Term 1

Topic

This term, we have begun our ‘Through the Ages’ topic; this topic explores the history and life in the Stone Age. During this term, we have explored the timelines of this period of history to begin to understand when this happened. We also developed our understanding of important key vocabulary we will be using throughout the unit. At this stage of the topic, we discovered there were three main eras in the Stone Age: the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. We explored what life was life in each of these eras, and discovered some changes that happened between them.

English

Canadian Bears have been working hard to learn and write two different genres of writing this term. To begin the year, we focused our attention on the genre of historical narratives. We began this unit by learning a model text with actions to support. We then explored the features of this style of writing, before planning and writing our own historical narratives based in the Stone Age.

Following on from this, we moved onto the genre of instructional writing. Once again, we begun with a model text explaining how to make a Stone Age axe. After exploring the grammatical features and layout of this style of writing we planned and wrote our own instructions based on the steps needed to make a Stone Age bow and arrow.

Maths

We have begun Year 3 with a focus on place value. We recapped our knowledge of how to use a place value grid to support addition and subtraction methods. Once we were confident with this, we developed the method by including a hundred column into the place value grid, which allowed us to begin working with 3-digit numbers. We used this support to begin to add and subtract 1s, 10s and 100s to 3-digit numbers.

RE

In RE this term, we have focused on the Hindu celebration of Diwali. We explored the origin of this celebration, and learned about the religious story of Rama and Sita. We produced a story map of this story to enhance our understanding of the events in the story. Once we had developed a good understanding of this, we explored what Hindus do to take part and celebrate this festival. We produced our own mehndi patterns, which is traditional artwork often placed on hands during the celebration of Diwali. Finally, we finished the unit by discussing and producing answers to our key question focused on why Diwali is important for Hindus.

PE

We have focused on two units this term in PE - dance and tag rugby. During our dance unit, we have had a focus on the theme of wild animals. Throughout the unit, we have explored how to create a sequence of animal movements, interacting with and reacting to partners’ movements and creating sequences of group movements focused on different animals. Each week, we have produced short performances, which we have shared with our peers at the end of each lesson.

During our tag rugby lessons, we have been focusing on the fundamentals skills and understanding needed to begin to play this game. To begin with, we focused on correctly holding, throwing and catching a rugby ball with partners. We built on from this by exploring the correct positioning of team members when throwing and receiving the ball. After this skill was secure, we began to work with the tag belts and focused on the skill of tagging opponents. Towards the end of the unit, we put all of these skills together and played small sided games.

Term 6 - 2023/24

English

This term French Hares learned about kennings poems. A kennings poem describes a person or object using compound nouns, without directly naming the subject of the poem. First, we learned a kennings poem about Alfred the Great. Next, we worked on analysing some kennings poems about animals and weather. We learned how to turn verbs into nouns in order to describe what something does. After that we applied our knowledge to write our own kennings poems, about teachers at school and about one of the monarchs from our topic learning.

Maths

In maths we learned how to tell the time on an analogue clock to the hour, quarter past, half past and quarter to, and were also introduced to telling the time to the nearest five minutes.

We have also been learning about volume, weight and temperature. We learned about the corresponding units of measure, including centimetres (cm) and metres (m), grams (g) and kilograms (kg) and degrees Celsius. We learned how to read different scales to find out the mass of different objects and how to compare different amounts. We also learned how to read a scale to work out the weight, volume or temperature where not all numbers on the scale are given. This is a useful skill if you have a measuring jug where some of the numbers have worn off!

Science

In science our topic has been ‘Animal Survival’. As part of this, we looked at a microhabitat in our playground and how the microhabitat meets the needs of the plants and animals living there. We enjoyed going out onto the playground to discover what lives under the black mats by the enclosed sports area. We found several different invertebrates, but no plants! We used our previously learned scientific knowledge to help understand that this is because it is dark under the mats, and plants need light in order to grow.

Topic

We continued our learning in our ‘Magnificent Monarchs’ topic.  The children enjoyed learning facts about six significant sovereigns and how their actions affected the people they ruled over, both good and bad. We learned how Elizabeth I was keen to prove that she could be a strong, female monarch, and how Henry VIII set up his own religion in pursuit of an heir. We learned that Alfred the Great didn’t learn to read or write until he was twelve, and that William the Conqueror introduced many French words and customs to England that we still use today.

We used the information we have learned to help us answer our key enquiry question; ‘Which monarch is the most significant?

R.E.

We have enjoyed learning about Islam this term, with a focus on Hajj. Our key question is ‘Does completing Hajj make a person a better Muslim?’ We learned that Hajj is a special pilgrimage completed at a certain time of year. Every Muslim aims to complete Hajj at least once in their lifetime if they are able to. We learned about what is involved in each stage of the journey, and what each part of the pilgrimage represents.