Despite having a bank holiday Monday, we have still managed to pack lots of learning into our four day week!

In English, we have began preparing for the big write of Flotsam. Looking at a non chronological report about the history of photography as well as planning out a storyboard of what has happened in the story.

In Maths, we have worked on unit and non unit fractions using objects to help answer tricky questions. This has been a really challenging week with lots of complex multiplication questions that the class have dealt with well.

In History, we designed a Roman city with Mr Brown. Looking at all of the different traditional buildings within a normal Roman city and where they would have been.

In Art, we took inspiration from Yellena James abstract flowers to create our own flower pictures. Developing from our bulb from the previous week.

In Spanish, we started to create sentences about our classroom items. Saying what we have in our pencilcases.

We’ve finally got some lovely weather which has kept us all smiling throughout the week this week.

We’ve got a new member of staff with us this term, Mr Brown who was working in Year 2 is now in Year 3 and is training to be a teacher. He will be supporting the class and teaching a variety of lessons.

In English this week we continued learning about our story Flotsam. We explored the differences between fantasy and reality in different settings and looking at the covers of books from our class.

In Maths, we completed our unit on mass and capacity looking at equivalents in millilitres and litres, adding and comparing different amounts of water.

In RE, we continued looking at the creation story exploring the story and discussing god’s creations. What we believe is a creation of God.

In History, we learnt about how the Romans conquered Britain and why they decided to take over our country. Looking at resources they would have desired and the status it would give to any Roman able to do it.

In Art, the class continued with our ‘being an artist’ unit focussing on shading this week.

I can’t believe we’re into the summer term already. We’re two thirds of the way through Year 3 and we’ve started wonderfully well.

In English, we have begun a new writing unit on the book Flotsam. David Weisner’s surreal book began with some creative writing all about finding a chest on the beach and its contents, while also making inferences around bizarre images of clockwork fishes.

On Tuesday afternoons we are very lucky to have Coach Neil doing a reading the game session. The sessions are half writing and half football, writing about a variety of topics to do with Shrewsbury Town and then testing our football skills. I have posted a letter on dojo explaining the sessions and how they work.

In Maths, we continued with our mass and capacity unit. Adding and subtracting, comparing masses, as well as measuring in millimetres.

In RE, we completed our unit on Judaism. Recapping our knowledge of Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and family festivals celebrated in the Jewish faith.

In History, we began our new unit on the Roman empire. This week we focussed on where the Romans came from and the city of Rome.

In Art, we began seeing and drawing like an artist. Using shapes to create different fruit and vegetables.

Wow, I can’t believe we are through 2/3’s of the year. It was a filled final week with our school performances, painting with  parents and a wonderful Easter service in our church.

The Mystery of Magpie Manor.

First of all, thank you for for taking the time to come and watch the show. I know the class were so excited and nervous to share it, after all the weeks of practise, and hopefully you really enjoyed it. I was so proud of them, their singing, their acting and their dancing was so amazing and it is a memory I’m sure we will all keep for a very long time.

Painting with Parents

Thanks as well for an amazing attendance at painting with parents. This year, we focussed on the seasons reflected on a tree and looked at questions about  you and the class. Hopefully you saw it as a lovely informal way to spend an unusual afternoon in school with your child and enjoyed it!

Easter Service

Congratulations to our three award winners, they have all had brilliant Spring terms but honestly the whole class have. It was lovely to complete what has been a really great term by celebrating our successes, revisiting a song from the show and listening to all the class performances.

Wow what a packed week for the staff and the children this week.

As you can imagine, we have had a week dominated by show practise as our big performances begin on Monday to the school and then Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening to parents. The class are so excited to show you what we’ve been working on and after chatting with a few of you this week, I think it’ll be a nice opportunity to see those songs and lines performed on a stage.

In Maths, we have completed our unit on fractions, looking at equivalent fractions on a number line, in bar models and comparing them with other fractions. Finding errors by Tiny the turtle has been particularly fun this week.

In English,  we have been describing and inferring as we get near the end of our ‘Escape from Pompeii’ unit of work. The two children have escaped the disaster but are now experiencing a range of emotions as they sail away on the boat watching their home be destroyed.

