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Year 3 – Amber and Vermillion

Welcome to Year 3.

Our Teachers are Mrs Wood and Mrs Hornblow and our Teaching Assistants are Mrs Kotrcova, Mr Le Roch and Mrs Da Palma.

  • A day in the life of a Roman soldier!

    What a busy week; our transition session in Year 4; our school open evening; and our Roman Day today!

    Here are some photos of our fabulous day!

    Everyone made a shield (scutum) and a sword (gladius).

    We marched down to the playground with our shields and made the testudo (tortoise) formation, which made the Roman army so strong and powerful.

    We took part on a slow-motion battle. It was very dramatic.

    We also made strong structures and pneumatic devices to make weapons inspired by the Roman ballista and onager.

    Have a lovely weekend Year 3!

  • Magical Maths: spirals, pentagons, triangles and measuring mocktails!

    This week in year 3 we were learning about volume and capacity in Maths, with all these skills to make our own ideal mocktails using these maths skills, they had to be very precise so it tasted the best!

    In Science we explored the parts of a flower and even dissected one and put the parts on a dissecting mat! See  our photos below.

    In RE we thought about creation through patterns in nature. We discovered that pentagons and spirals are often present in nature and we even looked at the fibonacci sequence behind these patterns. Some people we very taken with this and worked out the sequence a very long way. But everyone agreed that nature is awesome!

    In English we started our final topic learning the story ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark’ and started to plan our own story with an animal of our choice and something they are afraid of.

    Finally in DT we explored how to make structures strong by using a single piece of paper. We found that folding the paper into triangles made it very strong. See below.

    We have 2 more recorder lessons before our Summer Concert so please keep practising,

    Have a great weekend!

    Year 3 team

     

     

  • Pots of art!

    Our week has been very focused on Art and Pottery. We have been working hard on our portraits ready for you to take a look at and perhaps buy at our Open Day. On Wednesday and Thursday everyone had the opportunity to make a Roman Face Pot with Mrs Booy. She is taking them to dry out, fire in her kiln and glaze them ready to bring them back in so everyone can take their pot home. It was a wonderful workshop and we are very grateful to the parents who helped in both classes.

    Meanwhile we heard about an amazing discovery in the playground over the Easter holidays and are working on our reporting skills to write about it next week In Maths we learnt about tenths. Great work Year 3!

    Have a wonderful weekend.

    The Year 3 team.

     

     

  • A creative week!

    This week has been a really creative one, practising our skills ready to  make our Roman face pots next week and our portraits. So we have made coil pots out of plasticine and practised sketching from drawings. In RE we continued our creative theme by making each day of the Creation story in paper and plasticine. Please see below! As you can see Day 6 was popular!

     

    Meanwhile we continued to work hard on finding change from an amount in Maths and writing gripping descriptions of a rainforest and volcano in English.

    We hope you have a wonderful weekend,

    The Year 3 team.

     

  • Spectacular Magnetic Forces, Special Dream writing and a Sparkling Sports Day!

    In our final week before the half term break we have been working hard. In English we finished our narrative writing based on the dream giver by writing a story the dream we would choose to have. It was a lovely chance to use our imaginations- our dreams ranged from sports and dance related themes to visiting animals in the rainforest.

    We continued to work on time and found the top marks time games very helpful to develop our skills (we have a link on google classroom). But our favourite Maths lesson this week was when we had a variety of timed tasks to do. It really helped everyone understand how long seconds and minutes are.

    In Science we completed our topic on magnets by comparing the strength of different types of magnets. We did this by testing how many paperclips would attach to each type of magnet. See the photos below.

    Well done to the whole of Year 3 for making this Sports Day one to remember. Everyone worked really hard and encouraged one another.  A special congratulations to Vermillion Class for earning the most number of points! There are plenty of photos on the school’s instagram account.

    Have a wonderful half term break.

    We look forward to welcoming you all bak for our final half term in Year 3.

    The Year 3 team.

  • Magnets, minutes and mosaics!

    Magnets: in Science we investigated materials that are magnetic and are not magnetic. We tested a whole array of metals and were surprised that only metals with iron or nickel are magnetic. Everyone worked hard as a team making sure everyone got a hands-on chance to test all the materials.

    Minutes: in Maths we worked hard on our telling the time skills using analogue and digital time. Everyone made progress but minutes to the hour was the most tricky part. Everyone has questions to practice at home this weekend for home work.

