The Year 3 Team

Forest School is on Thursdays!

Please send your child with their Forest School kit in one bag and wellies in a separate bag.

To ensure the children are comfortable, especially in colder or wetter weather, please make sure they have suitable clothing, including a t-shirt, jumper, coat, gloves, hat, and waterproof trousers or shoes. Many children found themselves cold and wet last week, so proper clothing really helps them enjoy their outdoor learning.

Thank you for your support!

Term 3 – Week 3 (WB 19/1/26)

The children of Staffordshire have continued to work incredibly hard both in and out of the classroom. They never fail to impress us with their enthusiasm, creativity, and determination.

In English, we have continued to enjoy reading our class novel, The Ice Palace, which continues to provided a rich and imaginative stimulus for our writing. As the children became increasingly absorbed in the dramatic and emotional storyline, they were challenged this week to write at greater length while still maintaining the high standards of vocabulary, structure, and punctuation they have been developing.

Using the perspective of Ivan, the determined and courageous main character, the children wrote thoughtful letters to his parents, carefully explaining why he felt he had no choice but to leave home in order to save his brother. While doing so, they worked hard to include expanded noun phrases, well-chosen descriptive language, and subordinate clauses to add depth and detail to their writing. As a result, many of the letters were not only clearly structured and persuasive but also deeply emotional, showing a mature understanding of character and motivation. Well done Staffordshire!

In Maths, the children used lolly sticks as a visual resource to help them divide two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers. By physically grouping and sharing the sticks, they were able to clearly see how division works, which helped to deepen their understanding and build confidence with this method. When some sticks could not be shared equally between groups, we discussed that these were called remainders — the amount left over after a number has been divided as evenly as possible.

In Science, we have been learning about friction, which is the force that occurs when two surfaces rub against each other and can cause objects to slow down or stop. To explore this, the children carried out a practical experiment using a toy cars, rolling them across a range of different materials - sand, water, and different covered ramps. They carefully observed which surfaces allowed the objects to move quickly and which rougher surfaces slowed them down the most.

The children made sensible predictions, tested their ideas fairly, and discussed why certain materials created more friction than others. We will continue to explore our results next week, helping the children to explain their findings using scientific vocabulary and to understand how friction affects movement in everyday life.

Last Friday, the children took part in some “link learning”, where they chose activities based on what they had been learning during the week. This included painting, carrying out further experiments, and exploring fossils in more detail. Mrs Smith also brought in some air-dry clay, which the children enthusiastically moulded into a range of different fossil shapes, carefully thinking about texture and detail. We are hoping to paint these creations later this week, and they should be ready to bring home on Friday. It was wonderful to see the children’s creativity, curiosity, and independence shining through.

Please see below for the new home learning tasks for this term. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. We hope you enjoy sharing and exploring these learning activities with your child at home.

Finally, please continue to support your child with regular reading at home and by updating their Boom Reader account whenever possible. Your support makes a real difference to their confidence and progress. Please also ensure your child brings their reading book into school every day.

Finally, we are continuing to learn our times tables with some fun songs! Practising for just 15 minutes a week on the recommended website will make a huge difference in building strong multiplication and division skills, which are essential throughout Key Stage 2 and beyond. We have been learning our eight timetables - here is our new song for you to practise at home - 

Eight Times Table Song (Cover of All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor)

3 Times Tables - Have Fun Learning!

4 Times table song (A Whole New World from Disney's Aladdin)

4 Times Table Song (APT be Rosé and Bruno Mars)

Counting By Sixes Song

7 Times Table Song | Skip Counting by 7 Song with Multiplication

Seven Times Table Song (Cups by Anna Kendrick Cover) with Classroom Instruments

The 12 Times Table Song | Skip Counting by 12 for Kids

Spellings

Our first spelling test of the term will be on Wednesday 28th January. The words listed below will not change until after that test.

Mrs Hughes' /Mr Grimes'/ Mrs Strudwick's groups

igh sound spelt y

shy

sky

dry

reply

cry

nearby

butterfly

multiply

Mrs Smith's group -

Words with the sh sound spelt ch -

Chalet

Chef

Chute

Machine

Parachute

Pistachio

Mrs Georgiades' Group

Words with the c sound spelt ch.

Chorus

Stomach

Echo

Chaos

School

Chemist

Anchor

Ache

Mrs Lambert's group 

ee sound

see

been

green

sleep

tree

cheese

free

be

Thank you for your continued support!

All of the children will have an investigative topic-linked learning task to complete, which is rotated over a three-week cycle. The children will focus on one of their three current foundation subjects each week.  
To support this, the children are split into 3 groups, which you can see above. 

This will be set on a Thursday and due by the following Tuesday. 

In class on a Tuesday or Wednesday, the children will then share the outcomes of their research, and the knowledge they have retrieved, within their own group. 

S3 Usual weekly timetable (please note that there may be changes to this at times).

Home Learning

Times Tables Rockstars! 

To keep practising the multiplication taught in class, and challenging yourself to keep the ones you already know fresh, don’t forget to log into your Times Tables Rockstars account. 

https://play.ttrockstars.com/

Challenge yourself to beat your score and build your knowledge as you become a Rockstar!

Please ask your class teacher if you need replacement log in details.

Reading

Children should bring their Accelerated Reading Book to and from school each day. When they have finished reading, children are asked to complete a quiz before changing their book. 

https://global-zone61.renaissance-go.com/welcomeportal/6704864

Parents please log your child's reading on the BOOM reader Parent Portal or by using the BOOM reader parent app on your tablet/mobile no more than once a week.

boomreader.co.uk/parents

Below is a list of the 100 most common words that your child is expected to know how to spell by the end of Year 4 (please see attachment).

The spelling strategies document below shows what strategies are used in class, and can be used at home to aid learning new words: 

Spelling strategies

• Spelling strategies to use at home (2).pdf
• spellingwordlist_y3-4.pdf