Grade 3 News
📅 Important Dates & Reminders
Upcoming dates/Important Info
Monday 31st August - Middle School Hooptime
Tuesday 1st September - Big Day Out - Sovereign Hill
Friday 18th September: Footy Dress Up Day
Last Day Term 3 - 2.30pm Dismissal
Book Week!
Students had a wonderful day on Monday celebrating Book Week! It was fantastic to see everyone dressed up in such amazing and creative costumes, bringing their favourite books and characters to life.
Our Grade 3 students had to look closely and carefully as they searched around the school for all the Where’s Wally? and Where’s Wenda? pictures. There were plenty of laughs along the way, especially when students discovered the fun pictures featuring our staff!
A big thank you to all our parents and carers for the time, effort and support that went into helping students prepare their wonderful costumes. Your support made the day extra special and helped create such a memorable Book Week celebration!
Science Day!
In Week 6, students had a fantastic day immersing themselves in all things Science! The day was filled with exciting experiments, hands-on activities and plenty of opportunities for students to explore and discover.
Students particularly enjoyed watching an exciting volcano experiment and had plenty of laughs when Miss du Vallon, Miss E and Miss Manning got a little too close to the eruption! Students also took part in a special science incursion, where they enjoyed a range of engaging activities, including a treasure-hunt moon walk, learning about volcanoes and exploring fascinating chemical reactions.
A huge thank you to Mrs Chamberlain for all her hard work in organising such a wonderful and memorable Science Day. It was fantastic to see our students so engaged, curious and excited about science!
📖 Literacy
Over the past fortnight, students have continued reading Charlotte’s Web and have now reached the end of the novel. Students enjoyed reading the conclusion and reflecting on the beautiful friendship shared between Wilbur and Charlotte.
Sentence-Level Writing:
Students have continued to strengthen their ability to write simple, compound and complex sentences. They have learned that compound sentences include one of the coordinating conjunctions from the acronym FANBOYS, while complex sentences include a subordinating conjunction from ISAWAWUBUB. These acronyms have helped students identify different sentence types and apply them in their own writing.
Students have also focused on sentence expansion, using adverbials to add more detail and information to their writing. We have been particularly impressed to see students incorporating vocabulary they have learned in previous lessons, helping to make their writing more interesting and precise.
Text-Level Writing:
At the text level, students completed their narratives about an unlikely friendship. Students carefully planned each section and followed the correct narrative structure to develop their stories.
We were incredibly impressed with the creativity and effort students put into their writing and thoroughly enjoyed reading their wonderful narratives!
Preview:
Students will begin by revising and editing their narrative pieces, ensuring they have correct sentence structure, punctuation and grammar. Once their narratives have been edited, students will practise their typing skills by typing their completed narratives on the Chromebooks.
In Word Work, students will begin exploring the spelling patterns ‘ie’ and ‘ei’, with a focus on the familiar rule ‘i before e, except after c’. Students will practise reading and spelling words containing these patterns and apply their new learning to their writing.
🧠Knowledge Rich
Over the past fortnight, students concluded their unit on Modern Democracy. We were incredibly impressed by the engagement and curiosity students demonstrated throughout the unit.
Students enjoyed learning about what it means to be a citizen and showed a particular interest in learning more about Neil Daniher and his contributions to society. Students also learned about Dylan Alcott, Australian of the Year, Paralympian and tennis champion, who has used his platform to promote greater access and inclusion for people with disabilities.
To conclude the unit, students reflected on what it means to be a citizen by drawing and writing about how they can contribute positively as citizens at school and within their community.
Preview:
Students will begin their new Knowledge Rich unit on Rivers. They will explore how and where rivers are formed, why rivers are important to society, and discover a range of fascinating rivers from around the world. Students will develop their understanding of the role rivers play in both the natural environment and human communities.
➗ Maths
Students were very excited to begin our new Maths unit on 3D shapes. They have been exploring the properties of 3D shapes, including vertices, edges, faces and curved surfaces. Students identified 3D shapes in the real world and had lots of fun learning how to draw cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones and rectangular prisms.
Our Grade 3 students particularly enjoyed using matchsticks and playdough to create a range of 3D shapes. They tested the strength of their structures and explored how different shapes can withstand different amounts of weight. This provided students with a hands-on opportunity to understand how these shapes and structures are used in the real world.
Preview:
In Maths, students will begin revisiting addition and subtraction, with a particular focus on solving worded problems. Students will learn to identify key words and information within a problem to help determine which operation they need to use and how to solve it.
Students will focus on ‘combine’ and ‘compare’ problems, using bar models to represent the information and support their mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills.
🌿Wellbeing
Over the past fortnight, students have been learning and practising useful strategies to help manage angry feelings. Students explored a range of calming strategies, including:
- Taking 10 deep breaths.
- Squeezing their fists and slowly releasing them.
- Having a drink of water and going for a walk.
- ‘Melt from ice to water’ – squeezing their bodies tightly and staying still like a block of ice, then slowly relaxing and releasing their bodies to feel like flowing water.
Students also focused on the importance of making genuine and meaningful apologies.
We explored the key elements of a sincere apology, including:
- Facing the person and looking at them.
- Explaining what they did wrong.
- Thinking about and acknowledging how their actions may have made the other person feel.
- Sharing how they feel now that they recognise their mistake.
- Promising to try not to repeat the behaviour.
- Saying sorry and genuinely meaning it.
Students then had the opportunity to put their learning into practice by choosing a made-up situation and writing an apology for the incident.
Looking ahead:
Students will revisit positive coping strategies, exploring different ways we can manage stress and calm ourselves when we are feeling overwhelmed. Students will also complete a lesson focused on kindness, exploring what kindness looks like, how we can show kindness to others, and how kindness and strength are connected.
Grade 3 Team,
Miss Manning, Miss Egorov and Miss du Vallon