Year 3 News
What a sensational, fast paced, and action-packed fortnight we have had in Year 3!
Looking back at our recent weekly schedules, it is clear our students have been working exceptionally hard. Week 8 treated us to a wonderfully gentle start thanks to the King’s Birthday public holiday and a teacher Moderation Day, giving everyone the perfect energy boost to dive headfirst into some incredible learning. From historical deep-dives to mastering the clock, here is a sneak peek into what our absolute superstars have been up to over the closing weeks of the term.
Literacy
Our linguistic champions have been incredibly busy flexing their reading, writing, and analytical muscles!
Phonics Mastery: We powered through our systematic Phonics Plus curriculum, keeping our daily retrieval sharp, refining our decoding skills, and building confident, fluent readers during our partner reading sessions.
"Strangers on Country" Text Study: This captivating unit took centre stage as a major highlight in our planner. The students embarked on a journey through history, exploring real-world stories of survival and cultural connection.
We closely examined timelines and analysed the historical account of French castaway Narcisse Pelletier, visualising what it truly meant to live with the local Indigenous communities.
Students stepped directly into history by drafting rich, empathetic diary entries and character mind maps.
To cap it off, we engaged in critical thinking by constructing detailed Venn diagrams to compare and contrast different perspectives and historical accounts, including the remarkable survival story of Barbara Thompson.
Numeracy
Maths has been a brilliant mix of finalising major concepts and jumping right into practical, real-world skills.
Fractions Wrap-Up: In Week 8, students demonstrated their knowledge in our Exploring Fractions summative assessment. To make things even more engaging, we created Fractions Thinkboards.
Telling Time: In Week 9, we pivoted to an essential life skill—mastering the clock. The students took on the challenge of telling time to the nearest 5 minutes. They worked beautifully with interactive visuals to read analogue faces with growing confidence.
Multiplication Challenge: We wrapped up our math blocks with a high-energy multiplication challenging task, pushing our problem-solving skills to the absolute limit and proving that our times-table fluency is paying off big time!
Inquiry
Our Inquiry focus blended seamlessly with our historical literacy studies over the last fortnight as we looked at the theme of "Letters Across the Ocean."
The Castaway Perspective: Taking inspiration from our primary text studies, students transformed into historical castaways marooned on unfamiliar Australian shores.
Creative Correspondence: They put pen to paper to craft vivid, imaginative, and historically grounded letters destined for loved ones across the sea. These letters captured the immense wonder, challenges, and daily life of surviving in a brand-new world. It was a wonderful opportunity for the students to demonstrate empathy and historical perspective, with many of these stunning pieces headed straight into their portfolios.
Have a Wonderful Break!
As this incredibly busy and productive term comes to a close, we want to say a massive thank you to all of our Grade 3 families for your ongoing support, and to our students for their phenomenal effort.
We wish everyone a safe, relaxing, and thoroughly enjoyable school holiday! Disconnect those screens, enjoy the family time, and we look forward to seeing everyone refreshed, recharged, and ready for an amazing Term 3