Wye
Year 3

English and History

The children and I are starting our learning journey through Britain’s history with the primitive three stages of the Stone Age: the Palaeolithic era (the earliest and most primitive stage), the Mesolithic era (concluding period of hunter-gatherer cultures in Europe), and the final stage of the Neolithic era (settlement in permanent villages, and the appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving). We will also be learning about the Bronze and Iron age this term.

We will first, be writing a non-chronological report upon the substantial era of the Stone Age. Next, we will be writing instructional text on how to ‘Wash a Woolly Mammoth’ and after, writing a diary entry of the day in the life of a Stone Age person. We will also be creating autumn poetry using our five senses to describe.

Maths

This half term, we will be focusing mainly on place value, addition and subtraction work and heavily on our times tables. The National Curriculum states by the end of Year 3 pupils should have memorised their multiplication table and division facts for 2, 10, 5, 3, 4 and 8. With this in mind, we are using the ‘Frog Maths’ challenge to encourage your child to learn their tables and number facts in a fun and easy way. It is a challenge which will be given to them each week to improve their number bonds, complements to 100, multiplication and division facts. ‘Frog Maths’ aims to encourage children to become more fluent through varied and frequent practice, to recall and apply their knowledge of fundamental Maths skills.

Science

In Science this half term we will be investigating rocks and soils, learning about the different types of rock formations and comparing and grouping different kinds of rocks on their appearance and properties. We will discover how fossils are formed and trapped within sedimentary rocks. In addition, we will be looking at different soils to recognise that they are made from rocks and organic matter. With this in mind, if anyone can provide some different soil samples from various locations for us to test, I would be most grateful.

Following half term, we will be learning about magnets and forces. We will be investigating different forces, magnetic and non-magnetic materials and the magnetic field surrounding a magnet. The children are always excited and keen to use magnets!

Art and Design

In Art, the children will use the natural environment and the work of famous artists as inspiration for their autumnal artwork, such as Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Pollack Jackson and Andy Goldsworthy. They will explore a range of artistic techniques, including drawing with pencil, using colour and paint, printing, collage and paper, to create artwork inspired by nature and leaves.

In Design and Technology, the children will be designing and creating appliqué lavender bags, which we are hoping to display during the Christmas Fayre.

Home Learning

Spellings will be given out each week in the weekly class email, and the children will be tested on these each Friday. Please encourage your child to learn their spellings at home in readiness for their Friday spelling tests.

Homework will be project based and set each half term. The projects will be designed to make their topic learning more engaging and will be due in during the week before each school break.