Spring Term
Curriculum News
Topic: - Castaway
This term Year 3 will be undertaking work on a topic based around Iceland, St Lucia and Wales. The topic will have a strong geography focus yet will allow many opportunities to explore all other curriculum areas within our work.
LITERACY
Some work will be based on the class topic, however, other areas covered will include:-
Fiction - Play scripts
Non-Fiction - Recount & Explanation texts, Instructional texts, Letter writing and News Reports
Spellings - Weekly spellings
Handwriting - Joins and fluency
Other - In addition to the above themes pupils will also undertake a range of work focusing on grammar, dictionary skills and reading.
How can you help? We will be continuing with our Big Write literacy programme during the term. As last term, pupils will bring ‘talking homework’ home on a weekly basis. This is a great opportunity to enjoy some time together where you can talk around a subject the pupils will be writing about in their Big Write sessions. This programme was a great success last term with the pupils making good progress in their writing, we hope that with the pupils continued hard work and your support their writing skills will continue to develop this term. Please also ensure that your child has learnt the weekly spellings and wherever and whenever possible, enjoy a book together.
MATHS
As in the previous term, number work will continue to be taught in sets. The Year 3 set will be taught by Miss Potts. During daily mathematics sessions work will focus on the four operations, fractions, place value and properties of numbers. Pupils will continue to learn times tables and the teaching of mental maths strategies will be undertaken daily. Work in Shape, Data and Measure lessons will focus on angles, co-ordinates, bar graphs and 2D/3D shapes. Other work will focus on problem solving using the mathematical topics above.
How can you help? Practice the times tables with your child – they will be tested on a regular basis.
SCIENCE
Materials & Their Uses - We will investigate different materials, their properties and the different way in which they are used.
Mixing Materials - We will investigate Solids, Liquids, Melting, Freezing and what happens when solids and liquids are mixed.
Scientific Enquiry - Making careful observations & suggesting explanations for observations; using scientific knowledge and understanding; planning and carrying out a fair test; making observations and measurements; recognising when to repeat measurements; presenting results in a variety of ways.
HISTORY
There will be no specific teaching of History this term, however elements of the subject may be taught through topic work and other curriculum areas.
GEOGRAPHY
During the term pupils will investigate the physical and human features of Iceland and St Lucia and will compare and contrast different aspects of these places with one another and with Wales.
RE
Light and Colour - Pupils will be studying stories from the Bible as well as various festivals in the Jewish and Christian faiths. This work will be approached through craft, drama and writing and will dovetail into some literacy work. In March pupils will look at the events leading up to Easter.
ART
Work on this subject will revolve around our topic theme and will focus on the investigation of hot and cold colours with pupils learning to mix them more precisely. They will apply this knowledge to create a weaving to represent the contrast of hot and cold countries studied in Geography. They will learn more about painting techniques by studying the work of Henri Rousseau.
DT
Food - Smoothies – Pupils will investigate, design, make and evaluate smoothies inspired by the islands of St Lucia and Iceland!
ICT
For the first part of the term we will learn about simulations and graphical modelling, designing and planning our own school playground! Following this our learning will focus on data handling, understanding what a database is, how to collect and add records to a predesigned database and how to search and sort information.
PE
Our P.E. days are Monday and Tuesday. It is very important that every pupil takes part in as much PE as possible. It is therefore important that they have the correct kit with them. Due to our changeable weather, pupils will need to ensure they have kit that can be used both indoor and outdoor every Monday and Tuesday.
MUSIC
Work will focus on developing the pupils ability to create, perform and analyse short compositions as well as developing the pupils rhythmic and melodic performance skills.
WELSH
The Welsh topics this term are Clothes, focusing on a story about a fancy dress party (Dillad – Parti Gwisg Ffansi) and the Family (Teulu).
GENERAL INFORMATION
Homework Diary - Pupils will use this diary for their homework. It is also there for you to use as a way of contact with myself and will therefore need to be in school every day! If you write in the diary PLEASE remind your child that they will need to get it out of their bag and give it to me!
Homework - This will be sent home on a THURSDAY and pupils will, in the majority of cases, have a week to complete this work. Pupils are expected to bring their homework in ON the due date!
Spellings - Pupils will have their spelling lesson and test on a Monday. Spellings will be sent home on a Monday in Green Spelling books, however the weekly spellings will also be posted on the Y3 page on the schools website (stbridesprimary.org.uk)
Home Readers - the same system as last term will remain in operation.
Hobby Hot Seat Sack - this will continue as it did last term.
A final note - we had a fantastic Autumn term in Y3 with every pupil making great progress across every element of the curriculum. We are in for another busy but brilliant term and I hope the pupils continue to enjoy their learning. If you have any concerns or queries during this term please do not hesitate to contact me.
Mrs Glover