couldn’t hear them for yourselves.

In maths we are revisiting times tables daily as well as bus stop division and column methods.

We have also been looking at road safety and the Highway Code.  I hope that the children are all in good stead to pass their driving test!

There are no more formal spelling tests in Year 3.  We are spending the next 2 weeks consolidating all our learning this year.

Next week, we look forward to sports day on Tuesday – no forest school.

Have a lovely weekend – let’s hope the sun shines.

Mrs G

Lots of music and fun in Class 3 this week. On Monday, the children became drumming experts in their drumming workshop and they were all able to create an ‘urban’ vibe with lots of fantastic beats. We have also been discovering more about our roles as the woodland creatures in ‘A Midsummers Night’s Dream’ and have enjoyed practising our two songs. 

In maths we have continued to work on fractions, linking our work to times tables and the inverse, division.  Please continue to practise times tables at home, as it really makes a huge difference to mental maths and confidence in the classroom.  A few times table questions are ideal in the car on the way to school!

I am over the moon by the finished and published leaflets that the children have produced about Chiddingstone.  They look fantastic and they have worked so hard on them.  I am hoping to display them in St Mary’s Church for all to enjoy.  This week, we have also been exploring poetry with personification.  The children have written some phenomenal poems about London and they have really thought about bringing the city to life.  Lines included ‘The London Eye chasing its tail’ and ‘The Shard bullying the clouds’…. Their ideas really were exceptional – a very proud teacher moment.

In our topic this week, we have been exploring well know statues – slightly controversial I know!  The children then designed their own statue to represent Chiddingstone out of clay.  As a science experiment, we looked at UV light and the need to protect ourselves by wearing sun cream, sunglasses and protective clothing.  We had lots of fun with UV beads, which change colour as soon as they pick up UV light – even on a cloudy day.  I sent the children home with the beads so they could explore further.

Next week, school photos take place on Monday (full school uniform required and jumpers / cardigans) and sports on Tuesday afternoon so there is no forest school.  A reminder that children will need their house t-shirt for Tuesday.

I am really looking forward to hearing from the children this week as they present their building of choice.  We will try to hear 5/6 each day so I’m sorry but some children will have to wait until Friday!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs G

Friday 18th June

A huge well done to all the children for not only surviving the hottest week of the year but also assessment week!  I am immensely proud of everyone for trying their very best all week and this allowed us to have a 'Fun Friday' today.  We were lucky to take advantage of the air con in the Year 6 classroom as they have been away in the Isle of Wight. 

Today we started to explore street art with a focus on graffiti.  We had a good class discussion to decide if graffiti is art or vandalism. The children then designed their own 'tag' and these are now up on display in the classroom looking vibrant.  We also used our graffiti skills to create a stencil for Father's Day cards which we hope all the dads will enjoy! I hope you will enjoy the photos of some of our hard work below.

In other news, the class had a busy session with Mrs Haysom on Tuesday where they started learning about 'A Midsummer's Nights Dream' which will be the school summer production this year.  Class 3 will be dressing up as forest creatures singing their own version of 'An English Country Garden'. More to come! 

On Thursday the children visited their new classroom for Year 4 and had an afternoon with Mrs Wetz.  There will be a few more transition sessions this term with Ms Wright and Mrs Wetz to help the children with their move into Year 4 in September. 

Next week, we look forward to a drumming workshop on Monday and the return of forest school on Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G

Friday 11th June

Welcome to Term 6!

Welcome back to Term 6, our very last term of Year 3 

It has been lovely to see all the children but I must admit, we have been working so hard that half term now feels like weeks ago!
 

We have started our new topic, Urban Pioneers, by exploring the history of Chiddingstone.  The children have started creating the most wonderful information text about the village, which I look forward to sharing with you once they are finished.  We have found out so many anecdotes about the village – ask your children about the history of the Tulip tree shop!   I am hoping to organise a trip for our topic this term ….watch this space! For now, on Monday 21^st June we have organised a drumming workshop – perfect for urban pioneers!

In maths, we have started ….FRACTIONS!! The children have been super.  Their prior knowledge was a little limited but they now know that fractions can be more than just halves and quarters!  They have learnt how to add and subtract fractions, investigated equivalent fractions and today they compared different fractions to work out which is the biggest.  Equivalent fractions is still challenging for many so we will continue to work on this.

