Year 3 - Middle Unit
It has been another busy and exciting few weeks in Year 3, with students continuing to develop their skills and knowledge across all areas of the curriculum. We have particularly enjoyed seeing students put their mathematical thinking into action during Mathslympics, our school-wide mathematics competition, where students have worked together as House Teams to solve problems, think creatively and challenge themselves.
During our Poetry Unit, students have continued to learn about a range of different styles of poetry and created their own poems based on themes of their choosing. So far, students explored the structure of Haiku poetry, which strengthened their understanding of syllables while also encouraging them to carefully select words that created vivid imagery for the reader. Students also explored Diamante poems, unpacking their unique structure and developing their use of verbs and adjectives to describe and explore a noun. Students continued to add to their own Poetry Anthology as they experimented with different poetic styles and language choices.
In Mathematics, students have continued their studies of division and have been exploring a variety of strategies to solve division problems efficiently. A key focus has been using multiplication as the inverse of division, allowing students to use their known multiplication facts to help solve division problems. Students have also been working on sharing and grouping, using materials and visual representations to understand what division means, as well as using repeated subtraction, arrays and number lines to represent and solve problems. We have been encouraging students to choose a strategy that makes sense to them and to explain how they worked out their answer.
Our Inquiry learning has continued to focus on the life cycles of plants and animals. Our butterfly chrysalises have shown very little change so far, but this is not unexpected. The Orange Lacewings we are observing come from a much more tropical part of Australia, so the cooler conditions here can mean their development takes considerably longer. The students have continued to keep a close eye on them and are certainly hoping we get to see some changes soon.
Students have been busy designing and building their 3D life cycle models, and we have already heard about some very creative ideas and designs. We are looking forward to seeing the finished projects and having students share their learning with the class.
The projects are due on Friday 11 September, which is also an exciting day for our Year 3 students as we will be welcoming Wild Action to school for an incursion focusing on animal life cycles. This will provide a great opportunity for students to connect what they have been learning in the classroom with real-world experiences.
Our Parent/ Carer Project Showcase will be on Thursday 17 Sept at 3:00 pm.
Year 3 Teachers
Mark Condon & Kylie Minchew (3MC), Nathan Spilsted (3NS), Louise Safstrom/Emma Beaumont (3SB)