What a wonderful first few weeks year 3 have had since the summer holidays.

In English, we have started to read our class text "Akimbo and the Elephants". The text is about a boy who lives on a game reserve in Africa and wants to protect the animals. To start exploring this text, we wrote poems about the different animals in the text. We came up with a specific structure for the poems and the children make them as creative as possible. We were very impressed with their first piece of writing this half term. 

In maths, we have started the year by exploring place value. In year 2, the focus was on tens and ones whereas in year 3 we introduce the hundreds place value. The children have showed a great understanding of larger numbers. To explore further, we have looked at making numbers 10 more/less, 100 more/less and looking at how to do this mentally by understanding the place value of number. We also used the dienes to explore making numbers bigger/small and how to partition them to show the value of the digits.  

This week's spelling rule was spelling the /j/ phoneme in different ways. First the children looked at the different ways to spell the /j/ sounds before then exploring different words that are spelt with them. From that, we looked at why we spell the /j/ phoneme in different ways. Once we looked at the rules, the children were able to understand why certain words were spelt in certain ways.

Across the foundation subjects we have started to explore: humans and the body in science (including diet), the continent Africa in geography, Hinduism in RE and 'being me' in PSHE. 

To begin our PSHE topic of 'being me', we discussed what we have done that we are proud of and what we had to do to achieve that. Not only did we think about ourselves, we also thought about our peers and how we are proud of their achievements. We can't wait to see all of their achievements across year 3!

Children are expected to complete the following: 

• At least 5 reads in their reading diary each week 

• Please keep your eyes peeled for a new, exciting app for homework called Century! We will update you when this begins. 

• Times table rock stars does not have to be completed daily, but it is encouraged to practise as much as possible.

Children are not expected to do Doodle and Times Table Rockstars every evening at home, but little and often is ideal! Thank you for your support :)

Please note, the inside of the reading diaries have changed. There are dates on each page and a 'homework' section on the left hand side but please ignore these. Please see the image below of how to insert the reads into the new reading diaries.