On Monday spellings will be: London, town, village, statue, local, city, cities

Next Monday the new spellings will be: unwell, unfit, undo, unfair, unfold, unable, uncertain,

Please note, next Tuesday there is NO FOREST school as Mrs Woodhouse is away with year 6 in the Isle of Wight.  Children will still need to come in their PE kit.  I am happy for them to stay in the PE kit for the day or bring a change of uniform – whichever is cooler!

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the sunshine.

Mrs G

Friday 21st May

Today brings us to the end of a super term in Class 3.  I couldn't be any more proud of how the children have worked in class and they all deserve a relaxing break...with some sunshine!

This week, we have been busy writing newspaper articles in Literacy and learning about volume and capacity in Maths. In our topic, we have been busy scientists by exploring coins and metals.  Did you know that some coins are magnetic while others aren't?  See if your child can explain why.  Our classroom had a slight aroma on Thursday morning, following an experiment to see if we could make a dull penny shine using vinegar, ketchup, cola and lemon juice.  Lots of fun and good discussions too.  The wind chimes looked beautiful and very urban hanging on the tree outside our classroom.  Sadly, we had to take them down due to the strong winds and I apologise that they came home slightly tangled.  This lesson really was a test of patience!

I am sending home a times table grid for the holidays.  The children have completed this same grid in class this week and are becoming familiar with how to work it both horizontally and vertically. I've told them to complete their favourite times table first.

I hope you all have a fantastic two week break and look forward to seeing all the children when we return in June.

Mrs G

Friday 14th May

The end of another busy week and I must admit, the children all seemed exhausted today along with their teacher!  

In maths, we have continued to learn about converting meters and kilometers.  You will see this links to the homework set this weekend as the more practise the better. Conversion is generally an area that children find challenging.  I am hoping they will all remember that 1000m = 1km!  As always, please do write a note next to the homework if there are any issues at all.

We have finished typing our autobiographies which are now up on display - definitely one to read out on their 21st birthday! I was very pleased to see a real development in sentence structure and many of the children managed to show their sense of humour in their writing too.  We moved from autobiographies to a letter of apology later in the week! We wrote a letter to the Iron Man from Hogarth apologising for setting up a trap.  We really are enjoying our class story and the figurative language has created many interesting discussions.  Today, we learnt about personification for example.  We then enjoyed a brisk walk for our Active 30 trying to personify trees galore!

This week in topic we have explored gravity and air resistance and had good fun making our own parachutes.  

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.  No new spellings as it will soon be half term.

Mrs G

It really has been a pleasure to see you all during consultations over the last couple of weeks.  Thank you for making the time to talk to me.

The slightly shorter week this week has meant that we have worked even harder in class!  In maths, we are now working on units of measure.  This week the focus has been length and the children have been investigating and converting mm, cm, m and km.  Next week we will move on to measuring mass.

In literacy, we are really starting to enjoy our class book The Iron Man. In our lessons, we have been learning about direct speech and how to use inverted commas and punctuation appropriately. I have set a piece of follow up work in the red homework books for the weekend.  If you ask your child to remember our ‘human punctuation line up’ which included Henry as open speech mark, Alys as capital letter, Annabel as closing punctuation and finally Sam as the closing speech mark, this should prompt their memory that there are 4 pieces of punctuation to remember when writing direct speech accurately. The children acted out and wrote their own conversation, using inverted commas, based on a chapter of The Iron Man, which was great fun.

This week in our topic lessons, we have been exploring different forces, designing playground equipment and making parachutes to investigate air resistance.

A reminder that spellings on Monday will be the high frequency words:  through, every, which, what, something, many, friend

Next week Monday they will be tested on: who, which, why, looked, because, saw, so, if, about

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G

Friday 30th April

It was a pleasure to chat with so many of you this week during parent consultations and I look forward to talking with more of you next week.

