Year 3

Year 3

Dear Parent,

Year 3 will be taught by Miss Muldowney, Miss Thompson and Mrs Lee, this year.

I am Miss Thompson and will be the teacher in Year 3, while Miss Muldowney is on maternity leave. I am excited and privileged to be part of the Dame Dorothy community. I like to fill my lessons with lots of practical opportunities, hands on learning and good discussions. Our work will all be linked in a curriculum topic and the children will be learning to be more independent in the jump up to KS2. I know we will have a fabulous year in Year 3!

SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

The teaching of SPaG is an important part understanding key elements in reading and writing. This term we are looking at prepositions, adding similes to our writing and knowing how to punctuate direct speech.

As well as working on our Y3/4 Statutory Spellings, we will be recapping some of the prefixes and suffixes we learned in Year 2.

In handwriting, we will be working on our size of letters, presentation and practising our joined writing.

Maths

Dame Dorothy Primary School boasts excellent mathematics skills.

Each morning, the children have mental maths to complete. It is important that the children get to school promptly at 8:45am so they don’t miss out on their mental maths.

This term we are looking at multiplication and division, perimeter, fractions and mass. The children will use their knowledge to practise fluency, reasoning and problem solving.

Please give the children opportunities to work with money and time at home.

Literacy

Our literacy lessons will be based around the SPaG and reading objectives for Y3 and linked to our class novel ‘The Stolen Spear’. The children will learn to read aloud with appropriate expression and with fluency. We will be learning to predict and infer our characters thoughts and feelings and learn to describe a character and a setting.

As well as this, the children will be working on writing non-fiction texts such as a recount of an event and an explanation of a process. These will be linked to our stone age and rock topics.

Reading Books

Year 3 will be given home reading books weekly. If the children read their home reading book at home in less than one week, they can bring this in and change it more frequently. Miss Thompson and Mrs Lee will often have opportunities to read with the children. If the children could make sure their book is read by Wednesday each week.

Topic

Our topic this term is The Stone Age. We will be learning about the different periods and how life evolved into The Bronze Age. The children will focus on the subjects of Science, Geography and History and have opportunities to complete Art and DT to link with their topic.

ICT

We have the opportunity to use a wide range of ICT resources such as laptops and iPads. In ICT this term, the children will be focusing on Computer Science including Micro:bit coding.

We ensure that the children are aware of how to keep safe when using the internet and they are always extremely responsive to this.

Music

Y3 have biweekly music lessons taught by Mr Kyle. They learn to use musical language, for example tempo, pulse, rhythm and pitch and are encouraged to use this language when talking about the musical examples they listen to from the Model Music Curriculum.  Y3 begin to learn to play the recorder and will use other tuned and untuned percussion instruments. They take part in weekly singing lessons, and they are working towards being able to sing a simple round.

PE
PE lessons are on a Tuesday afternoon. Please make sure your child comes to school with the correct kit and can remove any earrings and/or jewellery they may be wearing. This term Y3 are doing Tennis via expert teaching from our PE coaches. Please note, it is essential that your children have suitable footwear for PE sessions. Trainers must be worn and jewellery must be removed.

A few reminders

  • Homework to be brought into school on Monday.
  • PE is Tuesday.
  • Home readers will be changed on Thursday, please return to school in time to be given a new book.
  • Spellings will be sent home on Monday and should be returned for the test on Friday.
  • On Friday, new homework will be given out that will focus on a particular concept that week. It can be on Maths, Handwriting or Spelling.
  • Please encourage your child to read at home and when they read, try to read alongside them, support them with understanding word meanings and ask them some questions about what they have read.
  • Please email me at teacher@damedorothy.org.uk if you have any queries or concerns: I’m happy to help!
  • Don’t forget we post regular updates on Facebook to show you all of our fabulous learning inside the classroom.