Welcome to class 3.
This term our literacy work begins with the study of stories in familiar settings. The children will be looking at various settings on the interactive whiteboard and from DVDs, describing and exploring them and eventually writing a number of stories. Later this term we shall be looking at instructions and traditional stories.
Spelling tests take place each Tuesday. Spelling sheets will be brought home each week.
Reading in class 3 is a little different. Once the children reach class three they already have a good idea of what interests them. We have a wide range of readers from various schemes. On transferring from class two, children are placed on a similar level. The children choose books from within this level.
Once they have read a mixture of fiction and non- fiction, they are able to move on. They can move on more rapidly if they do not like the content or if the person hearing the child read thinks they require greater challenge. Sometimes, however, it is advisable for the child to read parallel readers at the same level, to gain a greater vocabulary or more confidence before they move on, and the system allows for this.
During the course of the year some children will move onto “free reading” when they can choose to read any book from home or school. When this occurs it is important that children do try to read one complete book at a time and parents help to monitor the books chosen to ensure they provide sufficient challenge.
In class 3 the children’s book bags are not checked by an adult so children have greater personal responsibility. Children are encouraged to be self-sufficient in the class as much as possible and change their own books as often as they need to, within registration or playtimes. They are able to ask staff or each other to find new titles. Once a child has reached a competent level in their reading it is no longer necessary to hear the child read as frequently, provided that they are reading themselves. If this is the case hearing a child read for 5- 10 minutes 2-3 times a week should be sufficient. Weaker readers require more than this. If your child is not reading and is not bringing books home do let us know. Do not let this continue. If they are not changing their books as required or are not bringing books home feel free to send them back to the classroom at the end of the school day.
We aim to check progress once a week and children are asked to report to us before moving on to a new level, just to ensure they have been heard at home too, before moving on.
We expect each child to complete a reading activity about a book that they have read each week.
Our maths work follows the new National Curriculum. By the end of the year, year 3 children are expected to know their times tables along with the corresponding divisions. Children in year 2 should know their 2, 5 and 10 times tables with corresponding divisions. Regular testing of times tables will take place on a Thursday. Children should be bringing their sheets home each week so you can see how they are getting on. Ask your children to bring home additional, blank practice sheets if this would be useful. The topics we will be covering this term are: place value and the understanding of number, addition and subtraction- mental and formal methods, multiplication and division, fractions and 2 and 3 dimensional shapes.
In RE we shall consider the Gospel, celebrations, harvest and Christmas. In PE the children will enjoy gymnastics and invasion games. In French we will be covering greetings and numbers and colours. In music we will be exploring scales with the glockenspiels.
The children in year 3 will also be learning how to play the ukulele later this year.