We had had a busy week in class.  In literacy, the children have been writing their autobiographies.  I am really looking forward to reading them over the weekend and then the children will write their final copies.  They had to write in 1st person and include parenthesis / subordinate clause (what big words - see if your child can explain what this is!).  Our class focus this term is spelling and this week we have been working on high frequency words which seem to be a bit of a gap for the whole class. Next Tuesday, the class will be tested on the re / bi prefix words (see last week's web page) but the following week, they will be tested on:

through, every, which, what, something, many, friend

In maths, the children have enjoyed the unit on data collection this week.  They have been drawing and reading tallies and interpreting bar graphs at the same time.  We are still working daily on arithmetic and times tables - this weekend I have set arithmetic homework. If any questions are too difficult, please leave them.

Our topic is going well and this week we have been exploring materials and their properties with a real focus on metal.  The children were fascinated to find out where metal comes from - see if they can tell you!

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend.

Mrs G

Friday 23rd April - Term 5

It has been lovely to welcome the children back to class following the Easter break and we have some smashing haircuts in the class!

This week in maths we have re-visited telling the time.  We have been looking at how many seconds are in 1 minute, 3 minutes, 8 minutes etc and that 80 seconds is the same as 1minute 20 seconds.  We have also been working on solving problems eg: ‘I leave home at 2pm. The journey takes 3 hours.  What time do I arrive at the beach?’ or ‘I arrive at school at 8am.  I left home 30 minutes earlier.  What time did I leave home?’ We have also been revising how many days there are in each month.  Ask your child to show you 'knuckle trick' to see if that helps them remember! I have explained to the children that they now need to practise telling the time as much as possible at it is impossible to learn in one week in school.  We will continue to work on it every now and then during our early bird activities but I would be very grateful if you could help your child with telling the time at home.

In literacy this week, we have started our new class book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.  The opening chapters lend themselves to studying similes, which we had great fun doing in the earlier part of the week.  I have to admit, I found it quite hard to explain why we use the simile ‘As cool as a cucumber!’  We are now working on biographies and autobiographies.  Today, the children finished their biography about Ted Hughes and typed up their final copy using the laptops.  Next week they will be writing their own autobiographies.  (Please see red homework books for more info)

We return to spelling tests on Mondays. I have increased the spelling list from 5 a day to 10 a day as this really is a class focus for the summer.  This week we have been working on the prefix ‘mis’ and the children have 10 spellings for Monday 26^th April  which are: 

misspell, misheard, misprint, misread, misuse, misplace, mistreat, mislead, misbehave and mistrust

On Tuesday 4^th May (Bank holiday on the Monday) the children will be tested on the prefix ‘bi’ and ‘re’ Spelling words will be:

bicycle

biplane

bisect

bilingual

biannual

reappear

redecorate

reapply

repay

rebuild

We have made an exciting start to our topic mighty metals.  This week, the children have started to look at a range of materials and their properties in order to design a new piece of playground equipment. 

Our virtual trip to Tokyo continues this term and we are currently on route to Sydney.  Our daily Active 30 exercise helps to contribute to our target. Thanks to all that have added exercise from home.  We love checking out the distance on a regular basis!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs G

Term 5 - Welcome back!

I am really looking forward to welcoming all the children back to class this week.  I hope you have all had an enjoyable and restful break. 

Another exciting topic ahead - Mighty Metals and the class book will be The Iron Man.

I will write again on Friday with an update from our week.

Mrs G

Forest School Rota Term 6

Friday 26th March

Two words that describe the week in Class 3; determination and exhaustion! This week, the children have completed a number of assessments and I couldn't have asked anything more of them.  As I have explained to the children, it is so useful for me to gauge an idea of learning and understanding in order to help me to plan appropriately for the last two terms of the year. They have all worked so hard and deserve a big rest this weekend.

However...don't forget Easter bonnets (or boots) for next Wednesday, the last day of term! The weather is set to shine, our singing voices are well rehearsed and I am really looking forward to seeing all the creations.  Of course, it's two years since we had our last Easter bonnet festival which makes it even more exciting. 

On Monday, I am planning some fun Greek themed activities to thank the children for all their hard work this term. This will include food sampling which I hope they will enjoy. 

Red homework books this weekend include a few 'bus stop division' questions which we have started to use in class.  Using our timetables is a really helpful way to solve these questions.  

