We are working on making sure that our reading is clear when we read aloud to others and that we have correctly interpreted the meaning of new words or phrases. 

At Home: Accuracy is the key this term at home. Often as children become faster readers they miswords or add words that are not in the text which can effect their understanding of what they have read. Taking time to read aloud at home to an audience helps them develop accuracy. Further details of things to focus on can be found in your child's reading journal. 

In writing we are going to be writing a story based on the 'Magic Paintbrush'. This is also a story in the defeating the monster style. We will be learning to add adverbial phrases to the start of a sentence such as 'Dangerously close to the edge, Ling stood staring out to sea.' We will draw on our knowledge of prepositional phrases as well as constant practise of writing in paragraphs.   

At Home: When writing at home, try and encourage the children to check their work. This does not mean pointing out their mistakes but supporting them to check and edit their own work.  Handwriting and spelling are a focus every day, helping your child think through the phonemes/ syllables in the words carefully when spelling a new word and working on neat handwriting all the time.

Year 3 ~ This term our main focus will continue to be on Additive structure. We ended last half term exploring the place value of 3 digit numbers and how this knowledge helps with addition and subtraction. We are going to be moving onto 4 digit numbers and using our understanding of the value of each digit to add and subtract numbers. Fluency continues to be is focused on number facts to and within 10.

At Home: Practising any number facts to 10 (6+4, 7+3 etc) but also ways that you can make 8, 7, 6. Century will be focused on this at times. Hit the Button is a website that you can use to help this become fluent knowledge. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button 

You do not need to purchase the app unless you want it on a tablet, if you select Number Bonds and then within 10. 

Religious and Worldwide

Views

The question in RE this half term is What is the Trinity? This is a hard topic and one that many Christians struggle to comprehend. We will be looking at art work depicting the Trinity and how this represents the biblical narrative.  

At Home: It is increasingly important that children learn to think about the implications for them in their own lives in RE. This does not mean choosing a faith, but it means engaging in the ideas. If Jesus suggested that there should be an expectation of equality among people, is that an idea that they would also like to foster or do they think differently. Questions and time to think it through is helpful as they are less likely to be swayed by peers. 

This half term the focus is on Friction. We will be exploring what friction is, what causes friction to occur and how we can use this knowledge in everyday life situations, such as oiling bike parts to reduce friction. We will be planning some investigations and thinking about how we keep the tests fairs and consistent. 

At Home: Encourage the children to look for where Friction occurs in the home, is this helpful or not?  Why is there friction? If it is not helpful what do we do to reduce that? For example, if you have mainly wooden or laminate floors then it might effect the type of slipper you wear as grip (increased friction) will be more important than on carpet. 

Other subjects are taught in blocks throughout the year. This term we are focusing on the following. 

Geography  ~ We are exploring the concept of earthquakes and why they happen. We will be looking at examples of earthquakes in New Zealand. Our over arching question is 'Why do some earthquakes cause more damage than others?'    

At Home: Some key understanding for this topic is place knowledge of the continents and oceans and how the earth's crust is formed into tectonic plates. The children will benefit from practising where the continents are and where the oceans are in the world.

Computing  ~ We be exploring programming further. We will be learning to adapt a simple program and how to fix bugs within it.

At Home: One aspect of this spine of planning is learning to safe our work in a clear and logical way. Please use opportunities at home to talk about how you organise things at home to ensure easy access, this helps to be able to hear your thinking process when classifying and organising which will help them when saving work. 

Art ~ We are focusing on drawing and tone this half term. We will be looking at shading to add shadow and how we consider proportion in our work. We will also be learning to choose our equipment wisely. 

At Home: As the light fades quickly at this time, talk about shadows forming on everyday objects in the house and how this effects how they draw. Encourage the children to practise observational drawing, thinking about where shading is needed and the proportion of items in a composition.