​In English we have continued with our work based on The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; the children have been making some great predictions about what might happen in this version of the story!
In maths this week we have come to the end of our unit of work on addition and subtraction. On Tuesday, we worked on a code breaker activity; the children had to work out the answers to addition and subtraction questions using the column method, then they had to find the answers which were stuck on the walls. The answers revealed a letter which formed part of a word needed to crack the code. The children were really determined to crack the code and enjoyed working out what the message was!
In Computing with Mrs Bayliss, the class have been learning how to use PowerPoint. Mrs Bayliss has been really impressed with how quickly the children have picked up the key skills needed. So far, they have learnt how to add a new slide, add text and have started to learn how to format the slides with animations. The children are working in pairs to create a presentation about a topic of their choice which they will show at the end of term.
This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday next week.
Spelling Rules: The prefix ’mis-’
Misbehave
Mislead
Misspell
Mistake
Misplace
Misread
Misunderstanding
Misuse
Mislaid
 
Both of our PE lessons are outdoors this term; please make sure that your child has warm clothing. 

​In English this week we have been working in pairs to write our own poems about a character in a school class, inspired by the poetry collection that we have been looking at, ‘A Kid in My Class’. We started off by thinking of different personalities that we could write about; there were lots of brilliant suggestions, from a book worm to a gymnast! Then, the children thought of lots of ideas to describe the personality they had chosen and began to put the ideas together as a poem.
In our computing lesson today we learnt more about using a Word Document. We learnt how to edit our work and format the text by changing the font size and style. We then worked in our pairs and typed up our poems. I was really impressed with the finished products!
In maths we have focused on adding two 3-digit numbers. We began by getting used to adding two 3-digit numbers without any exchanges and once we had become confident we moved on to questions with exchanges.
This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday after half-term.
Spelling Rules:  Words with the prefix ‘re-’: means ‘again’ or ‘back.’
Redo
Refresh
Return
Reappear
Redecorate
Revenge
Review
Reply
Reaction
Rebound

We had a great Tag Rugby session yesterday with Danny Taylor to celebrate the World Cup!

 In English this week we have continued with our poetry work based on the collection ‘A Kid in My Class’. We have been really focusing on using our voices effectively by thinking about the expression we could use, by making our voices louder or quieter and even by changing the tempo. I was very impressed with the performances that the children did this week!
In maths we have carried on with our work on addition and subtraction. We have moved on to using 3-digit numbers and 2-digit numbers where there are 2 exchanges and everyone has been using the column method. The children have become much more confident using this method and we will continue to practise it next week.
We had a great Computing lesson on Friday afternoon. The children learnt how to use punctuation in a Word document and had fun writing quiz questions for their partner to answer. We also learnt how to save a document and find it again.
Next week we are having our second PE lesson on Monday instead of Thursday; we will be having a World Cup-inspired tag rugby session with Danny Taylor, our local sports partnership leader.
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This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday.
Challenge Words:
Actual
Answer
Bicycle
Circle
Earth
Enough
Fruit
Island
Often
Popular

It’s been another busy week in Windrush class!
On Monday, we had our Harvest Celebration; the children really enjoyed this and it was lovely to have family and members of the Church join us. The class made some lovely tissue paper fruit and vegetable collages.
In maths this week we have been focusing on adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers and 3-digit numbers. We began by using Place Value grids and drawing the numbers as dienes as this clearly showed how and why numbers were exchanged. We then learnt how to use the column method for addition and subtraction; I have been so impressed with the children’s determination to challenge themselves to use the column method, and they have been remembering all of the steps really well! Next week we will be adding and subtracting two 3-digit numbers.
In English we have started a new unit of work on a collection of poems called ‘A Kid in my Class’ by the poet Rachel Rooney. We have explored two poems so far, ‘Ravenous’ and ‘The Daydreamer’; each poem is about the personality of a child in a class and we have had some great discussions about how the language Rachel Rooney has chosen reveals things about the personalities. We have also had a go at performing one of the poems and we will be meeting more of the personalities over the next two weeks!
 
