Year Three News

Term Two in Grade 3 

Welcome back to our Grade 3 students and parents! We are looking forward to another exciting term, with numerous engaging learning opportunities.

Reading

In Reading, our novel study this term will be Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Our Grade 3 students will explore new vocabulary and work on various comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, questioning, inferring and summarising, to gain a deeper understanding of the text. Students will keep a record of the books they read throughout the year, along with engaging in discussions with their classmates about what they are reading. They will continue to participate in shared oral reading with their peers to increase fluency as well as reading independently for enjoyment.

Writing

As part of the Grade 3 Writing curriculum, students will continue to incorporate the 6+1 Traits of Writing and the structured approach of The Writing Revolution. They will develop their writing skills by learning to expand basic sentences and construct a range of sentence types. In addition, students will learn about the organisation and structure of information reports and will apply this knowledge to create their own texts.

In Spelling, students continue to explore the long vowel sounds through the Daily Review sessions. They make grapheme-phoneme connections by matching letters to sounds and regularly practise reading and writing words.

Numeracy

This term in Numeracy, students will learn to apply their knowledge of place value to rename numbers in a variety of ways. Students continue to strengthen their understanding of the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) by focusing on building a range of mental strategies and exploring the inverse relationships between the operations. They will work on developing fluency with the 3, 4, 5 and 10 times tables. For measurement, students explore various concepts such as mass, length, capacity and angles. In our statistics unit, students will learn about collecting, organising and presenting data in different ways such as data tables and spreadsheets. We will also be continuing Numeracy Daily Review sessions to strengthen recall and memory and build fluency of mathematical concepts.

Units of Work

Our units this term will include Australian Geography and Chemical and Physical Sciences. In Geography, students will locate Australian states, territories and capital cities on a map. Indigenous places of cultural significance will also be explored. Our Chemical Science unit will help students develop their knowledge about the states of matter and will allow them to learn how liquids and solids respond to changes in temperature. In Physical Science, students will investigate different types of forces and their effects on the behaviour of an object. They will also learn about the effect of friction on different surfaces.

Incursion

This term the Grade 3 classes will be participating in a First Nations incursion. We are delighted and honoured to be welcoming Dion Drummond back to FWPS to share his knowledge and culture with us. Dion is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent and one of Australia’s most experienced Indigenous performers. He will be sharing tales, language, artefacts, songs and dance. Students will participate in learning songs and dances in a lively, interactive show which has enthralled audiences around Australia and overseas. This will be held at FWPS on Friday, 24th May at 9am. For more information, including the cost, please see the Compass event. Payment is due one week prior to the incursion.

Homework

This term, students in Grade 3 will be required to complete homework tasks each week. Students are encouraged to read for a minimum of 20 minutes, 5 times a week and record this in their online reading log through Google Classroom. For Maths, they will work on Essential Assessment tasks through Sunset Maths, once a week for at least 15 minutes. Students have explored Essential Assessment in the classroom so they are familiar with the platform.

Parent Helpers

We are delighted to hear that many caregivers have completed the online modules that allow them to come into the school as helpers. If you would like to volunteer in your child's classroom to provide additional support, please contact your child's class teacher via compass.

Tess, Trang, Kim and Michael

The 2024 Grade 3 Team