Class 3

Class 3 is a mixed year 3 and year 4 group. The class is taught by Sam Watts and  teaching assistant Jo Walker.

Class 3

For the Summer Term, our topic was The Environment. Our class trip was on Tuesday, 2nd July to Morwellham Quay where we looked at how our local environment has changed over time.

Here are some photos of our day at Morwellham:

Breaking rocks to find copper.

Up to date eye protection.

Ready to mosey into the village

The Garlandstone

Authentic Victorian clothing

The Triangle of Trade

Finding out about Victorian clothing

Lunch!

The children have looked around their local area to find examples of

Who bought the copper from Morwellham Quay?

environmental protection and issues. We have received some wonderful work on this in the form of spider diagrams, pictures, posters, factual reports and some very informative powerpoint presentations.

The Environment topic plan

Finishing the day with a play at the park

Over the past few weeks we have written explanation texts based on hedgerows and their impact on the environment of Britain. We are currently reading “Journey to the River Sea”, and are beginning to write setting and character descriptions based on this. Fronted adverbials, adverbs, expanded noun phrases and subordinate clauses are all aspects of writing which the class may well end up dreaming about!

Each Monday and Tuesday morning we start the day

Balmaidens breaking rocks

Copper was heavier than expected!

Aboard the Garlandstone

What was the mined copper used for?

Phil explained where the copper went, and how it may even have had a part in the slave trade.

A wealthy copper trader

Hats off to a good day out!

with handwriting practise, which is linked to the spellings for the week.

In Maths, we have been working on fractions and decimals for several weeks, with Year 3 now moving on to multiplication and division, while Year 4 work on decimal hundredths, and on rounding decimals. On Thursday and Friday mornings, we have extra times table practise for all the children, to check that they are fluent and confident in these.

Currently, in Science, we are looking at water and food transport in plants, following on from our experiments in how to improve plant growth.

In D&T we have been designing and making cars that use renewable power (wind) so we will be testing those this week.

You may have seen some gruesome-looking pictures in the class of an investigation we carried out into the effects of different types of liquids on our teeth (using eggs). Needless to say, we concluded that water and milk are the best drinks!

At the start of the term, we had a visit from Daya Roberts, who worked with us on Sikhism. We found out about Sikh practices and beliefs, and had the chance to dress in traditional Sikh clothing. The class have written explanations of Sikhism as well, as part of their English and RE work. Some will be on display in school.

Homework

The expectation across the School is that children read at home every day, at least five times each week. This has been very successful, with over 90% of the class carrying this out for the past few weeks.

Each week spellings are set, usually chosen from the Y3 & 4 spelling list. Also, I set some mental maths questions for the children to practise at home. Both of these will be tested on a Thursday, with the new homework set and sent home on the Friday.

Here is a suggested  reading list for children in Class 3. How many have you read?