A reminder that spellings for Monday are:  library, February, dictionary, ordinary, necessary

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G

Friday 19th March

Well, it has certainly been a busy week in Class 3 and everyone has worked so hard.  Today has been a back to front day but nothing deters from learning!  We have had fun creating our own red nose ping pong balls and racing with them for a great cause.  Of course, we have added our ping pong race to our virtual journey to Tokyo which has created lots of excitement and encouraged additional exercise during playtimes too!  We now have the Olympic rings in our classroom to remind us of our challenge.  

In Maths, we have tackled two major areas which have involved some serious brain work.  The children have been learning the formal written method for multiplication and division - column multiplication and bus stop division.  This really has involved a lot of hard work from everyone and I am so pleased with the way that all the children have worked.  

In Literacy, we have read studied 'Theseus and the Minotaur' and 'The Trojan Horse.'  The children have sequenced story boards and written a diary entry to support each Greek myth and we have had some great discussions in class.  Some of the questions that the children ask are quite extraordinary.  In GPS we have continued to look at the past tense but have focused on irregular verbs.  This has stirred a lot of interest in the English language.  I am thrilled to see so many book worms in class 3 at the moment.  Everyone seems to be enjoying reading and I try to make time in the week for some quiet reading time in class which is an absolute pleasure. 

In Art & DT the children finished painting their beautiful Greek vases and have also made minotaur heads using papier mache. 

Thank you very much for your support with the red homework books which return home today.  It was so pleasing to see the work that the children did at home and I am very grateful for this.  Next week, school will be running assessments throughout every year group to help us with our recovery curriculum following school closure.  Please ensure your child has a good breakfast each morning and brings a snack into school as this will help them throughout the week.

A reminder that spellings for Monday's test are:  curious, anxious, furious, enormous, fabulous

Next week, spellings will be: library, February, dictionary, ordinary, necessary (tested on Monday 29th March)

Have a great weekend

Mrs Glover

Friday 12th March

It has been an absolute delight to welcome the children back to Class 3 this week.  We have had an action packed week and it feels like we have never been away!

In Maths we have been working hard using multiplication and the inverse, division.  Children can now really see the link between the two and have been working on creating number families with 3 numbers eg: 8 x 3 = 24, 3 x 8 = 24, 24/3 = 8 and 24/8 = 3.  Children now have a good understanding of why 8x3 is the same as 3x8 and can create an array to show this.  We have also been solving word problems and completing bar models using multiplication and division.  Thank you for all your support with learning times tables.  I can really see the difference this has made.

In Literacy, we read the Greek myth Pandora's box which the children then retold in their own words.  I was so impressed with the writing - pages and pages of excellent literacy.  This writing task highlighted the need to work on writing verbs in the past tense. Hopefully the children now know the rules for regular verbs.  Next week, we will work on irregular verbs.

In topic work, as well as studying Greek myths, the children have made their own version of Pandora's Box, an Olympic torch and a clay pot.  We have started learning about the history Olympic games, comparing the ancient Olympics to the modern day games.  This led us to studying the Olympic torch route and we are now taking part in our own route throughout the week.

You will see that a new red homework book will be coming home with your child today.  I would be so grateful if you could support your child with their homework tasks in order to make sure they are returned to me by Tuesday.  Homework should never take longer than 30 mins.  Please do stop after this amount of time.  All homework will link to learning in class.  There is more information in the front of the book and if anyone has any questions, please let me know.

The reading raffle will begin again next week.  On Friday 19th, I will have a look at diaries.  Anyone who has read at home 5 times from Friday 12th (today) will be entered into the raffle. Spellings will also begin again next week and we will practise them in class each day.  Spellings will be given out on a Monday and tested the following Monday.  On Monday, I will give the following spellings to children and these will be tested on Monday 22nd.

Spellings to be tested on 22nd March: curious, anxious, furious, enormous, fabulous

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  I know that the children are looking forward to being at home as they are all quite tired after a full week in school. 

Many thanks for all your support.

Mrs G  

I Friday 10th December

We are now into the full festive swing and Class 3 is filled with decorations, a post box overflowing with Christmas cards, a ceiling filled with 3D snowflakes and the children’s beautiful voices rehearsing for our nativity next week.  We also enjoyed a fabulous Christmas lunch on Thursday- enjoy the video and photos below. At the same time, we have still been very busy bees, working away each day.