    Mosaics: after seeing the hypocaust and mosaic floors on our trip to Verulamium  we had a chance to work on our own mosaics. It was deceptively difficult but the children all showed resilience and it made us appreciate the work the Romans  did all those years ago.

    In other news we finished our dream giver narratives and recapped how to punctuate speech. Next week everyone will have the opportunity to think about what they would leave out for their dream. We can’t wait to read them.

    In PSHCE we all signed a document promising  to only take medicine given by a trusted adult.

    Today we went to the field for the first time this year and came back exhausted after trying out the exciting and demanding new carousel of activities we will have for Sports Day next Friday.

    Have a lovely weekend,

    The Year 3 team.

  • Roman Revelations!

    Our week started with our trip to Verulamium Park and Museum. We really immersed ourselves in Roman life; we entered Verulamium via the gate and were wowed by the mosaic floor at the hypocaust. Once we were in the museum we explored the Roman exhibits, drawing artefacts and finding out fascinating facts. Finally, we dressed up as Roman people and were given a shopping list. We then worked in groups, handling artefacts at market stalls to choose the things we needed. Please see the photos below.

    In the classroom we explored more Roman artefacts and thought about what objects might have been used for.

    Our Roman theme continued in Maths, we learnt about Roman numerals and told the time using a clock face with Roman numerals. We also learnt this song to help us remember the number of days in each month of the year.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjrjMxddJe0

    In other news we continued to write our gripping narrative about the dream giver and created fact files about Ramadan. In Art we continued to create our articulated animals.

    We hope you have a lovely weekend,

    Year 3 team.

  • A mysterious, magical creature, invisible forces and being a Celtic spy!

    We have had a wonderful week of learning, helped by the wonderful weather and our exciting new Opal playground.

    We continued to write about the mesmerising, magical and mysterious dream giver. We worked with thesauruses to develop our vocabulary and then used these powerful words to create impressive pieces of writing describing the dreams he created for the orphans.

    In Maths we used long division to solve problems, the children showed resilience working on this tricky skill.

    In Science we began our new topic exploring the force of magnetism. Each group was given a board, some metal objects and 2 different types of magnets. This experiment helped us see that magnetism is not a contact force. Each child also felt the repel force of really strong magnets. Please see the photos below.

    In RE we began learning about Ramadan and in History we were Celtic spies sent to create maps of Roman settlements. There were clues around the classroom and the children had to remember the information and put it on their plan. See see photos below. We think they made good spies and are ready for our class trip to Verulamium and the museum.

    Please remember we have our school trip to the museum in Verulamium Park on Tuesday. Please make sure they have comfortable shoes (we will be doing a lot of walking), a packed lunch that they can carry, water and appropriate clothing (sunhat/suncream on before school).

    Thank you for your support, we hope you have a wonderful long weekend,

    Year 3 team.

  • Welcome back for the Summer Term!

    We hope you had a restful Easter Holiday, it has been lovely welcoming you all back after the break ready for another exciting term in Year 3.  We have lots to look forward to: our school trip and Sports Day to name  just two special events.

    In English the children started a new learning sequence about a mysterious dream giver. We worked on using adverbs to describe him and enjoyed writing a character description of him. In  Maths we continued practising our division skills and we started our new topics in History and Art. In History we learnt a song to support our knowledge about the Romans invading Britain. In Art we are creating 2D articulated animals and in this week’s lesson everyone chose an animal, cut out all the parts and articulated it with split pins. This helped us understand what we will need to do when we create our own.

    The biggest news of the week has to be the new playground and the Opal activities we have started. The children all loved it. Please see the photos below.

    Have a lovely weekend,

    The Year 3 team.

  • Fantastic Week of Learning!

    We have been very busy in our final week before the Easter holidays. We finished our Magic Box poems and performed them to each other. This also helped us  with our PSHE topic about feelings and strategies to help us with processing grief; whether that be from moving house to the death of a pet or beloved relative.

    We have focused on RE this week exploring 3 different crosses that helped us think about the meaning of Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Everyone loved the vibrant colourful Easter crosses from South America and they inspired us to create joyful Easter crosses.

    In Art we completed our learning sequence exploring how to make a model of an animal from plasticine inspired by The Wild Robot. We had some very impressive results. Please see below for a variety of examples.

    In Maths we continued to practise our division skills. Everyone used Dienes to prove their answers. Please see photos below.

    Have a wonderful Easter holiday! We look forward to welcoming you all back for the Summer term.

    The Year 3 team