Year Three
Dear Year Three families,
We hope everyone has been enjoying their child/ren coming home and sharing their learning with you. Our students have done a fantastic job at being so adaptable in preparation for NAPLAN in week 7, whilst also showing exemplary behaviour both inside and outside of the room. Over the past weeks each class has been holding class captain elections, students were invited to apply for the role of class captain by answering the following questions: Why would you like to be the Class Captain? What skills do you think are important when being the Class Captain? What top three qualities do you possess as a leader? How can these qualities strengthen our school? Each class then voted to choose their Class Captain. From these Class Captains, a Junior School Council Representative will be chosen for each timetable. Class captains will be presented with their badges at assembly in week 6.
Reading
In Reading, students in Year Three have been continuing on with their QAR comprehension skills focusing on, 'Think and Search' and ‘Author and Me’ questions. This week we have been exploring fiction and non-fiction texts designed to improve students comprehension in the lead-up to NAPLAN. Each class has also been running Focus Reading groups, centred around student needs, to improve each Year Three student's reading skills.
Writing
In Writing, our students have been further exploring and unpacking narrative texts in the lead up to NAPLAN in Week Seven. In Week Five, our students created a narrative piece following the structure, (Orientation, Rising Action, Climax, Fall Action and Resolution) for a variety of writing picture prompts including 'Stuck'. Before writing, students spent time planning their writing pieces. They practised writing within a set time frame, and were able to use this piece to improve their vocabulary, punctuation and characterisation, as a few examples.
Numeracy
In Numeracy, students have continued to explore their number and algebra knowledge through place value, operations and fractions. Our next concepts will be, '2D shape, 3D objects and time’. The cohort has been focusing on NAPLAN style questions through our ‘Explicit Teaching’ model. Our students have been exploring the connection between all four operations, (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and different strategies to solve and represent their answers through the use of the RUCSAC guide.
Inquiry
Over the past two weeks, students have continued to dive into their first Unit of Inquiry, 'Our beliefs influence our identity'. We've been exploring the relationship between beliefs and values. Students have investigated famous people and how their beliefs and values have shaped them. We will begin looking at how our family and cultural beliefs and sharing these within our classes to build an appreciation and understanding of other cultures.
Homework
Every second Monday our Year Three cohort will be given their next homework cycle. Homework will be due to the classroom teacher the following Thursday. These tasks have been published as a 'news post' on all of your child's Schoolbox class pages. Please encourage your child to show you where these homework tasks are located. Each fortnight there is a reading, writing, numeracy and inquiry task to be completed.
Reminders
• We kindly remind students to remember their wide-brim hats must be worn every recess and lunch and ensure they have a full water bottle every day.
• Please ensure iPads are sent to school fully charged. If your child has a new iPad that has not been configured in previous years, please ensure your child brings it to school and gives it to their classroom teacher. It is important that the device is signed out of iCloud and backed up before sending it to the school to be configured.
• NAPLAN will commence on March 13th and finish on March 27th
Kind regards,
Denae Vines
Year Three Leading Teacher