In maths, the children have continued to work on division as the inverse of multiplication.  The focus has been the 3s, 4s and 8 times tables. Children can now recognise that if 3 x 4 = 12 then there is one further multiplication sentence and two division sums that complete this family 4 x 3 = 12, 12/ 4 = 3 and 12 / 3 = 4.  I have reiterated the importance of learning times tables as often as possible so I am hoping the children will be keen to do this at home.

In our topic this week, we have been looking at carnivorous and parasitic plants, as well as how ‘normal’ plants gain their energy from nutrients in the ground and from the sun. We currently have 30 sticks of celery sat in red food dye to show how pants absorb liquid through xylem tissue.

A reminder that on Monday we have a drama workshop based on The Christmas Carol. Our workshop starts at 9am so if children could be prompt to school I would be very grateful. Our nativity takes place on Wednesday and our class Christmas party on Thursday. All children are welcome to wear full party gear on Thursday - no school uniform required!

Have a super weekend

 Mrs G 

Friday 4th December

A busy and exciting week in class 3 now that 1^st December has arrived! We have been decorating our classroom to make it look as festive as possible. Ms Linton has very kindly given the class an Advent Calendar that we enjoy opening each day.  The children have also made their own calendars with a picture of Santa’s beard, which they add cotton wool to each morning when they come in.  We continue to sing our nativity songs, which is always a splendid activity at this time of the year.

In maths, we have moved on to multiplication.  This week we have been looking at ways to improve our times table speed.  It would be wonderful if you support this at home, especially the 3s, 4s and 8s.  We are now beginning to look at division as the inverse of multiplication and this will be the focus until the end of this term. Do have a look at the following times tables websites, which are both very good.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/times-table-collection/z4vv6v4

I would also recommend Mrs J’s times table card game, available to buy on Amazon.  Emma Jonas is a retired local head teacher who created this game and I think it works wonders.  You can buy the card game or there is an app.  There is also a video on You Tube explaining how it works.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mrs-JS-Brilliant/dp/0953762866 (a perfect stocking filler!)

In topic and Literacy, we have been studying aquatic predators.  The children have also been researching their favourite predator and have been writing an information text in the form of a leaflet using headings, subheadings and bullet points.  Next week we will be researching carnivorous plants.  We are also going to join a live virtual trip to Chester Zoo for a science special all about predators.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you all to a ‘virtual’ presentation by Class 3.  We would usually invite you in to the classroom at the end of term to look at the children’s work and hear about what we have been up to. As we are unable to invite any parents into school, I thought we could try and run this via Zoom instead.  This will take place on Friday 11^th December at 11:30am.  I will send out Zoom details via parent mail and would be grateful if you could let me know if you would like to join so we can make sure we allow you in to the meeting.   

Thank you to those of you who have kindly sent in tins for our baking activity.  The small baked bean tins look to be the best so if anyone has any I would be very grateful if you could send them in.  We will be baking on Monday 14^th after The Christmas Carol drama workshop.

Spellings for Monday are:  myth, Egypt, pyramid, gym, mystery. 

There will not be a spelling test in the last week of term. 

Thank you as always for all your support and encouragement.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs G

Friday 27th November

We have had a fun and busy week in class 3 finishing off with a full DT morning and a craft afternoon today! This week as part of our topic we have been investigating fossils so today we had a go at making our own.  Have a look at Chidd chat in Instagram for photo evidence.  We had lots of fun and the children have produced some very life like fossils.

In Literacy, the children have been studying Haiku poetry which originates from Japan.  These are 3 line poems which have 5 syllables on the first line, seven on the second and 5 on the third. Although some can be a little dry to read, we had a great time exploring syllables and creating our own Haikus about animals. This lesson really forced the children to search for an alternative word or a synonymy in order to ensure they had the correct beats per line. These are now on display on our Japanese blossom tree. We have also been writing instructions and learning about homophones which are our spellings this week. 

In Maths, I really feel that we have now accomplished column subtraction.  We have worked through so many variations. An example of the hardest is 600 - 273 which involves regrouping from the hundreds column, taking it over to the tens column, regrouping from the tens column and taking it to the ones column!  Yes we are masters!  ( I actually used the phrase “swapping from next door but one” to try and contextualise this difficult concept.). Any practise you can continue to do on column subtraction and addition would be very welcome as we will be moving on to multiplication and division.

