Maple Class - Year Three (Miss Bickerdyke)

​​​​​​Welcome to Maple Class!

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A very warm welcome back to school for Spring term I hope you've all had a lovely holiday with your families and are ready for the next 6 weeks! We have lots of exciting learning ready to do!

Topic

Rock and Roll!

For this half term, we will be learning about The Stone Age, we will be comparing life then to now. We'll be learning about what the Earth is made up of and how this relates to natural disasters, such as volcanoes and earthquakes. We will then look at how the people in The Stone Age through cave paintings and we will create some of our own!

This half term,  we will be doing Rock and Roll dance in PE, this will be taught by a specialist dance teacher on a Tuesday morning.

Our science this half term is focused on rocks, we will be learning about their properties and starting to carry out their own investigations and experiments. 

For this half term, we are going to focus on a novel as a theme, we are going to be learning about a book called "The Stone Age." We will be reading "How to wash a woolly mammoth" and "UG - The boy genius." This will provide the children with the structure and vocabulary to write their own story towards the end of the half term.

This half term we are going to be focusing on reading comprehension, we will be doing a comprehension session each week. We will be reading a range of poetry, fiction and non-fiction texts and answering questions about the characters, events and the setting. We will be making inferences about the characters thoughts and feelings. We will start to look at justifying our opinions using evidence and quotes from the text.

We will be doing 2 spellings sessions a week, where the children are learning, practising and applying the new words. We will also be doing 2 grammar sessions a week and to begin with we will be looking at word types and sentence structure.

Maths

For the first half term we will be consolidating our knowledge of addition and subtraction, before moving onto multiplication and division. We will do this through practical, concrete and abstract learning, where the children will use a range of objects, mental strategies, jottings and formal written methods. 

During Autumn 2, the children will be focusing on:

• Column method for subtraction.
• Estimating and inverse.
• Times tables - 3x, 4x and 8x
• Multiplication methods.
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It is really important that children are confident with addition and subtraction as this will support their learning in all other areas of maths. Any adding and subtracting they can do at home will help e.g. shopping lists, ingredients and playing games.

We will also be focusing on learning times tables, we will begin by ensuring the children are confident with 2x, 5x and 10x before moving onto 3x, 4x and 8x.

I will be putting some homework on MyMaths for the children to complete, this will help reinforce the learning we are doing in class.

RE

We will start by looking at promises, what it means to make a promise and who the children have made promises to. We will then move onto looking at baptism and confirmation and what that entails.

We will end the half term by looking at the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

General class information

• Reading is one of the most important skills we teach our children, whether it is a nonfiction text to help them research, a set of instructions to help them make something or reading a fiction to improve their imagination and provide them with amazing vocabulary. We ask that you read with your child 3 or 4 times a week, although they will be provided with a reading book, it is great if you can they have a different book that they are engaged with. Encourage children to use their phonics to help with word reading and use expression in their voice once they are fluent.  
  There are not many children bringing in their reading records, this could hinder their progress.

• PE will take place every Tuesday morning, please ensure children have their PE kits in school and they are clearly labelled.

• Toast is available for snack but children must bring £1 at the beginning of the week and they will get a slice of toast each day. Children can bring cereal bars, fruit or veg from home for a snack too. Water will be available throughout the day, children can bring their own bottle but it must be labelled.
   
• Homework is sent home at the beginning of each half term and they have until the last week to complete it.

If you have any queries or want to chat about your child’s progress, feel free to catch me after school on the playground or make an appointment with Mrs Thompson in the school office.