Prep | Year 3 News
Literacy
Over the last three weeks the boys have taken a new direction in writing. We have moved on from informative writing, which saw some fantastic research and thinking skills used to inform the teachers about what supplies the boys would need to survive a natural disaster. Our new focus for the next seven school weeks is persuasive writing. We have already covered this, and it is shown in their knowledge, but it gives us a great chance to build on what we know and extend ourselves to the next level.
In literacy groups the boys have started a new class novel. The intention behind this is to build comprehension strategies based around text features of a narrative. The boys are experts at identifying the setting, characters, problem and solution in a story. The next step is to break down the author’s purpose and the theme of the story. This will allow the boys to gain a deeper understanding of the story.
Mathematics
During this term the boys have shown great resilience in their learning of new multiplication and division strategies. Division can be a hard concept to grasp but the boys have covered it well. A popular strategy amongst the year 3 cohort is using the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to solve problems. Moving on, the boys have covered probability/chance to end the term. A fun strand of maths that allows the boys to explore chance through their own experiments. 3H used their expertise in basketball to predict the chance of the class making 5/25 shot attempts. They predicted that it would be a certainty and completed it with 3 shots remaining.
UOI | How the World Works
In week 7 we were lucky enough to have a visit from Mrs Puneet Singh, a parent in the year group. She shared with the boys her experiences of growing up in the north of India. Many of the boys were blown away by the landscape and were very interested by the technology that the local people used. Mrs Singh brought in a number of items that the boys were allowed to explore. The session allowed for a number of questions and the boys were very engaged.
UOI | How we Organise Ourselves
For the last two weeks of term we have moved our focus to How we Organise Ourselves. This unit will see the boys focus on individual actions affecting the functioning of a community. This can be related to many things in the boy’s life, school, home, sport and friendships. So far, we have covered some different roles in different communities. These include, facilitators, speakers, timekeepers, material managers and recorders.
STEAM (UOI)
In STEAM Year 3 were posed with the question “Can you code a trip the seven continents of the world?” In small groups, Year Three explored this question through coding Sphero devices to move around large maps on the floor, allowing the boys to create connections to their UOI content they were looking at in class.
The boys then transferred their understanding of their groups Sphero coding into their own Scratch animation, showcasing their knowledge of the world and the various climates.
Mandarin
Boys practised making sentences (including time, place, and activity) to organise a timetable in both speaking and writing. Moreover, they used Research Skills, Thinking Skills, Communication Skills and Social Skills to learn extended place vocabularies including Sydney local places, national places, and international places. This hopefully helps boys to be more globally aware in terms of places and activities in the local communities and the broader world.
Homework
The year 3 teachers have noticed a drop off in homework being brought in completed to be marked. Please ensure that you are encouraging the boys to complete homework. This allows them to practice writing that is being completed in class and will in turn extend their thinking when they engage in the activities during class time.
