Toucans' Class Spring Term

Mr Illsley is the class teacher in Toucans. He enjoys all sport (especially football) and likes to read. His favourite thing in the whole wide world is cheese! For the Spring Term, Mr Illsley is really looking forward to teaching history, looking at the Stone Age. Toucans' spellings and homework are all due in on Fridays. Our PE days will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please remember to come to school in your PE kit.

Mrs Senior is the teaching assistant in Toucans. Mrs Senior enjoys reading great stories and creating things with paper and material. For the Spring Term, she is looking forward to learning all about the Stone Age and our trip to Cresswell Crags is going to be really exciting (Lets hope it’s a sunny day)! Mrs Swinscoe is a teaching assistant in Toucans. She is really looking forward to working in years 3/4. Outside of school, she enjoys spending time with her family, shopping and taking her dog Rascal for a walk. She is looking forward to all the new topics we will be learning and spending time in Toucans. It is going to be a fun year!

History

The Spring Term sees us investigating the Stone Age to the Iron Age with an emphasis on how life in Britain changed. The children will investigate changes from the Palaeolithic to Mesolithic, thinking about what life was like, including what food was eaten. We will go on to investigate changes from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age considering the told used and learning more about the Beakers. Finally, our children will discover roundhouses and hill forts and think about how this looked in the East Midlands with an exciting trip to Creswell Crags.

Writing

Our writing links nicely, gaining inspiration from the wonderful book Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura. Our children will create their own story set in the Stone Age. The Silence Seeker by Ben Morley will provide us with the creativity for our second piece of writing – a fictional piece with the inclusion of dialogue. Throughout our writing, we will continue to develop our grammar, punctuation and spelling through our Gateway, Mastery and Feature keys.

Reading

Our children will be reading a range of texts, including non-chronological reports entitled The Arabian Peninsula and The Voyage of Discovery, a narrative about King Midas, the traditional Playscript Hansel and Gretel and a persuasive advert called Join Our Wicked Crew. In each unit, children will develop their reading skills and fluency through fun activities like echo reads, timed reads, and fluency grids. They’ll encounter lots of high-frequency and common exception words, helping them to read aloud and understand new vocabulary through practice. By discussing and connecting new words to what they already know, kids will boost their understanding. We’ll focus on retrieval skills so they can spot and explain important parts of different texts, whether it’s stories, facts, or poems. They’ll summarise main ideas, practise putting events in order, and learn how different bits of information relate to one another. Children will also make simple inferences about characters’ feelings and motives, using evidence from the text to support their thoughts. To boost their comprehension, we’ll use a range of vocabulary and inference questions throughout these engaging activities.

Maths

Spring Term Maths in year 3 is jam packed! We will cover the following topics:-

Multiplication and Division
Length and Perimeter
Fractions
Mass and Capacity

We will be multiplying and dividing 2-digit by 1-digit number with exchange and remainders. Then, we will be looking at measures in millimetres, centimetre and metres, finding equivalents and comparing. Our children will then be introduced to perimeter. Within our fractions learning, we will compare and order unit and non-unit fractions. Our final unit, mass and capacity will see us measuring mass in grams and kilograms and making comparisons and carrying out addition and subtractions. Additionally, we will measure capacity and volume in millimetres and litres.

Art and Design and Technology

Famous buildings are the inspiration for our Spring Term Artwork. The children will explore the work of Sir Christopher Wren and look at the architectural styles of St Basil’s Cathedral, the Taj Mahal, and the Sydney Opera House. The children will use their new found knowledge to design their own building.

In design and technology, the children will be creating mechanical posters. They will investigate mechanical systems and learn how to make their own levers and linkages before designing, making and evaluating their own project!

Science

Forces, Friction and Magnets kicks off our new year science topics, followed by Rocks, Soils and Fossils. In our first topic, our children will compare how things move on different surfaces, observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others. They will compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials. Our second unit ‘creates connections’ with our historical work. The children will compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties. Finally, they will investigate how fossils are formed.

RSHE - Relationships, Sex and Health Education

Our No Outsiders books will allow us to think about be welcoming and recognising stereotypes. We will also think about different types of relationships and consider boundaries and responsibilities. E-safety is a crucial part of RSHE. Online relationships and reputations will be a focus – explaining how someone’s feelings can be hurt by what is said or written online and thinking about what people might and might not be willing to share online. Additionally, sun safety will be investigated, as will the ability to manage setbacks and perceived failures.

Computing

Spring Term computing kicks off with Branching Databases. Our children will develop their understanding of what a branching database is and how to create one. They will use yes/no questions to gain an understanding of what attributes are and how to use them to sort groups of objects. We will create physical and on-screen branching databases. To conclude the unit, we will create an identification tool using a branching database, which they will test by using it. Consideration to real-world applications for branching databases will be given. Our second unit will challenge our children to develop their understanding of digital devices, with an initial focus on inputs, processes, and outputs. We will start by comparing digital and non-digital devices, before introducing our children to computer networks that include network infrastructure devices like routers and switches.

RE

Our religious education focus is Religion, Family and Community: Prayer – giving consideration to the question - How do religious families and communities practice their faith? The children will spend time finding out more about how people practise and celebrate faith.

PE

In PE, the children will take part in gymnastics, games and dance. Within our dance work, our children will begin to compare and adapt movements and motifs to create a larger sequence including changes of speed, level and direction. Whilst playing team games, we will consider different ways of moving with a ball and think about the best techniques for striking a ball. Finally, our gymnastics skills of balance and shape will be developed by thinking about using our core to hold a still shape.

Music

Music in the Spring Term will see us think about the questions How Does Music Make the World a Better Place? and How Does Music Help Us Get to Know Our Community? The children will think about friendship and family and that music makes the world go round!

French

In our second term of French, we will build on our vocabulary from the Autumn Term by learning the names of instruments. Additionally, we will use the sentence starter Je peux, to say things they are able to do.