Grade 3 Community News
Dear Grade Three Community,
It has been an exciting fortnight for us in Grade Three and we are over the midway hump for Term Four. Our students have been deeply engaged in their learning journey.
Reading
In Reading, we have been working on making inferences and personal connections to texts. The skills of inferring and making text-to-self connections supports students to combine insights from various sources, including their own prior knowledge or experiences, to form a deeper understanding of texts and to identify when one point of view might be different to another, or to their own. During this unit students have read the Core Texts (Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka) both for enjoyment and to practise their comprehension of complex topics, drawing meaningful connections and presenting well-rounded arguments. Through this process, they also clarified words and phrases they did not understand and used their knowledge of the texts to develop meaningful questions that support them in their learning.
Speaking and Listening
Over the past week, the Grade Threes have been focusing on using SMART Talk to clarify or question ideas that they do not understand. Students have been discussing what makes a ‘good’ question and how to respond to a question with meaning and purpose. A ‘good’ question is one that has a purpose, adds value and encourages others to think. Asking meaningful questions helps students learn, whether we’re asking the teacher or our peers. Along with being able to identify and ask meaningful questions, students have been practising sharing their thoughts and ideas, providing thoughtful answers that help students to reflect on the learning and the impact it has.
Writing
In Writing students have been eagerly working on their Persuasive Writing pieces, choosing a topic of their own that they feel strongly about. Students have referred to the Writing Rubric throughout the unit to identify and include the structural elements of a persuasive text, to practise using emotive language, and to substitute low- and medium-modality words with words that help to drill their point of view home. All these techniques help students to explain their perspective on a topic, where their personal opinion might be different to someone else’s, and guide them to think of meaningful and purposeful arguments to support their own point of view.
Maths
Students have completed their unit on Chance and have been working on using metric units to measure, compare and order the Mass of objects and Capacities of different containers. Students have been choosing the appropriate instrument to measure different objects depending upon the purpose of the measurement. For example, if a student wants to know the capacity of a container, they would use a measuring cylinder, whereas if they want to determine its mass they would require a balance scale or digital scale. This unit lends itself nicely to supporting students to participate in many tactile measurement activities, supporting them to become fluent in their use of these different measuring units.
Vocabulary
The Grade Three classes have been working their way through the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, using this text to add to our understanding of words to help our reading, writing and oral language. In week 7 we used the following words to discuss morphology and the meaning of words:
Reminders:
- Please remember to send your child to school with a charged iPad
- Ask your child if they need any new stationery
- Remember to keep up the nightly reading at home, and bring the student journal to school on their designated day
- Please ensure that your child is bringing a hat
- Please ensure that your child is only bringing water in their drink bottle.
Attendance:
It is crucial that all students are attending school every day so they can work on their learning goals and don’t miss important lessons. Please book holidays during school holiday periods rather than during the school term to make sure valuable learning time is not missed.
The Grade 3 PLC Team