Trotts Hill Primary School and Nursery
Welcome to Year 3 and the first year of Key Stage 2. Mrs Chumbley is the class teacher and Mrs Masterson is the teaching assistant.
During the the year we have many exciting things planned for you to participate in.
During the Summer Term we will learn about a range of exciting topics including deserts in geography, the Romans in history and animals including humans in science. The children will continue to explore key artists and develop their observational drawing, they will also have the opportunity to design and cook a pizza in D&T. In PE the children will explore athletics, dance and participate in Fit Kidz.
We provide the support needed for each child to reach their potential as well as enjoy the journey along the way. Children are encouraged to express their individual talents across the curriculum and there are plenty of opportunities to celebrate these achievements.
Please support at home with reading, spellings, times tables and home learning so that children make the best possible progress in all areas of the curriculum.
We all enjoy being in Year 3 and look forward to an exciting term ahead.
As part of Year 3's science learning they investigated what owls eat. They used owl pellets to uncover and then identify bones.
In maths, Year 3 have started their unit of learning on time. They have begun by exploring an analogue clock and telling the time to the nearest 5 minutes.
Year 3 have been developing the use of characterisation during their dance lessons. They have created a dance to 'The Circle of Life' each group representing a different animal which was feeding around a water hole.
Year 3 explored observational drawing. They started by exploring different grades of pencils and chalks and pastels. They then started drawing different objects and focused upon creating a 3D shape. Year 3 then explored the local artist, Sarah Graham and produced a piece of artwork based on her sweet creations. They found it very hard not to eat the sweets which they were drawing!
Year 3 have started their new unit of learning: money. They spent the lesson exploring the coins, identifying them and comparing the amounts they made.
The children in Year 3 had a great session with Fit Kidz. They used a range of different equipment to help build their fitness levels.
In English we are exploring adventure stories. We are listening to the story Ice Palace by Robert Swindlles. As a class we are producing a story map after each read. We have explored vocabulary used to create an adventure story setting and wrote a setting of our own. The children are really enjoying this story and some children have even acted it out at playtime.
The children created fantastic 'Moving Monsters' as part of their D&T learning. They used a pneumatic system using a syringe and a balloon or a syringe and a syringe to make their part move.
In English, we are focusing upon non-fiction texts. We are using a fabulous book called "Atlas of Adventures" and will be taking a trip around the world. The children have created a synonym word bank for the word 'spectacular' and revisited using conjunctions to extend sentences. The children have visited Finland and London so far and wrote a diary entry about their London trip.
Year 3 completed their art unit by creating prints inspired by Andy Warhol.
In computing today, the children used the Advanced mode of 2Caculate. They explored named cells and completed activities which used cell addresses to create a picture and complete a treasure map.
Year 3 celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite book character or as a character from our class book 'The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon'. They listened to the class book and then created characters to decorate the classroom door. The children then took part in an illustrator session to learn how to draw a cat.
This week, Year 3 started their new science unit: Plants. They looked at some plants and then matched plant parts and function cards. Then, they drew their own plants and labelled them.
In science we were exploring whether sun light was safe. We were given different statements about the sun and had to decide whether the sun was a hero or a villain. We discussed each of the different statements to learn why it was a hero or a villain e.g. sun creates vitamin D and the sun causes sun burn. We learnt how to keep our eyes safe in the sun and then produced a hero/villain poster.
As part of our PSHE this week, Year 3 took part in the NSPCC Assembly: Speak Out. Stay Safe. They learnt that abuse is NOT ok, who they can go to for help and about Child Line.
In maths, the children are beginning to explore length and perimeter. Today the children completed an active lesson and measured using m and cm.
This week in science, Year 3 continued to learn about light. They investigated whether light can travel through all objects. They classified objects into three categories: opaque, translucent and transparent.
This week Year 3 have started to explore traditional tales. They listened to a selection and had the opportunity to read other traditional tales with their partner. They then chose their favourite tale and, with a partner, produced a story map to retell the tale.
This week the children evaluated a range of pencil cases before designing and making their own. They impressed us with their hard work and very good sewing skills. Once completed, they evaluated their final products.
