Year 3 

Hello Year 3 Parents and Carers, 👋

We've had another successful two weeks with our LEO Explorers 🌟 as we continue to deepen our understanding of our termly topics. The children have shown great creativity and critical thinking by connecting their learning across different subjects, truly embodying the LEO values of Learning, Excellence, and Opportunity.

English - Writing 🌋📝

This fortnight, our LEO Explorers beautifully combined their geographical knowledge of volcanoes with their literacy skills to compose fantastic free verse poems. The focus was on using vivid imagery and specific language features, with the children successfully incorporating similes (comparing one thing to another using 'like' or 'as') and alliteration (the repetition of initial sounds) to create descriptive and powerful verses. This cross-curricular writing task allowed them to use their volcano research in a creative and expressive way.

Maths ➕➖🧠

In Maths, the children continued to strengthen their mental addition and subtraction strategies for 3-digit numbers. We focused on mastering three key efficient methods:

1. Adjusting: (e.g., to add 99, you add 100 then subtract 1).

2. Adjusting with Near Doubles: (e.g., $45 + 46$ is the same as $45 \times 2 + 1$).

3. Partitioning: Breaking the numbers into hundreds, tens, and ones and adding them separately.

By practising these strategies, our LEO Explorers are becoming more flexible and accurate, developing the critical thinking required to select the most appropriate method for any given calculation.

Science 🧲

The children have begun their exploration of magnetism! They conducted exciting investigations, testing a variety of objects to classify them as magnetic or non-magnetic. Through this practical inquiry, our LEO Explorers developed strong research skills and were able to form scientific conclusions about the relationship between metals and magnetism, concluding that some metals, such as iron, are magnetic, but not all metals are.

Geography 🌋

Our geographers have advanced their understanding of volcanoes by exploring the two main types: composite and shield volcanoes. They learned about the different shapes and eruption styles associated with each type. To bring this learning to life, we used Nearpod to take an interactive, Virtual Reality (VR) field trip to a real volcanic site! Using their knowledge of volcano types and physical features, the children made reasoned predictions and conclusive observations about the specific volcanoes they could see, demonstrating excellent analytical skills.

Design Technology (DT) 🏰

To prepare for their castle design build, pupils have been focusing on the geometry of 3D shapes. They first designed their castles using 2D shapes but also annotating design with which 3D shapes would be required. They have then explored the nets of a cone and a cylinder to understand how these 2D shapes fold up to form the turrets and towers of a castle. This exploration of nets is essential for the planning stage, ensuring the children can accurately design and construct their castle models in the weeks to come, fostering great problem-solving skills.

We look forward to sharing more of our LEO Explorers' continued success next time!

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.