Category: Year 3

This week the children in Year 3 have been writing their own mystery story in the style of David Wiesner’s ‘Flotsam’. The children have really enjoyed planning and developing their mystery stories and although they aren’t finished yet, I couldn’t wait to share them! Here is one that particularly caught my eye this week and I can’t wait to read the rest!

Flotsam

On a warm, sunny day in June a young girl was catching fish on the beach. As she collected more fish, the huge, blue waves were crashing against the soft, golden sand as the tide came in. The girl had caught 9 fish when she thought, ‘One more’. This time she caught something heavy. What could it be? The girl dragged the net out of the water excitedly. Inside it was a magnificent, old camera. The girl took the net to her parents who were sunbathing under the hot, burning sun. Mum gently took the camera out of her hands. We’d best take this to a special shop to develop the photos, she said to the young girl. After developing the photographs, they ran quickly back to the beach. The girl peered at the pictures in front of her. In the first image wiggling octopuses were dancing happily around the coral reef. The huge, ferocious sharks were having a fight in the Pacific Ocean. The gigantic starfish were sliding happily across their rocks. The boy was awfully confused. The creatures appeared almost human.

This afternoon we’ve mixed our writing and science together to create storyboards! These storyboards have helped us to remember the processes in which rocks become soil. We created two characters, Roger Rock and Simon Soil. The children have loved drawing and explaining their storyboards in which the hard and unbreakable Roger Rock has been sunbathing and expanding in the heat. Unfortunately, in the evening, he forgot his coat which caused him to contract and cracks to appear in his muscles. During the cold winter months he played out for long periods of time in the snow and rain building snowmen, causing his cracks to get bigger. One day, he was playing in a river bumping into other rocks until one morning he woke up and realised that he had become so small he was no longer the hard and unbreakable Roger Rock. Instead, he had turned into Simon Soil!

We have loved this activity this afternoon and by turning our Science into a story, the children in Year 3 are sure to remember this scientific process!

In Year 3 we have had fantastic fun this afternoon creating cave art! We really got into the spirit of being cave people by turning out the lights, shutting our blinds and crawling under our own little ‘table caves’. The children created marks and lines with their pencils, taking on the style of the Stone Age artists. They used blacks, greys and reds to draw hand prints, hunters, animals and weapons.

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This week, the children in Year 3 have begun to investigate the mystery hidden inside our new book. Flotsam by David Wiesner, is a book with no words but wonderful pictures to fill a child’s imagination. The story follows a young boy who discovered a camera washed up on the beach.

To open our investigation, we looked at a number of items in class that could have been washed up on the beach. We discussed where the items could have come from and what they could have been used for. The children then wrote fantastic expanded noun phrases to describe each of the items.

Today, we began to look at the beginning of the story where the young boy develops the roll of film inside the camera. The children thoroughly enjoyed discussing what the images showed and making predictions about the story. These were our three focus questions:

We can’t wait to continue reading the story of Flotsam and thinking about writing our own mystery story!

Mrs Smith

This week we welcomed back all of the old Year 2’s into Year 3! What a marvelous three days it has been!

The children all came back to school with smiles on their faces and a keenness to learn. They dived straight into their learning and have gone above and beyond to impress me.

I am so proud of the way that all the new Year 3 children have dealt with not only the change in year group and 5 months out of school, but also getting used to a whole new building and routine!

This week we have:

• Started to read our new class book, Meerkat Mail.
• Completed lots of learning to recap Place Value in Maths.
• Talked about our dreams and wishes for this academic year.
• Had an introduction to our new topic, The Stone Age.
• Made scary monster bookmarks.
• Trialed a new app, Turtle Logo, to learn about computer programming.

All the children in Year 3 have had a spectacular week, including 6 children who have ended the week as CLASSROOM STARS! A big well done to them!

I look forward to another fantastic week of learning next week!

Mrs Smith

Today in Science, we have learnt about how different sounds are created. First of all, we established that all sounds are created through vibrations. We also discussed that the stronger the vibrations, the louder the sound. To prove this, we completed a number of tests. Firstly, we held our fingers to our throat and we hummed so we could feel the vibrations. Then, we used a tuning fork so we could see the vibrations. When using the tuning forks, we noticed that when we hit the tuning fork and placed them into the water we could see the vibrations because it made the water spurt. Afterwards, we created our own Kazoos to understand how musical instruments work. We had so much fun, have a look below to see what we got up to.

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Today during ICT, the children have looked at manipulating shapes and objects on the programme Microsoft Word. The children first looked at how to make shapes bigger, smaller and how to rotate the shape. Then using the skills taught, the children created their own pictures. Have a look below to see us working hard.

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