Year 3 - Middle Unit

Did you know that in 1872 there were over 480 schools in Victoria, more than 170 of these continue teaching today. A lot has changed in the last 150 years, but public education remains a vital part of the Victorian community. 

This week we celebrate Education Week and highlight the endless possibilities of STEM. Physical Science is in our everyday lives, in our classrooms and beyond! We are investigating the effect of forces on the behaviour of an object through different actions like throwing, dropping, bouncing and rolling through games. These forces were used in our Game Afternoon where we played quoits, mini golf, bowling, connect four and different boardgames. 

There have been so many highlights this semester and we want to share with you what we have enjoyed learning so far in Year 3!

Term 2 Highlights

• Jake: I have enjoyed doing freestyle during Swimming and Lapathon
• Dash: I really liked going to swimming, catching the bus, and going to Hanging Rock for Cross Country.
• Dante: I have really liked learning about subtraction and being able to learn 2 different strategies. I love finding the strategy that is better!
• Albert: I have loved going swimming, making castles in Art, and using the Ipads to play Dojo Island.

We have been continuing to draft and publish explanation texts with a focus on using compound and complex sentences to express our ideas. Our published explanations will be going into our classroom libraries for everyone to read. Here are 2 examples from 3MC. 

In celebration of Education and STEM, below are 3 Mathematics games that you can play at home with your family! Problem Solving is one of the 4 four proficiencies in Mathematics that involves trial and error. A famous German mathematician once said “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new” (Albert Einstein).

Chasing the Magic Number - Chasing the Magic Number (youtube.com)

• Concepts covered: Addition, subtraction, multiplication & division 
• Equipment: deck of cards, paper and pen
• Good questions to ask while playing:  “Explain to me how you got __?”; “What if you use multiplication (or subtraction etc.)?” (I.e. offer suggestions when students need help but DON’T tell them how to arrive at a number.)

Year 3 Teachers

Ashleigh Dodds (3AD), Mark Condon (3MC)/Juliet Smith, Sally Quinn (3SQ)