In PSHE we explored the British Value of respect. We discussed different respectful and disrespectful scenarios and then played a respect board game.
The children started the lesson using sentence stems to help them answer the questions: What is soil? Where does it come from? What is it made from? They then spent time exploring a soil sample and observing what their sample consisted of. They drew their findings in their books and identified organic and non-organic matter.
As part of our geography learning, we used the internet to research human and physical features of countries around the world. We included details of mountains, rivers, population, tourist attractions, climate zones and language.
In English we are learning about recount writing. For this we are focusing upon news reports. This week we have explored a news report script in guided reading and in English lessons identified the features of a newspaper including how reports answer: who? what? when? where? and why? We will be writing our own newspaper reports based on the book: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.
The children had lots of fun using bikes to make healthy smoothies in a healthy eating workshop. They learnt about the importance of eating a 'rainbow' of food. They tasted their smoothies - the blueberry and oat milk was the favourite.
The children had lots of fun taking part in the science and maths day. They built their own balloon buggies using their D&T skills. They then measured how far their buggy would travel. They used their previous learning from forces to choose the most appropriate surface for their buggy to travel on. Some of the buggies travelled for more than a metre.
This week, the children used different media to create their own Stone Age cave painting.
The children explored Stone Age cave paintings during art this week. They recorded their observations, thoughts and comments in their sketch books.
The children have started a new unit of learning which focuses on addition. During this active maths lesson, they explored adding different amounts of ones to a 2-digit number. The children built the number using either place value counters, Base 10 or bead strings. Some of the questions involved the children completing an exchange.
The children were introduced to a website: The Tree Octopus and were asked to explore. They were then informed that the website was actually fake - which shocked the children! They revisited the rules about using reliable sources and checking information before having a chance to create their own fake website.
Year 3 participated in a fantastic day at Celtic Harmony to learn all about life in the Stone Age. They saw fire being created, learnt about Stone Age tools, hunted and gathered, made soup and took part in a trading activity.
The children used a picture of life in the Stone Age. They made deductions as to what life was like in the Stone Age. The children then answered the question: Is it true that Stone Age man was just a simple hunter gatherer?
We learnt all about Jean-Michel Basquiat a famous American artist. We explored his art work and answered a range of questions with our talk partners. We recorded our thoughts and feelings in our sketch books and had a go at recreating sections of our favourite piece.
The children took part in their final yoga session today. They created their own sequence of moves and had an opportunity to focus on their breathing. They have very much enjoyed their yoga sessions.
In order to introduce our new computing unit 'Branching Databases', Year 3 took part in an 'unplugged' lesson. They used 'Yes/No' questions in order to sort different animals and insects.
In science this week, we used owl pellets to investigate bones. We were able to identify the creatures which the owl had eaten. We were amazed to find so many bones, including skulls, in the pellets.
The children had the opportunity to continue to develop their typing accuracy and speed.
Today Year 3 visited the Verulamium museum in St.Albans as part of their learning about the Romans. They had an opportunity to dress up as a Roman and took part in a Roman market role play. They had chance to explore the museum before having a picnic in the park.
The children developed their kneading and chopping skills to make a vegetable soup, a tomato soup and a bread roll. They all enjoyed making and tasting their creations.
Year 3 celebrated the Platinum Jubilee toady. They took part in the whole school picnic and made bunting. They also used their history skills to sort photos into chronological order, complete a timeline of key events in her life and identify changes in Britain since Queen Elizabeth became queen.
The children are working hard learning their dance routine ready for the dance festival. They are dancing to 'Dancing Queen' and are becoming more confident with their moves.
Year 3 have been taking part in FitKidz which enables the to develop their fitness through a serious of different activities. It has been great fun and the children are definitely becoming fitter.
As part of our science learning, the children investigated the fat and sugar contents of a range of everyday food. They began my estimating which food items were the healthiest and then looked at the information on the packet. Children then constructed graphs and used these to form conclusions.
Today, Year 3 completed their first lesson using Turtle Logo. They used a range of commands to move their turtle and draw shapes.
