Year 3 Term 3 Overviews

Year 3 Term 3 Overview

Wominjeka!

We can’t believe it is Term 3 already! The term has started on a very positive note with parent-teacher interviews. These meetings provided a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your child's achievements and to discuss ways we can continue to work together to support their social, emotional, and academic growth. We greatly appreciate the support you are giving your children with their nightly reading, diary entries, and goal practice. If you were unable to attend a parent-teacher interview, please schedule a time with your child’s classroom teacher.

LEARNING:

Reading 

Students are exploring the structure and features of narrative texts, including theme, plot, setting, characters, problem, solution, and resolution. They will delve deeply into weekly mentor texts, engage in guided reading, and participate in reciprocal teaching. They will also explore a variety of texts from our school and class libraries, as well as our online reading resources, Wushka and Epic.

During reciprocal teaching, students will develop skills to make predictions, clarify words and phrases, ask text-related questions, and summarize key ideas and messages in the texts they read.

Writing Students are honing their skills as authors by creating narratives that incorporate essential features such as theme, plot, setting, characters, problem, solution, and resolution. They are enhancing their writing abilities through the exploration of ideas, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, organization, and conventions like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and presentation. Students use their writer's notebooks to gather and develop seed ideas and research questions, guiding and enriching their writing process.

Maths 

Students are currently delving into the concept of reading and interpreting maps. They are exploring key map features such as the title, key/legend, border, coordinates, and compass directions/rose. Additionally, they are learning to draw maps that provide step-by-step instructions for navigating from one point to another. Moreover, they have been introduced to the concept of angles, focusing specifically on right angles, acute angles, and obtuse angles. This exploration includes identifying where these angles can be found in their surroundings.

Later in the term, students will be building upon their skills around fractional thinking and financial maths. 

Multiplicative thinking will be a key focus throughout the year, as it is considered a 'big idea' for Years 3 and 4. Students are engaging in math games during regular Number Sense Workshops to practice strategies and deepen their recall of multiplication facts for 2, 3, 5, 10, and beyond, as well as their related division facts.

Additionally, students are continuing to build their math reasoning skills through weekly opportunities to solve real-life word problems. They use efficient and creative mental, written, and representational strategies, such as drawing diagrams and tables, making models, and writing number sentences (equations).

SEL

Throughout Term 3, our Social and Emotional Learning will focus on understanding goals and how students can achieve them using their existing skills. Students will also explore the similarities they share with their peers and what this means in terms of celebrating these commonalities while understanding and accepting each other's differences. By fostering the understanding that we are all unique—looking different and having varied preferences, likes, and dislikes—we aim to build a more inclusive and accepting classroom community. We will continue building our routines and rituals, and ongoing focus on school values and school-wide positive behaviour.

Inquiry Learning

Students will be investigating the driving question, How does the interdependence of environmental elements help to sustain life on earth? during our Geography and Biological Science focused unit of inquiry. We began this unit with unpacking the guiding question and what this could mean. Students will be investigating:

•What is a natural environment and how do humans impact it?

•How/Are different environments interdependent upon each other?

•What are biomes and how are food chains and food webs connected?

Home Learning

Ongoing learning goals are posted on Compass every 5 weeks for students to work towards achieving both at home and at school. This includes reading, writing, maths, and social/emotional goals. There are suggestions for how families can support their child to achieve their learning goals and we thank you for your support in assisting your children at home. Students can also access IXL for both maths and english.

General Reminders:

• Please ensure that your child is at school by 8:30 and ready to learn at 8:40am.

OSHC Club is available for before and after school care. Please contact our office staff for further information.

• Please check Compass daily, as these will be the main portals that we (the teachers) and the school will communicate information to you. Compass is also the place where you will be able to access your child’s goals and achievements. 

These will be released every five weeks and will tell you what your child has achieved in Reading, Writing, Numeracy and Inquiry/Social, as well as their next steps (goals). 

Students will transport take home books from school to home and back each day in their reading satchels. Each morning, readers will be exchanged from the take home reader boxes in classrooms. Your child's teacher will have a day in which all Green Home Reading Diaries need to be handed in so they can view, record and provide feedback on students’ nightly reading.

•Learning apps, IXL for maths and english, and Wushka, Epic and Google Classroom are being accessed by students. The safest place for login details is in Green Home Reading Diaries and we recommend that families take a picture of their child’s login details and store in phones as a backup. 

Kind Regards,

The 2024 Year 3 Team

3A Arta, 3B Sydney, 3C Amber, 3D Palika, 3E Jake, 3F Amanda, 3G Alex, 3H Arline, 3I Zandile, 3J Gary