This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday.
Words with endings that sound like /ch/ are often spelt –’ture’ unless the root word ends in (t)ch.
Creature
Furniture
Picture
Nature
Adventure
Capture
Future
Sculpture
Fracture
Mixture

On Thursday morning, Year 3 led Collective Worship with Year 1 and Year 2 as our audience.
The theme was ‘thankfulness’ and the children spent lots of time planning and preparing for it.
As a class, we decided that we wanted to focus on reasons for being thankful so we began the Collective Worship by sharing the different things that we are thankful for, such as food, shelter, love and money.
A group of children then retold the story of Noah, using actions and words, as they decided that Noah has lots of reasons to be thankful. I was very impressed with how well they remembered the story and how confidently they told it!
The Collective Worship ended with a prayer and we all sang ‘If I were a Butterfly’.
The class did a brilliant job!
 

​​This week in English the children have been writing their own adventure stories; I have been really impressed with their determination to keep going with this longer piece of writing and I am looking forward to reading the finished pieces! 
In RE with Mrs Gold, the children came up with questions they would like to ask Noah. They then took turns to take the hot seat and answer them, proving their knowledge of the story from the last few weeks and using their imagination!
On Thursday it was National Poetry Day, to celebrate this we wrote acrostic poems based on the theme of Autumn. We started off by thinking of changes that happen in Autumn, colours we see outside and events that happen during this time. The children then had a go at writing their poems, and once they had finished they wrote them out neatly and illustrated them. I was really impressed with the finished products and how determined the children were to rise to the challenge of using similes! 
Unfortunately, Mrs Robertson, our violin and cello teacher, was unable to do the lesson this Friday so we haven’t been able to give the children their instruments to take home. Hopefully she will be with us next week and we can allocate the instruments to the children. All children were given a permission form this week, please return this to me or the office if you would like your child to practise their instrument at home.
This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday.
Words with endings that sound like /ze/, as in measure, are always spelled with ‘-sure’:
measure
treasure
pleasure
enclosure
displeasure
composure
leisure
exposure
closure
disclosure

​We’ve had a great first few weeks in Windrush Class! The children have settled well and have made a great start to Year 3!

In English we have been reading The Secret of Black Rock and have used this book to inspire our writing. We have finished all of our sentence stacking lessons and the children are now working on planning their own adventure stories. I have been really impressed with their creative and well-thought-out plans and I’m looking forward to reading the finished stories at the end of next week!

On Friday we finished our first maths unit of work on Place Value. The children have been working really hard in our maths lessons and have particularly enjoyed our Active maths lessons outside! Next week we will be starting our new unit, Addition and Subtraction.

Last week, in our History lessons we learnt about Stone Age cave paintings; we learnt about how they made the paint, which tools they painted with, and what the painting could have meant. We then had a go a creating our own cave paintings; the children’s paper was stuck under their tables and they used charcoal to draw their designs in order to experience some of the challenges Stone Age people may have experienced when painting the ceilings of caves. In our next lesson the children had another go at creating a cave painting; however, this time they used sticks, leaves and their finger, with paint, so that they could experience using similar painting tools to Stone Age people.

Last Friday morning we had our first music lesson with the violins and cellos. The focus of the lesson was on safely taking the instrument out of its case, holding the instrument in the correct position and having a go at playing a simple tune. I was extremely impressed with how well the children listened to Mrs Robertson, our strings teacher, and how quickly they picked up on everything. This week we learned how to play using the bow and we also learnt some different tunes to play. I will be sending a permission form home next week so that next week the children will be able to take their instruments home to practise.
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This week’s spellings have been set on Spelling Shed; we will have a short test on Tuesday.
The /i/ sound spelled ‘y':
gym
myth
Egypt
pyramid
mystery
symbol
synonym
lyrics
system
gymnastics