Year 3 

Hello Year 3 Parents and Carers, 👋

We're thrilled to be back for Autumn Term 2! The children have returned with fantastic energy, ready to continue their journey as LEO Explorers 🌟. They are showing great curiosity and focus as we embark on new topics, upholding the LEO values of Learning, Excellence, and Opportunity.

English - Writing ✍️🌋

Our writing focus has been explosive this fortnight! We've been immersing ourselves in descriptive writing by creating a vivid setting description of a volcano. To ensure a detailed and powerful result, the children broke the volcano down into three distinct parts: underground, inside the chambers, and outside following an eruption.

Our LEO Explorers revisited using their five senses to capture the atmosphere. They successfully layered previous grammatical skills and concentrated on two key new skills: using apostrophes for contractions (e.g., it's, can't) and incorporating a range of coordinating conjunctions (e.g., and, but, or) to craft descriptive, powerful, and vivid sentences.

Maths ➕🧠

In Maths, our Explorers have transitioned smoothly into addition, focusing on efficient mental strategies. The children have been learning to bridge 10 and 100 to add two 3-digit numbers. We are deliberately differentiating between where mental methods can be more efficient and accurate than formal written methods like the column method. This approach develops their critical thinking by encouraging them to select the most suitable strategy for each calculation, proving that mental agility can often be the most effective way to solve problems.

Wider Curriculum

Geography 🌎

We have launched our new Geography challenge this term! This week, the children have been dissecting the Earth's layers (crust, mantle, core). They worked as keen geographers to correctly order, describe, and research a key fact about each layer. This investigative work directly supports their understanding of how the internal structure of our planet relates to external features like volcanoes, showing fantastic research skills.

Anti-Bullying Week: Odd Socks Day! 🧦💜

This week, we took part in Anti-Bullying Week, focusing on the importance of kindness and celebrating what makes us all unique. We had a brilliant time recognising this special week with Odd Socks Day, promoting the message that it’s okay to be different! The children also showed off their creativity by designing their very own fantastic odd socks. This helped us reflect on the core value of respect for one another.

We look forward to sharing more of our LEO Explorers' discoveries in the coming weeks!

Best wishes,

The Year 3 Team

Children are expected to complete the following: 

• At least 5 reads in their reading diary each week 

• Century is here! A piece of maths and English homework will be set every Thursday with a due date of the following Monday. The homework will appear at the bottom under 'assignments'. The pathway at the top is suggested additional work that can be worked through as and when but is not an expectation to be completed. 

• 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 Century 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.