Year 3 Summer Term Curriculum Letter

Summer term Curriculum Letter

Welcome back to school and to the summer term, the final term of the year. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break and enjoyed eating lots of chocolate eggs. This is a very important term for the children. Not only will they be practising for the National Literacy and Numeracy tests, but we will also be consolidating and extending the work covered in Year 3, so that firm foundations are laid ready for the children’s transition in to Year 4. There are lots of exciting activities planned for the summer term and the following information outlines what your child will be learning.

This term our main topic will be Rainforests.

Main areas of study:

Literacy:
Our literacy work this term will focus on the fantastic book ‘The Tin Forest’, where children will be continuing to consolidate and extend core literacy skills through various activities such as; letter writing, writing a diary entry and poetry. Where appropriate, Literacy is linked to our class project work. This allows us to establish meaningful contexts in which to develop Oracy, Reading and Writing skills.

Reading: The children will continue to be introduced to a range of reading material through individual books, group guided reading books and class shared texts. Pupils are expected to read daily at home under the guidance of parents and for this to be recorded in the reading logs provided; please can these be brought in every Tuesday. Please take time to sit down and read with them and discuss the content/story-line to encourage greater understanding of the text. Guided reading sessions take place throughout the week so that all children have an opportunity to read and develop their reading skills. In addition, all children will read daily during Year 3’s ERIC time (Everyone Reads in Class), which takes place between 8:50 and 9:00am every morning.

Spellings: Pupils will be given spellings to learn on a Friday and will be tested on the following Friday. Lists are taken from the National Literacy Strategy and may also include class or topic spellings. There is usually a spelling pattern each week, which makes it easier for the children to internalise and recall. Please take a few minutes each day to use the Look, Cover, Write, Check method or any of the other suggested methods at the front of their homework books. Spellings for each week will be uploaded on to the website, on the Year 3 page.

Numeracy:
Mathematics will continue to be taught daily consisting of development of both mental and written strategies, as well as arising through a cross curricular approach to other subjects. During the summer Term the children will continue to consolidate and extend their understanding of addition/subtraction and multiplication/division as inverse operations, fractions, position, movement and direction, place value up to 1000, doubling and halving, shape, money, time, handling data and co-ordinates. Pupils are required to learn their tables on a regular basis. Pupil’s mental maths skills will also continue to be tested for speed and accuracy on a weekly basis.

Science:
This term our Science topic links to our class project, rainforests. The children will be studying the habitat of a rainforest from both an animal and plant perspective, which will be covered through a range of thinking and investigative skills and practical activities. The children will learn through scientific investigation, developing their thinking skills along with attaining knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts.

Geography:
The children will develop their mapping skills by locating the different rainforests around the world. This will develop their understanding of where different seas, continents and countries are located around the world. Children will also learn about deforestation and the impact of this has on the rainforests. To develop the use of maths across the curriculum, the children will also be conducting a maths based project, where they will be enhancing maths skills such as: budgeting, money, as well as a range of mental and written strategies.

ICT:
Children will be using Google Classroom in school and at home to complete a range of different activities. Throughout our project the children will use Google Docs and Google Slides to plan, create, develop and combine information with a sense of purpose and awareness of audience. We will also be focusing on data handling and coding this term. google Classroom will also be used to share homework and spellings each week.

DT:
The children will be working in groups learning how to design and create their own rainforest themed adventure playground.

Music:
To link with our class project, the children will be exploring music from different cultures and experimenting how we can use musical instruments to create different sounds to replicate the sounds and weather you will hear in the rainforest.

Welsh:
Learners will continue to develop, consolidate and extend their language skills in Welsh this term. They will be using language patterns already learnt and building on these as well as new patterns, developing their skills in reading, writing and speaking.

PE:
This term we will be focusing on Athletics and Rounders. Our P.E. sessions are on Tuesday morning (Indoors) and Thursday afternoon (Outdoors). Due to Health and Safety issues, the children are not allowed to wear jewellery during P.E. and Games. It is really important that your child has their P.E. kit in school on these days so that they can participate in lessons.

Homework:
Homework is given on a weekly basis to consolidate and support concepts that have been taught during the week. In addition to spellings and practising multiplication facts, children will also be given homework relating to work completed in the class room. This term homework will also include test style questions in preparation for the National Tests in May. Your child will be sent home with test style questions that they can access online and comprehension style activities. Homework books are to be handed in every Thursday and will be sent home again on Friday with new homework. I also post the homework every week on the school website.

Pupil Voice
At Glasllwch the children are encouraged to participate in their own learning. We believe that asking pupils about what they would like to learn is fundamental to providing an engaging and inspiring curriculum. Therefore we shall be asking the children what they already know about the topic of Rainforest and will be discussing what they would like to learn. Please could you highlight any further questions your child may have about this topic to support this child led approach.

Parent helpers are always welcome, if you feel you would like to help in any way with the above topics; perhaps you have specialist knowledge of a subject that you could share with the children or perhaps you have items of particular interest, then please do come in to see me.

I do hope this has given you some insight into what your child will be learning and participating in this term. If you have any further questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me.
I appreciate your support in all that we are striving to do in school, and hope that we can continue to work together to ensure that your child enjoys learning and reaches their full potential in Year 3.

Yours sincerely,

Miss King (Y3 Class Teacher)

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