Term 3 Week 3

Happy Friday!

This week in Literacy we read further into our story of Blue John. In chapters 3 and 4, Blue John hears life outside of the cave and is tempted by it. The children have been using their senses to describe the character of Blue John and the setting of the cave. We spent a lesson digging deep into the vocabulary choices we could make and then used these to form powerful sentences. The children are moving away from retelling a story, instead really immersing themselves into thinking about what the character and setting would look, sound, hear, feel and taste like if they were in front of them.

Through Maths, Year 3 have been using place value counters to practically represent dividing with and without exchanging. They then moved onto an abstract method of representing division by counting in repeated groups of a multiple, identifying how many are left and recording this as a remainder. They are continuing to consolidate their knowledge of counting in multiples of 3, 4 and 8. Year 4 have been looking at the formal written methods for multiplying 2 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers. We have also looked at methods for division, including short division of 3 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers. Finally we ended the week by applying these methods to some problem solving questions.

In Geography, the children identified four different types of volcanoes: Fissure Vent, Stratovolcano, Shield Volcano and Cinder Cone. They learnt how these volcanoes are all different and used actions to help remember the different types. Please ask them to show you these and explain! Through music, the children enjoyed practising listening and attention skills by playing a game off ‘Pass the Ssh!’ around the circle. They concluded that listening isn’t just using your ears, but using your eyes too! In Science, we built on our knowledge of rocks using the vocabulary learnt last week during our workshop. The children defined the terms sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous and discovered examples of each type of rock.

Finally, there are lots of coughs and colds spreading around. I have encouraged the children to regularly wash their hands before eating and after sneezing. Please can you enforce hand washing at home too, taking time to remind your children how to effectively wash their hands, rather than just brushing their hands under the water. There is a great video linked below.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/best-way-to-wash-your-hands

Thank you for your support. It is greatly appreciated.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Daniells and Mrs Ali.