Welcome back to Year 3 who have returned with an amazing attitude to their learning 🙂 Our new topic is called Gods & Mortals and is all about the Ancient Greeks. As there are so many things to learn about, this topic will take us all the way up to Easter!

Next week, Year 3 will be taking a visit to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) to find out more about the Ancient Greeks and to take part in a series of workshops. Year 2 should have already bought home a letter explaining our visit, if not please ask for another.

Our visit will last the whole day and we will also spend time exploring the museum.

Have a look at this link to find out more http://www.bmkids.org.uk/preload.htm or this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/ancient_greeks/greek_world/

During Maths week this year, Year 3 have focused their learning around the story ‘The Royal Treasure Measure’ by Trudy Harris. This is a story all about the problems  King Balbazar and his subjects have  because they do not have a standard unit for measure!

There are problems with  making doors, curtains and royal robes fit, so the king decides to hold a competition to find a standard unit of measurement. People in his kingdom used everything to measure with – from candles to sausages!

During the week, Year 3 worked collaboratively to first estimate and then measure accurately to the nearest centimetre and some to the nearest millimetre. Then the challenge was set to find total measurements of two shorter pieces of chain as the king needed chains of certain lengths for different occasions. This was a tricky challenge because Year 3 had to apply their previous learning of written strategies to solve the problem. Would every two pieces of chain meet the criteria? Extra challenge also had some children using decimal amounts to add together!

Ask Year 3 to explain and demonstrate their addition skills.

Year three have been busy learning all about a new genre of writing – persuasion. Persuasive writing contains lots of features that are new to the children. Rhetorical questions, sentences that talk to the reader to make them want something, superlative, apostrophes for contraction, expanded noun phrases and prepositions to aid description. Then finishing up with a slogan.

With our topic focus being Heroes & Villains, Year 3 have designed their own gadget that every superhero needs. Have a look at their writing, does it persuade you that you need these new products?

This week things took an unexpected turn for Year 3 with a visit from one of the most infamous villains in children’s fiction – Cruella de Vil! She requested that Year 3 found her more puppies and quickly! So they came up with a cunning plan to trick her by designing and making puppies from junk.

After exploring the mountains of junk (plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, tubes and plastic cups) Year 3 created a labelled design and then worked collaboratively with a friend to build a puppy.

Year 3 have been exploring a new genre of writing this week, it has been poetry with a focus on Haiku poetry. Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry that follows a specific pattern.

Haiku poems consist of 3 lines.  The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables.  The lines rarely rhyme. Haikus are usually written about things that are recognisable to the reader.

After reading lots of examples and performing, Y3 wrote and performed their own Haiku poetry.

Listen carefully, can you identify the theme of each poem? Can you count the syllables accurately?

This half term has been extremely busy for Year 3 and has finished up with a wonderful display of our reports outside the classroom. All children researched information necessary to write about either a tiger or gorilla. Year 3 used a skeleton plan to record their information in words or short phrases and then used this to write their own reports. Have a read and see what you can learn about these amazing animals.

Have a look and see if you can see some of the features.
Can you spot the main heading and sub headings?
Is the report written in the present tense?
Has the writer organised their information into paragraphs?
Has the write included prepositions or a noun, www sentences in their writing?

Year 3 have quickly become experts and know lots of information about gorillas and tigers.  Ask them more when you see them around school.

This week has been Book Week at St. Clement’s and Year 3 have been busy researching, planning and writing non-chronological reports all about animals. Some of Y3 have focused on tigers and others on gorillas.

These video clips from National Geographic Kids helped to inspire our writing and also art work, along with reading a range of non-fiction texts.

Next week Y3 will be using their line drawings in a Pop Art style.