Year 3
Hello everyone, and welcome to Year 3 at Birchwood Grove!
We will use this page to share planning, homework and anything else that may be useful.
Click on the links for the Year 3 Key Objectives in Maths, Reading, Writing & Science (core subjects).
Click here for our Meet the teacher information.
Spring 2025
Click here for our planning for the Spring Term.
Belonging and Diversity
Our concepts for the Spring term are Belonging and Diversity and we our focus subjects are The Arts!
For the Spring term, we will be focused on our learning about people who fought for change. We will start by using the text 'Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet' to inspire our learning about people who celebrate differences and succeed in changing people's minds about people who are different to them. We then use a range of supplementary texts from the 'Little People, Big Dreams' range and think about our enquiry question 'Does diversity affect our sense of belonging?'.
We will also use many inspirational music sources to help answer our question by using the BBC Ten Pieces looking at trailblazers, as well picking a musical genre and artist of the week! We will focus on artists who have fought for change and comment on their music, as well as finding out about their life.
All of our learning will culminate in us choosing our own person to celebrate by creating our own 'Little People, Big Dreams' style books and picking our own cause inspired by our question: 'Does diversity affect our sense of belonging?'.
Autumn 2023
Click here for our planning for the Autumn Term.
Growth Mind Set
Our first two weeks in Year 3 will be focused on growth mind set! We are using the text 'The Promise' to inspire our thinking about growth. We have then written fantastic poems about the transformation of the city (which we read aloud to the class), thought about ourselves as learners and set ourselves targets for Year 3. 'The Promise' has also inspired our artwork, in which we explored colour mixing and different brush techniques to create our own image of growth in the style of the book illustrator.
We have also thought about our class charter, our class agreement, the zones of regulation and had many discussions about how we kept ourselves and other safe, ensure we are ready for learning and what to do when we are not feeling as regulated. We applied our understanding of how to stay safe to establish how we stay safe online and create 'top tips' for our classroom. In Maths, we have been focused on place value and exploring 2 and 3 digit numbers!
Change, Cause & Consequence
Our concepts for the Autumn term are change, cause and consequence and our focus subject is History!
For the rest of the first Autumn half term, we will be focused on our learning about the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. We began by using the text 'The First Drawing' to make predictions about the Stone Age and create our own illustrations using graphite pencils. We then used the a supplement text of 'Stone Age Boy' to discover about life in the Stone Age and think about our enquiry question 'How do changes in the past have consequences for us today?'.
For the second half of Autumn term, we will be focused on the Roman Empire. Our key text was 'Escape from Pompeii', we used this to inspire our learning about key events in the Roman timeline, the invasion of Britain, the different leadership styles of the armies, British resistance (Boudicca) and the 'Romanisation' of Britain. Alongside our history learning, we will delve into Roman art, including mosaic and sculpture by creating our own clay busts. Year 3 will be designing their own flashing image of an erupting volcano! Using the technology 'Crumble', the children will program and create a working circuit.
Homework
To help with the transition into KS2, we will be increasing the expectations gradually throughout the first half term. Please see below for the expectations:
Reading records
Don't forget to read at home, either with an adult or independently- try to do this five times a week. Record your reading in your 'Home Reading Record'. Each week, if you have completed your five entries, you will be entered into the half-termly raffle draw!
Spelling Shed
New spelling lists will be posted on Spelling Shed each week for you to practice independently- how many can you get correct? Can you be this week's Top Bee? We would like the children to play 3 games of Spelling Shed every week. The spellings will be set on a Friday and we would like the children to complete the 3 games before the following Wednesday. These will follow our spelling pattern focused on in class- we will also post our five words of the week on Seesaw.
Times Table Rock Stars (TTRS)
Keep rocking out and improving your scores- and your mental maths! Times tables are a key part of Key Stage 2 Maths and are so important to practice; the more you do, the more you remember. Will you be this week's Rocker of the Week? We would like the children to play 9 minutes on garage mode. We will set the children their own individual tables to focus on. If there are any questions regarding the times tables that are set please let us know.
My Maths
The children will be set an activity to complete on My Maths each week that is linked to our Maths learning from the week.
Help at Home
Reading
Remember, you should be reading at least five times a week.
Click here for books recommended for Year 3, which are part of our 100 book challenge!
Number Facts & Times Tables
This link will take you to all the times tables songs which we will be practicing at school.
Please play Times Tables Rock Stars https://ttrockstars.com/ How quick can you get?
Hit the Button- This game helps number fluency and speed of recall (not only times tables, but number bonds as well).
Maths Fluency Sheets
Spelling
Play Spelling Shed as part of your homework! Don't forget to also practice the common exception words within our words of the week.
Click here for the Year 2 common exception words.
Click here for the Year 3 & 4 common exception words.