Term 1

WEEK 8 & 9

Weeks 8 and 9 have been filled with exciting events, including our Police Incursion and Harmony Day! After NAPLAN, we’ve smoothly settled back into our routine. The students have been progressing with their Adventure Narratives unit, while finishing our Addition and Subtraction unit and commencing a new unit on Odd and Even Numbers. In Applied Maths, we've begun a new unit on Data.

harmony day

On Friday of Week 8, we celebrated Harmony Day. Students and teachers wore clothing from their culture. Some chose to wear orange, a colour symbolic of harmony. Harmony Day is a celebration of diversity and inclusiveness, reminding us to show respect for all people.

We met up with our Prep buddies to do an activity where we drew ourselves in our cultural clothes.

Reading

In Reading, we continued our work on summarising, practising various strategies, including:

Somebody Wanted But So Then
Uh oh, UH OH, Phew!
Summarising based on what the character wants
Using sticky notes to jot and sketch the important details in the text

The next week, we learned about asking questions, before, during and after reading. Questioning helps us engage deeply with a text and strengthen our understanding of what we read. We practised asking questions and answering questions.

writing

In Writing, we continued to generate ideas in our Writer's Notebooks inspired by colours. We also looked at emotions and brainstormed ways to describe emotions in our writing by creating emotion thesauruses.

The students developed their own characters and brainstormed their internal and external traits, strengths and weaknesses.

The next week, we worked on generating ideas, planning our narratives and drafting our narratives. We started with sizzling starts then built up our problem, using the 'Pebble, Rock, Boulder' strategy.

numeracy

In Week 8, we learned about the compensation strategy to help us with addition and subtraction. When we use this strategy, we adjust one number to make it easier to work with. For example, 28 + 35 is the same as 30 + 35 = 65, then we subtract 2 to obtain 63.

In Week 9, we started a new unit on Odd and Even Numbers. We identified the properties of odd and even numbers and created posters demonstrating how to determine if a number is odd or even.

In Applied Maths, we commenced a unit on Data. We started by coming up with matters of interest, possible categories and questions that we could collect data on. The next lesson, we used tally marks to collect data on a chosen matter of interest, by conducting a survey with the class.

challenge based learning

In Week 8, we had an incursion with Craigieburn Police. We learned about their role and responsibilities in the community. The police also showed us the tools they carry when on duty. The students came prepared with thick questions and were excited to find out the answers.

WEEK 6 & 7

The past two weeks of school have been a whirlwind, especially with NAPLAN occurring in Week 7. The students have put in a lot of effort as we continued our unit on adventure narratives in Literacy, as well as our focus on addition and subtraction and applied shape concepts in Numeracy. In CBL, we have been exploring how rules and laws operate within a community. The students have worked incredibly hard and should be proud of their efforts!

reading

In Reading, we focused on visualisation —creating mental images based on what we read or hear. We used clues from the text to help us imagine what is happening. We began by listening to a text, practising visualisation through what we could hear. Afterward, we drew pictures of our visualisations. In another activity, were given the words of a picture book without the pictures. We came up with a visualisation based on the words, drew a picture, then compared our drawing with the actual illustrations to see how closely they matched.

The following week, we learned to summarise narrative texts, using the "Somebody Wanted But So Then" strategy to retell the important events in the text. We also completed our NAPLAN Reading, Writing and Language Conventions tests.

writing

In Writing, we explored sizzling starts, where an author begins a story with an exciting and engaging beginning. A sizzling start can be achieved through:

Onomatopoeia - words that represent sounds, like "Crash! Pow! or Bang!"
Starting in the action
Starting with dialogue

A sizzling start keeps the reader engaged and makes them want to keep reading. We practised using images as a prompt to write a sizzling start to a narrative.

The following week, we looked at the next part in the narrative structure, the problem. We looked at how a problem starts off small and grows and builds in intensity as the story progresses. We referred to this as the Pebble, Rock and Boulder. We discussed how this builds suspense in a narrative. After that, we explored different types of endings, such as happy endings, sad endings, surprise endings, cliffhangers and more. The students then created their own ending for an existing text through a comic strip.

numeracy

In Numeracy, we continued practising addition and subtraction. We used bundling sticks to practise regrouping ones into tens, which helped us understand place value and apply it to adding and subtracting numbers with concrete materials. We also practised regrouping with base ten blocks. One of our activities was playing "Race to 100," where we rolled a die and added the corresponding amount to our base ten blocks. Every time we collected ten ones, we exchanged them for a ten.

In Applied Maths, we continued our unit on Shape, focusing on the differences between prisms and pyramids. We practised matching 3D shapes with their nets. The following week, we built skeleton shapes using modelling clay and toothpicks or icypole sticks. This hands-on activity helped us identify the properties of the shapes, including their vertices, edges, and faces.

Challenge based learning

In CBL, we learned about why we have rules and laws and how they affect our communities. The students had ten minutes to draw an alien and they could be as creative as they wanted with the alien's features and colours. Afterwards, the drawings were scored based on the following rules:

All students start with 20 points.

Give yourself 10 points if your alien has more than 4 eyes
Take 10 points away from your score if your alien has one head
Add 5 points if your alien is tall
Subtract 5 points if your alien has two eyes
Give yourself another 10 points if your alien is not green
If you have red socks on:
Give yourself an extra 100 points if your alien comes from outer space
If you have a name starting with B, F, or G:
Give yourself an extra 100 points if you drew an alien

After that, we had a discussion about whether the rules were fair or not. We also unpacked whether it would have been better to know the rules before the activity began. This prompted us to think deeply about the impact of rules on a community.

