WEEKS 9 - 10 END OF TERM 3!

Literacy

What an end to the term for Literacy! All term we have been sharing with you the research our Year 3 students have been doing about Jackie French and examining her books to learn from how she writes such engaging stories. We have also shared the writing skills the students have been developing especially around sentence fluency which includes the use of language features, a variety of adjectives, verbs and adverbs, different sentence starters and the types and lengths of sentences. We have also focused on punctuation and handwriting. Our students combined all these skills to generate an idea, plan, draft, revise and edit a narrative text of their own choosing. THEN... they PUBLISHED their stories!

The students were so excited to have an authentic audience (you - their families!) for their writing and proudly displayed their published texts at our Author's Showcase.

The Author's Showcase on Wednesday afternoon was a huge success with over 100 family members spending an hour in our classrooms, participating in student created quizzes on Jackie French, viewing a small selection of the over 100 books Ms French has written, and, most importantly, reading our own authors (Year 3 students) stories! From all the feedback received and the smiling faces from families, students and teachers, all the hard work put in by everyone this term was definitely worth it!

Maths

Week 10 was a big week for literacy but we still love Maths!

We continued with multiplication and division, using problem solving questions to think of several strategies we can use to solve real life mathematical problems.

Our students also created their own paper version of an analogue clock as they are learning to be able to read the time. Feel free to test the students over the holidays!

Number fluency is a big focus for us to have our students develop their mental strategies to solve single (and some double) digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division equations.

Challenge Based Learning - Power

We ended our Challenge Based Learning inquiry on Power, with students generating their own solution to the challenge "How can we inform people about human and natural events and the impacts on the environment?" Our students created dioramas, re-using existing materials, to represent scenarios such as deforestation, fires, floods, littering and other human and natural events and gave presentations to their classes about the impact on the environment caused by these events. These creations and presentations had students wondering what is within their power to protect the environment.

We wish everyone a safe and happy break and look forward to Term 4 (with your hats!). Ciao

Weeks 7-8

Literacy

Literacy was jam-packed this fortnight!

Week 7 was the Annual Book Week with nearly all students across the whole school dressing up on Friday as a literary character. The teachers got in on the act too! The day ended with a Year 3 costume parade with the students being really supportive and respectful towards each other. Well done Year 3! The photos show the fun everyone experienced.

Students began their narrative writing with planning in Week 7 and drafting (or as we call it in 3E "write, write, write") in Week 8. The students are loving writing their narrative texts and are excited for revision and editing next week followed by showcasing their published narrative text in Week 10.

3E and 3F presented their knowledge of Jackie French, our topic for our term author study, at assembly this afternoon. Arya, Manuki, Zach and Samira wrote the amazing script themselves and the two classes combined to share their learnings on successful reading and writing. Great team work 3E and 3F!

Maths

Year 3 students have continued developing their understanding and fluency with multiplication and division these past two weeks. Problem solving activities were included requiring students to carefully read the question and consider several strategies to solve the problem.

Creating and interpreting simple grid maps have also been a focus with students learning about x and y axis co-ordinates on grid maps and directional language for example, north, south, east, west, left, right, forward and backward. The students set a task for their classmates to follow a detailed route using co-ordinates and directional language around our school with the aim of reaching the correct destination. Check out some photos of 3E collaborating with one another to find their destination and then as a whole class, reflecting on why accurate instructions are important.

Challenge Based Learning - Power

Our students are continuing their investigation into natural disasters, the impact on our environment and what is within our power to protect our environment. Students will be creating dioramas to represent their learning. You will have to wait until the end of term to see their work!

These photos show 3E and 3F examining Aitken Creek, across the road from school, for native animal and bird life and to identify any changes in the terrain.

During Week 5 and 6, students have been deepening their understanding when reading by engaging in Reading Responses. Reading Responses is one of the most effective techniques readers do to form new ideas and develop a deeper understanding of fiction and non fiction texts. Students practiced asking questions as they read, writing statements in response to their own questions and giving their opinion on the text. When writing statements and giving their opinion needed to provide evidence from the text to ensure that anyone could understand what was being said without needing to read the same book. In Writing, students have continued to practice building their sentence fluency. They engaged in activities such as comparing sentences purposes (question, statement, exclamation and command) and the punctuation needed in each sentence, expanding on simple sentences by adding conjunctions as well as considering 'who, what, where, when, why and how' to provide more detail.

Over the last fortnight, Year 3 students have been introduced to multiplication and division. They explored how different strategies can be used to solve a multiplication number sentence. Some of the strategies used including groups of, arrays, repeated addition, skip counting and doubling. Students identified that division is the inverse of multiplication and therefore created fact families. They will continue to explore and deepen their understanding of multiplication and division over the next few weeks to build their fluency of recalling number facts.

Within our applied unit, we have consolidated our understanding of chance and probability. Students engaged in chance experiments where they made predictions based on observing the possible outcomes, recording their results and comparing the outcomes to their prediction. To conclude our unit, students were given an open ended task to create a bag of marbles with an almost certain chance of drawing out a red marble.

Over the last fortnight, students have continued to explore Jackie French texts for sentence fluency. Students were identifying the sentence starters Jackie uses in her writing as well as the length of her sentences. Through exploring these, students then developed their understanding of sentence types (simple, compound and complex) and the need to use various sentence types in our writing. In addition to sentence types, students have also been building their understanding of punctuation and their importance when reading and writing. Punctuation allows the reader to know how a sentence should be read and where a sentence ends (boundary punctuation).

Students have continued to develop their comprehension skills when reading a text through using the Book Head Heart protocol, specifically focusing on inferencing. An inference is when readers read between the lines to understand what the author has not directly told us.

Book Week will be celebrated on Friday August 26th! We can't wait to dress up in our favourite characters! Don't forget the Premier's Reading Challenge ends September 2nd. You can access student log in details via Showbie or by contacting your child's teacher. You can add texts by following this link: https://vprcidentity.eduweb.vic.gov.au/account/login

During Week 3 and 4, Year 3 students have been consolidating their understanding of fractions. Students demonstrated fractions using a set model, compared fractions and applied their understanding of problem solving. At the end of our Fractions unit, students demonstrated their understanding by creating posters of their learning. They have also been applying their understanding of fractions through experimenting with a bottle flip and finding which fraction the bottle needs to be filled to achieve a bottle flip.

Within our applied unit, we began exploring Chance and Probability. As a class we developed our understanding of the vocabulary used to describe the likelihood of an event occurring and placed them in order on a gradient scale. Students played The Tough 6, Greedy Pig and Tricky Track to develop their awareness of the probability of a die.

During Week 3 and 4, students continued to explore our big idea of Power and developed their understanding of animals through researching to find out about features, diet, habitat, life cycles and threats. Some of the animals they explored included the African Lion, Hippopotamus, Swift Parrots, Baw Baw Frog and many more! Students were engaged in using the Melbourne Zoo resources to support their resource, watched videos and wrote notes on the key information. They were then given time to create an informative poster with their findings. Some of the threats that harmed animals included natural disasters. The Year 3 Students have begun exploring these and their impact on living things. They will continue to find out more about this as the term progresses and identify what power we as humans have to reduce these effects!

3C and 3D presented their learning at our Week 4 Assembly. Well done Goerge, Muhammad, Ibrahim and Haya for speaking at our assembly on behalf of their peers! To share their learning with the rest of the school, we created a Kahoot! You can play at home by using this link: https://create.kahoot.it/share/year-3-cbl/6c6353a5-068d-44b3-bb8e-1569f007421f

Literacy