Alatise Year 3

Welcome to Alatise Class! 

English (spellings week 25 and 26)

Class Teacher: Miss Pugsley 

TAs: Mrs Rimmer, Mrs Selvey & Mrs Peden 

Important information: 

• Maths and English homework will be sent out on Fridays to be returned on the following Tuesday. (This should not take longer than 30 minutes). The homework will usually relate to the work covered in class. Please complete in pencil. 
• Spellings will be sent home on Fridays to be tested the following Friday. 
• We are introducing Times Tables Rock Stars (an online system for practicing times tables, either online or in app) which aims to improve speed and accuracy. Children should be playing TTRS for at least 3 minutes everyday to improve their times tables knowledge. Times tables will still be tested weekly, on Fridays - children will have a specific times table to practice at home set by the teacher. 
• PE is on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. PE kit should be named and left in school. Plimsoles for indoor PE and trainers for outdoor PE. 
• In order to make good progress, children should read for at least 20 minutes per day. Once children finish a book, a test is available on Accelerated Reader which should be completed before choosing a new book. Reading books should be brought into school every day and taken home at the end of the day. 
• Please bring Reading Records in on Mondays for checking. Your child may write a comment after reading and parents should sign the books at least once a week. 
• Children to bring book bags in every day. 

Topics we are covering this year: 

Autumn 1: Urban Pioneers

Autumn 2: Gods and Mortals

Spring 1: Misty Mountains

Spring 2: Mighty Metals

Summer 1: 1066

Summer 2: Road Trip USA

Alatise are Graffiti Stars!

LKS2 enjoyed getting stuck into the graffiti workshop on Wednesday 2nd October! The children learnt spray painting techniques and were able to personalise their own to board to make it unique. They created their own stencils as well as using a variety that were already provided. They also had the option to add a 'tag' in graffiti style writing - many opted for their name! The finished designs look fantastic and are displayed in the corridors. 

Gods and Mortals

For our Gods and Mortals topic, we have been exploring the world of Ancient Greece. So far, the children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about this time period. We began by comparing ancient and modern Greece, identifying the city states and key geographical features. Using this knowledge, we further researched the most important kingdoms of the Ancient Greek empire, such as Athens and Sparta. The children produced a wonderful and detailed fact file on these kingdoms. Using their research from homework, we created a character description of a Greek god or goddess, including plenty of descriptive features. This is a piece of work they were really proud of! At the moment, we are writing an invitation to the Ancient Olympic games. The children have tried hard to include persuasive language to make their writing more interesting. These will be displayed in our classrooms. In art, we spent time designing and sketching an amphora (Greek vase), which shows a part of Greek life. We will be using our designs to create a clay model of these vases.

Cool to Be Kind Week! (11th - 15th November)

This week we have been focusing on Kindness. Year 3 thought of different ways to be kind and we decided to write thank you cards to show our appreciation for parents, teachers, friends etc in our lives. 

One of the cards included the quote: 

'I am giving you this card to throw kindness all around!' 

 'We should be kind every day not just for this week!' 

Skills Builder (Autumn Term) - Brilliant Books

For our Skills Builder project in the Autumn, our focus was 'Brilliant Books'. The aim was to design and model a reading area to encourage young people to read more. We began our sessions with a debate: television vs books. We constructed pros and cons of both activities. We continued our investigations by collaborating to design a 'Reading Reward Scheme'. The children considered what would motivate them to read such as stickers, certificates, medals and prizes. They also worked together in teams and demonstrated their leadership skills when deciding upon a theme for the reward scheme. The ideas from the first few sessions were very helpful when creating our final outcome - the reading area. This was a great opportunity for the children to show their creativity and communication skills. They used a variety of resources to build a 3D model of their reading corner in a shoebox. They worked together to ensure that everyone's ideas were included and that the area would appeal to a wide audience. We shared our creations with children from Riley class. 

Christmas Dinner

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner full of festive cheer! 

Skills Builder Challenge Day! (31.01.20)

For our Skills Builder Challenge Day, we designed and created greetings cards. We chose themes in groups (including thank you cards, Chinese New Year Celebration cards and happy birthday cards), then combined our individual ideas together to form a group design. We then made the cards using a production line system. This meant that everyone had a role and took part in the process. Afterwards, we presented our pitches to share ideas with the class. 

Volcanic Eruptions in Year 3! 

We have been learning about different types of volcanoes in our Misty Mountain topic including shield, cinder cone and composite volcanoes. In our Art lessons, we built papier mache volcano using plastic bottles and newspaper. After letting them dry for 24 hours, we painted them and tried to add texture to imitate lava flows. We then conducted an experiment using bicarbonate of soda (alkali) and vinegar (acetic acid) mixed together inside the bottle, which reacted to produce a bubbly liquid. We also included red food colouring and washing up liquid to make our own lava flow as realistic as possible! The children had so much fun with this experiment. 

Gymnastics!

The children have loved doing gymnastics for our indoor PE sessions this half term! They have had the opportunity to practice their vaulting skills and jumps including tuck, star, pike as well as how to land safely. On the mats they have been exploring their skills and creating their own routines - many of them have perfected a shoulder stand which you can see in the pictures below. 

Misty Mountains

Our Spring 1 topic has allowed Year 3 to produce some wonderfully imaginative pieces of writing including mountain scenery descriptions, a explorer's diary entry and a fact file about the first person to reach the summit of Everest - Sir Edmund Hillary. They have been building upon their knowledge of similes, metaphors, fronted adverbials and time conjunctions to ensure their writing is as creative and interesting as possible. They have also learnt about various famous mountains and volcanoes around the world, how they are formed and the different ways they can erupt!

Science Museum - 02/03/20

What a brilliant day! The children absolutely loved exploring everything there was to offer in the Wonderlab from magnets to infrared thermal imaging! The 'Feel the Force' session was filled with fun for everyone due to Phil the Frog's daredevil experiments.