On our last day of term, Thursday 18th December, I would like to invite the class to come to school in their own clothes, party clothes or Christmas jumpers. I will be holding a little party to celebrate birthdays of children who have turned 8 during term 1 and 2. We will also have a fun Christmas morning on this same day before the children go home at 1:30.

Spellings for this week are main, mane, heel, heal, knot, not, mail, male, here, hear 

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Glover

During the first part of the week, Class 3 became journalists!  We looked at the main features of a newspaper article and then wrote our own based on our African predador visit last week.  This had to be written in the past tense so we have been polishing up on our past tense verbs and have realised how tricky our own language can be.  We have also written another narrative this week about a tiger in the jungle.  We used a clip from WWF to inspire us and this has led us to the idea that we would like to adopt a tiger.  We need to raise £20 as a class and the children have come up with some fantastic ideas.  So watch this space!  Today for our GPS we have been researching collective nouns.  The children made a fantastic collage of a hippo using images of predators from National Geographic magazine.  The collective noun for a group of hippo is a bloat but we discovered so many more which we have added to a display in the class room.

Column subtractions kings and queens!  We can now 'swap/rename' through the tens and the hundreds.  Today we had a real challenge of having to rename across the tens and into the hundreds with the sum 607 - 89.  We will continue this on Monday but I will attach some practise that all children should be able to do with ease.

Spellings for Monday are: know, knew, knowing, knight, knocked

I hope you have a lovely weekend....I wonder if anyone will be putting up their Christmas tree? Or are you waiting for 1st December?!

Mrs G

Friday 13th marks the end of a super day and week in Class 3.  It has been lovely to see the children dressed up in sports gear today.  Obviously, we started the day by joining Joe Wicks in the last 20 minutes of his 24 hour challenge.  We had so much fun!

In numeracy this week we have been working on subtraction and today we started column subtraction.  I have attached some questions for you to look at with your child at home.  Please note we have not yet started renaming (borrowing for my generation) and we will do this next week so there is no need for you to do this at home.  Once again, please feel free to mark these yourself and you do not need to print the questions out. However, I always encourage the children to write their columns very neatly to make the process easier.

In Literacy, the children have written some excellent narratives this week which are on display as final copies in the classroom.  I am so pleased with the way their writing is improving and all of the children managed to include similes and at least one expanded noun phrase, our GPS focus this week. 

We have been very busy with our topic - a particular emphasis on birds of prey.  Today, we had a visit via Zoom from Jasmine's dad who talked to us about African predators.  Who knew that the collective noun for a group of giraffe is 'tower' ? We have also started making models of birds of prey - I am blown away by the Design & Technology skills in the class.

Spellings for Monday are: write, wrote, written, wrapping, wrapped

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover

Welcome back to Term 2.  It has been lovely to welcome the children back in to class, all looking very rested after the half term break.

We have started our new topic Predator.  This week we have been looking at the deadliest creatures on earth and discovered that the mosquito is the most dangerous creature to humans.  We have been creating food chains, exploring the three food groups herbivores, omnivores and carnivores.  With this, we found it hard to decide which group some animals belong to.  However, by using the ipads, we researched different animals through National Geographic.  I really recommend this website as the images are amazing and the facts too.  Perhaps your child may enjoy exploring it further over the weekend.  They could create a little fact file about a chosen animal if they would like to which they are welcome to bring to school when they finish. This could be handwritten or typed.

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/facts-pictures

In Maths we have been column addition superstars!  Following on from the year 2 programme of study where pupils were starting to rename (carry on for those in my generation!) we have been adding 3 digit numbers together using a column.  Today, we began to rename and the children all did really well.  They loved it so much that I have attached some extra work below that they could look at over the weekend.  Please feel free to mark this yourselves but email me if you think your child has any issues with it.  You don’t need to print it out if this doesn’t work for you but I hope you will enjoy watching your child doing their maths as it was such a pleasure for me to see.

In Literacy, we have been studying similes and the class have been creating some super versions of their own.  To tie in with Remembrance, we watched the very moving clip ‘Poppies’ and have started to write a creative piece of writing about the rabbit in the poppy field.  We will continue this next week.

