Welcome back to school in the year 2024-25! It is exciting to see new faces in class 3a, as the children move their way up to the next year. 

In the first week, the children have already achieved so much learning!

In English, the children are learning about character descriptions and are using a character description of The Gruffalo as an example. They are learning to use verbs, nouns and adjectives to describe their characters. With a focus on expanded noun phrases, the children are quickly learning new skills in their writing. With support, the children are learning a vocabulary song to help them remember the purpose behind adjectives, nouns and verbs.

In Maths, the children are learning place value. Below are some images of them representing 100 using the manipulatives they have chosen from the maths corner. They are learning to count in 10s and 100s, so that they can make links between this and counting in bigger numbers - such as 1000s! The children have already learned so much, including counting on a number line using our knowledge of place value!

In art, the children are learning about the famous artist Van Gogh and his landscape paintings. They have learned key words such as landscape, impressionism, foreground, background, warm colours, cold colours and many more. We have started our lessons but sketching the playground. This is a warm up before the children get the paints out! Year 3a are excited to use different tools to paint with... not just paint brushes!

In PE, the class have started the term with a dance lesson from a visitor. In this dance lesson, the children danced to samba and tango music. They even explored dancing to a slow tune! This was an exciting lesson and all children did really well in showing the way they can explore different movements, both on the floor and up high.

Science

In Science, year 3 have been learning about plants and the functions of the parts of a plant. Some plants in the classroom had been "destroyed" and it was the children's responsibility to put them back together. They had to tell their working group what part of the plant goes where, why it goes there, and what the function of that part is. Children were able to clearly describe the function of the root and how the plants get their water and nutrients. 

After this, they started an exciting experiment! One pot had nothing in it, and the other had water with a dash of ink. Using paper towels as the stems of a plant, they dipped the paper towel on each side to both pots. We waited to see what happens, and sure enough the stem started to transfer the dyed water into the empty pot. This shows how plants get their nutrients from the soil, into the roots, and through the stem!

Art

After completing our sketching of a landscape in art, year 3 learned about watercolours and the types of paint brushes that can be used. They looked at the thickness of bristles and decided that thin brushes would be best for their landscape paintings. Their beautiful landscape paintings can be seen in the images below.

Science

We have had another lovely and informative science lesson in year 3! The children learned about the function of the stem, and how the stem gets nutrients to the rest of the plant if there is no root. They learned about little tubes in the stem and even conducted an experiment, taking into consideration fair testing, where they mixed food colouring and water and then left the plants in there over night. They kept the amount of water, amount of food colouring and type of plant the same. They changed the colour of the food colouring. The plants looked beautiful when the class came in the next morning. See before and after in the images below!

Homework

Please use the login details provided to your child to access EdShed. Follow the instructions on the screen to enter the username and password, then find the tab 'assignments.' Here you will find the homework which will be set every Friday, and due in the following week on Thursday.