In the following lessons, we discussed rules that are specific to certain communities and considered why those rules exist. We also learned about rights and responsibilities and considered different scenarios and how we could address problems in communities.

WEEK 4 & 5

Students participating in a game of GaGa for Year 3 Sport.

It has been a busy two weeks in Grade 3! We have kicked off new units of learning in all subject areas and have settled into our academic routines. In Literacy, we commenced a unit on Adventure Narratives, while in Numeracy, we started our unit on Addition and Subtraction and our applied unit on Shape. In Challenge Based Learning, our Big Idea is Identity.

reading

In Morphology, we looked at words that end in a silent e, and how this makes the vowel say its name. We focused on the split digraph, a-e.

In Reading, we looked at different genres, such as fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, adventure and more. We matched the definition with the genre. After that, we practised making connections to help us deepen our understanding of texts.

We looked at three types of connections:

Text-to-self: When something in the text reminds you of something in your own life
Text-to-text: When something in the text reminds you of something you read or saw in another text.
Text-to-world: When something in the text reminds you of an event in the real world

We also practised making predictions about texts. When we make a prediction, we use evidence in the text, such as the heading and illustrations to anticipate what might happen next. To prepare for NAPLAN, we practised responding to NAPLAN styles questions about texts and reading conventions.

writing

In Writing, we did a series of Writers Notebook activities to help us brainstorm ideas for future writing. We used picture prompts and wrote down our thoughts about the image, thinking about who the character is, their backstory and what might happen to them. After that, we looked at the story mountain as a way of understanding the structure of a narrative and practised identifying the different parts of existing narratives, such as the beginning, problem and solution. We also created our own story mountains with our own story ideas.

We practised responding to prompts and writing persuasive and narrative pieces under test conditions in preparation for NAPLAN.

numeracy

In Numeracy, we looked at 'Part, Part, Whole' as a way to understand and represent addition and subtraction. We used ten frames, number lines and fact families to show the link between addition and subtraction. We also looked at doubles and half doubles as an addition and subtraction strategy. We completed some initial Essential Assessments in Space, Measurement, Statistics and Probability.

In Applied Maths, we started a unit on 3D shapes. We discussed the difference between 2D and 3D shapes and categorised shapes in different ways, prompting us to pay attention to their properties. We also created posters about different 3D shapes.

Challenge based learning

This term, in CBL, our Big Idea is Identity. In our first lesson, we looked at provocations, including pictures and videos to help us think about the connection between identity and community. The students wrote down what they thought and noticed in their CBL books. After that, we unpacked the definition of identity and community. We created identity webs, showing all the different communities we belong to. In the following lessons we looked at the difference between rules and laws and how they support our community. Students had a go at creating their own law and providing reasons for why the law should be passed.

WEEK 1, 2 & 3

Welcome to 2025! In the past three weeks, the Grade 3 students and teachers have been getting to know each other and have settled into their new classes. It has been so exciting meeting everyone and seeing so many friendly faces!

On the first day of school, each class had their first community meeting, shared stories about their holidays and facts about each other while practising respectful listening. The students received their own pencil cases and stationary and were so excited to label and organise their new materials.

We played a team building game called 'Traffic Lights.'

Through the Learning to Learn program, we have unpacked the school values of respect, responsibility, teamwork and achievement across various areas of the school, and have established classroom routines, using the SWPBS (School Wide Positive Behaviour Support) and CWPBS (Class Wide Positive Behaviour Support) matrix to guide us.

The students participated in team building activities to develop their teamwork skills and get to know one another.

We practised using a growth mindset and demonstrated teamwork and respectful communication by making card towers.

class routines and expectations

The Grade 3 classes unpacked various classroom routines such as:

Being mindful and safe while lining up and moving around the school
Establishing a morning routine so students know what needs to be done each morning as they enter the classroom
Creating an afternoon routine for what needs to be done at the end of every school day before going home
Creating an attention signal so students can stop, look and listen for instructions from the teacher

We demonstrated responsibility by practising the morning routine.

learning to learn

The Grade 3 classes discussed strategies that to help us be ready to learn, including the importance of having a growth mindset. Through a growth mindset, we believe that we can achieve our goals if we keep trying, use different strategies and ask for help. We can't do it, YET. We use the learning pit as a visual to describe the experience of learning something new. It can be challenging and demoralising at first, but as we try different strategies, work with others and think it through, we make our way out of the pit and emerge with a new skill!

Sometimes our emotions become overwhelming and in order to respond to them, we need to be able to identify our emotions. We revisited the Zones of Regulation as a tool for helping as identify how we are feeling. Each Grade 3 class has a sanctuary where students can go when when they are not in the Green Zone, to help them regulate. Classes discussed expectations for the sanctuary space, as as well as other strategies that can be used to help students calm themselves and be ready to learn. We unpacked the catastrophe scale as a way of ranking our problems and determining how to respond to them. We also discussed the 'Stop, Walk, Talk' strategy and how we can use it to respond to inappropriate behaviour.

Students discussed what it means to be safe. Then each student identified 5 trusted adults they can talk to if they feel unsafe and need help.

To prepare for Literacy, we created Literacy Norms, set up our classroom library and chose good fit books for our Book Boxes. We also practised our reading stamina, which refers to how long we can read without losing focus.

We also practised 'Turn and Talks', where students have a brief chat with a partner about their learning by responding to questions.

We went to the library to borrow take home readers. We demonstrated responsibility by tidying up the shelves.

To prepare for Numeracy, we created our Maths Norms, learned how to use our maths books appropriately and practised using a growth mindset during problem solving.

We are off to a great start and ready to kick off our literacy, numeracy and CBL units!

Page updated

Report abuse