Spellings for this week are: 

write
wrote
written
wrapping
wrapped

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Glover

Friday 16th October

I would like to congratulate all the children for making it to the end of Term 1 in class 3. When I reflect back on the last six weeks, it feels as we have been together for months and months. I am so proud of how hard all the children have worked and they really do deserve a relaxing half term break.

Today has been a very special day in class as we have celebrated all the heroes in your families.  The range has been phenomenal and everyone presented their story so beautifully.  I was totally blown away as it really isn’t easy standing up in front of the class.

In other news, we have been looking at addition and subtraction in maths and number families.  We also had fantastic fun reading and reciting poetry and next term we will start writing our own.

Thank you all for all 

9th October 2020

A fabulous week in class which included our socially distanced Harvest Festival.  Year 3 sang their hearts out and performed a brilliant dance to 'Have you heard the raindrops?'  A proud teacher moment!

Thank you to all of you who joined me on Wednesday for parent consultations.  I look forward to chatting with others next Wednesday.

In maths this week we have been counting in 4s and 8s but not just in times table fashion.  Children have been completing number sequences such as 192, 196, ? ,204 and 300, ?, 284, 276.  Challenging to say the least but they have all been doing so well.  We have used a 100 square to really help us as well as hundreds, tens and ones counters.

This week, the children have been writing a creative narrative using their own superhero and villain. We have worked really hard on successful story openings and the importance of thinking about the ending.  I am really looking forward to reading their finished stories over the weekend.  We have also been finishing off our Publisher document all about Henry VIII.

In topic, we have been learning about Nelson Mandela which has been stirred lots of interesting discussion in class.

As next week is the last week of term, I will not be setting any new spelling learning.  A reminder that the spelling test on Monday will be boxes, foxes, buses, glasses and dresses.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Glover

Friday 2nd October

Firstly, a big thank you to Sue Skinner who has kindly recorded readings of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and uploaded them to our class page. We thought your child may enjoy having a listen to another voice which isn’t mine! We are nearing the end of the book in class and the children have all been gripped by the story which I have really enjoyed reading to them.  

It has been a busy week in the classroom with a noticeable change in climate. Thank you for sending your children in with their coats. Please note winter uniform is compulsory for all children from Monday 5th October.

In Maths we have been ordering 3 digit numbers, counting in 50s up to 1000 and looking at 1 more/ less 10 more/ less than a 3 digit number. The children have been using equipment in class to help them make really pleasing progress and visualise the change, especially when bridging the gap into a new hundreds number eg 10 more than 99 and 10 less than 405.

In Literacy we have been exploring verbs with plenty of action games to help!  The children are working on expanding their vocabulary by using alternative verbs in their written work.  We have started writing a fact file on King Henry Viii using Publisher on the laptops. Not only has this tested our computing skills, we have also included headings, subheadings and bullet points.  If you have any non fiction books which include these, please do point them out to your child.

In topic work, we have been finishing off Henry VIII week. The children have been learning about chronological order, plotting dates on a time line. They have also researched Henry’s 6 wives and created a set of Top Trump cards which they enjoyed playing in class with friends. It was lovely to observe the children enjoy their time tucking into a range of books from the library, finding out many historical facts along the way.

The class has been busy getting ready for Harvest Festival which takes place next Wednesday. They have choreographed their own dance while singing....watch this space with details on how to watch the festival online.

A reminder that spellings for Monday’s test are: table, little, middle, apple, bottle

New spellings for next week are: foxes, boxes, buses, glasses, dresses (we will be doing lots of work on plural nouns)

Have a great weekend

Mrs Glover

It is already the end of Week 4 and it has been another busy week in class.

I was so proud that every child got all their spellings correct in the test this week.  Very well done. In Literacy we have been learning how to respond fully to a question by including the question in their answer.  We have also been looking at diary writing and the children wrote a diary entry by Florence Nightingale which they then published onto tea stained paper - both stunning and authentic.  

In numeracy we have been continuing to build knowledge on using 3 digit numbers.  This week we have been comparing 3 digit numbers and have learnt to look at the hundreds column to help us do this.  Eg when comparing 667 and 525 the hundreds column is the only column that will help but when comparing 345 and 389 then we need to consider the tens column. We have been playing lots of games and completed Singapore Maths to help support this.  We have also started to revisit 2s 5s and 10 times table but really trying to understand what they mean rather than just counting 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.