In PE, we had a brilliant gymnastics session working on jumping and control within balance and jump. Making a synchronised routine with a partner.

We wrote character profiles of our show character, looking at them in more depth.

On Wednesday we had a special visitor who came into look at the whole school and the class behaved impeccably.

This week has been one full of assessment and show practise!

We can’t wait for you all to see the show in just over a weeks time and as you can imagine the rehearsals are in full swing. The class are doing a really great job learning their lines and the songs. Excitingly now the stage is up, we can try and put it all together into the mystery of magpie manor!

The class have been amazing with all their assessments this week. It can be very tricky for them but they have all battled through admirably and the early signs are that we are showing great progress from our Autumn term assessments. It has actually been quite nice after a morning of silence and hard work to let out our acting and singing skills.

In PE, for gymnastics we also got the equipment and climbed the bars as well as doing balance work on benches. The class absolutely loved it!

We’ve had a wonderful start to our Year 3 Spring Term and dare I say it.. we are starting to get some lovely spring weather as well!

In Maths, we have begun looking at fractions. Unit and non unit fractions, how to identify them and see which is greater than and less than one another.

In English, we’ve continued learning about the ‘Escape from Pompeii’ our new factual fiction book that follows two children’s story in the Pompeii disaster. We have done lots of brilliant writing already exploring past/present tense, the posessive and plural s, as well as prepositions when describing the scene before the disaster. This book goes hand in hand with our guided reading module of ‘natural disasters’, a topic the children are really enjoying learning about. There has been plenty of discussion and appropriate questioning that has been a pleasure to be a part of!

In RE, we have started our unit on the Jewish faith. The first couple of weeks have been focussing on Shabbat and how that can impact people across the world including in the UK. What happens on Shabbat, how long it lasts for and why it happens.

A big focus this half term is our show ‘The Mystery of Magpie Manor’. The class are doing brilliantly learning their lines at home and in school and we have begun looking into costumes and staging now. We are all very excited to share the performance with you at the end of the term, thank you to everyone who has ordered tickets to the Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening performances!

In PE, we had a brilliant session of gymnastics. The class created shapes with their bodies and movements with a partner on a mat as well as playing a follow the leader game.

In Music, the progress on the recorders is clearly evident with the class being confident enough to compose and perform short melodies using the notes they have learnt with Mrs White.

Today, Year 3 had a local firefighter in the class who told us all about fire safety in the home and at school.

They learnt

• How to sport a fire in the home.
• How to escape safely if here is a fire in the home.
• What to do if you cannot escape.
• How to make a 999 call.
• Stop, Drop and Roll.
• The importance of smoke alarms.

They were also set the task to check their smoke alarms and asked to fill out an escape plan for their home in the occurrence of a fire.

We’ve made it to half term and the half way point of our year.

It’s lovely to see the progress we have made over the 3 half terms so far and I’m looking forward to seeing continued progress going into the second half of the year.

In English, this week we had a focus on grammar looking at the three types of conjunctions, ordering and identifying which one was appropriate for each sentence. As well as identifying verbs and nouns in tricky sentences, also creating our own examples.

In Maths, we have begun our new unit on measurement exploring centimetres, millimetres and metres. Comparing them and looking at equivalent sizes.

In Geography, we focussed on the layers of the rain forest. Can your child name all 4? Emergent, canopy, understorey and finally forest floor. We looked at what climates each layer has, how sunlight and water can effect what animals and plants live in each layer.

In PSHE, we reflected upon our previous task of organising and budgeting a garden with our groups. We also had a really lovely ‘anonymous compliment’ session in which we wrote compliments to our classmates in their books anonymously. We had many smiles after that lesson.

On Thursday, we had a variety of new teachers in our class with the entire group having an opportunity to teach PE, Spellings and Art. I think it is fair to say they learnt how tricky being a teacher and managing a class can be, but all three were enjoyable and we all went away needing a good long rest.

We’ve had plenty of show practise this week, gearing up for our show. Thank you to everyone who has returned slips requesting tickets. It is sure to be a fantastic event!