Year 3 News
Beaumaris North Primary School
Welcome to Term 4! The students hit the ground running over the past fortnight, bringing fantastic energy back into the classrooms after the break. From settling straight back into our daily routines to supporting our senior peers at the buzzing Year 6 Mini Market, it has been a vibrant, productive start to our final term together.
Literacy
Our literacy blocks have been humming with rich vocabulary, sharp decoding, and deep comprehension:
Text Study: Students dived straight into our new class novel, The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-Bottomed Boat, setting the scene with life in Far North Queensland, investigating the mysterious Jacob Wilson, and uncovering the legend of Sebastian.
Phonics & Skills: Daily explicit Phonics Plus and literacy skills sessions have continued at pace, reinforcing complex spelling patterns and sentence mechanics.
Fluency & Writing: Students reflected on their break with structured holiday recount writing and partnered up each afternoon for targeted reading fluency practise.
Numeracy
We launched our new explicit mathematics block with focus and speed:
Fact Fluency Sprints: Students took on daily two-minute fluency sprints designed to sharpen automatic recall across essential number facts.
Measurement: Our core instructional units explored units of measurement, estimating, comparing, and solving practical problems.
Daily Review: Regular retrieval warm-ups kept earlier concepts crisp, moving steadily through reviews covering measurement, data displays, and chance.
Inquiry
Throughout the term, we will be exploring the Central Idea that 'Innovation affects society and the environment.' To kick off our new Unit of Inquiry, students headed off on an exciting engagement excursion to Scienceworks.
The highlight of the day was the hands-on ‘Rollercoasters and Forces’ workshop:
Hands-On Design Challenges: Working in collaborative teams with limited resources, students designed dynamic rollercoasters using balls and tracks, tackling scaffolded STEM design challenges that tested their creativity, resilience, and design thinking.
Physics in Action: Students discovered how gravity sets rollercoasters in motion, how contact forces (pushes) keep them rolling along the track, and experienced first-hand how to test, iterate, and celebrate their creations with peers.
Innovation and Invention: The students enjoyed interacting with the hands-on exhibits, testing their physical limits in the sports zone, and exploring the historic Pumping Station. They loved discovering how scientific innovation and clever invention shape our modern world through immersive displays.
Thank you for your ongoing support as we embark on a busy, rewarding term ahead – we appreciate it!