Thank you for sending trainers in today.  We went for a 15 minute jog between lessons.  It would be wonderful if the children could have a pair of trainers with them in school every day if at all possible. 

A reminder that the spelling test on Monday will be brain, faint, praise, afraid and straight

Next week the spellings will be table, middle, apple, little, bottle

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Glover

Friday 18th September

It's the end of a busy but fantastic week in class.

Firstly, thank you to all those who could join the Curriculum Meeting on Wednesday.  I am so sorry once again for the technical difficulties but I hope you found the meeting useful. 

In Literacy this week we have been exploring character traits both positive and negative.  The children have ben learning about first and third person and wrote a letter from Charlie Bucket to Willy Wonka in first person, to explain how excited he is about visiting the chocolate factory.  We are still really enjoying reading the book in class and this resulted in a very exciting Roald Dahl day.  I hope you all liked the Willy Wonka hats and Wonka bars!  Today we have written up our Wonka bar science experiment - behind all fun there is learning!  We have been discussing different states and how these can be reversed.  This is exactly how we made the Wonka bars - changing state from solid to liquid and then back to a solid again.

In maths, we have continued with place value working with hundreds, tens and ones.  We have been using the part, part, part whole model to help partition 3 digit numbers.

A reminder that children will be tested on Monday on the following spellings: they, grey, obey, disobey prey

Spellings for next week will be yet another 'ai' sound:  straight, brain, faint, praise, afraid.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Glover

9th September 2020

We have reached the end of week 2 and the children have been fantastic despite quite a few bad colds in the class. 

This week, we have been working through assessments in maths, reading and spelling.  This will help me assess whether there are any gaps in their learning and plan my lessons accordingly.  All the children have given their best effort and I am now looking forward to pressing on with some teaching and learning!

In maths, many of the children find it difficult when a number is missing from a different place in a number sentence eg:  3 + ? = 5 or ? + 2 = 5   This is the start of algebra! They have only been used to 3 + 2 = so we have been working on cracking Mrs Glover's codes this week and they have made great progress.  This might be something you might like to practise at home.

We have continued to look at heroes and villains - this week's villain has been Creulla de Vil.  The children wrote a formal letter to Cruella commanding that she stops being cruel to the dalmations. They certainly have some very strong opinions!

A reminder that on Monday, children will be tested on their spellings which are: eight, eighty, eighth, weight, neighbour 

Next week's spellings will be: they, obey, disobey, grey, prey and they will be tested on Monday 20th September.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing those that can at our Curriculum Meeting via zoom on Wednesday at 1:30.

Mrs Glover

Welcome to Class 3

A very warm welcome to Class 3.  It has been an absolute delight getting to know all your children this week.  Everyone has returned to school in such a happy manner and there has been a really positive vibe all week in class. It is brilliant to have all the back on site. This week we have spent some time getting to know the new routines which children have picked up quickly. 

In Literacy, we have started reading our new book Charlie and the Chocolate factory which has created lots of great discussion.  We also read Michael Rosen's poem 'Chocolate Cake' which is hilarious.  The children are enjoying writing with their pens - a big thank you to you all for sending them in so quickly.  Next week, we will start introducing weekly spellings.  We learn 5 spellings a week which we practise each day in class in a fun and interesting way. All the children should now have a reading book.  If possible could this be sent to class each day.  Thank you.

In maths we have been revisiting addition through Snakes and Ladders and today we started Singapore Maths counting in 100s to 1000. 

Next week, we will be running assessments throughout the school so we really can gauge where each child is and where the gaps are.

Date for the diary- Wednesday 16th September at 1:30... a Zoom Curriculum meeting where I will talk through the Year 3 curriculum and my plans for the year ahead.  If you are not able to join, I will email you the notes.  Details with Zoom ID / password will be sent out by the office.  

Obviously there is no homework of any such this weekend.  Just relax and enjoy it!  

I look forward to seeing all the children on Monday and don't forget, they can come to school on Tuesday in their PE kit and Forest School is on Tuesday afternoon.

Have a very happy weekend.

Mrs Glover