Grade 3 Community News
Dear Year 3 Families,
We hope you're enjoying Term 2 as much as we are!
Our students have been actively engaged in their learning, and we're excited about the upcoming excursion to the Melbourne Museum in Week 8. This excursion offers a fantastic opportunity for students to explore Australia's rich history and cultural heritage. Students will engage with interactive exhibits that bring learning to life, enhancing their understanding of the topics we've been covering in class. To ensure your child can participate, please provide consent and make the necessary payment through the Compass portal as soon as possible. Timely completion of these steps is crucial for finalising our arrangements with the museum.
Knowledge Building Unit - Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening.
In week 6, we began a new unit of study called Off We Go Around Australia. This unit combines four of Roland Harvey's travel books, 'At the Beach,' 'To the Top End,' 'All the Way to W.A.,' and 'In the Bush,' into one volume for an unforgettable Australian adventure. The journey from the northern tip to the western reaches of Australia, exploring the nation's wonders.
Before we read the text, students make observations and formulate questions relating to what they have observed, which supports their development of reading for meaning skills. This strategy also helps them remember what they have read and learned previously.
In writing, we are beginning to look at explanatory texts. In week 6, we explored how to structure the introduction of an explanatory text, which has built upon and extended the knowledge of text structures taught during our persuasive and factual recount units. In our lessons on sentence structure, we have been learning how to use appositives correctly. An appositive is a noun phrase written next to a noun or pronoun to explain or define it. For example, Crabby Spit, a popular beach, is in Queensland. This helps us to have clarity of expression in writing.
Numeracy—Length
In maths, we have begun a new unit: length! We have been learning how to measure, estimate, compare, and order lengths using metric units. The specific vocabulary taught in our length unit includes formal metric units, measurement, length, informal units, millimetres, centimetres, meters, and kilometres.
Vocabulary
Our target words are provided this term from our novel study, Off We Go Around Australia. Our week 5 words were diagram, impressive, obey, praise, improve, and hysterical. Our week 6 words are adventure, agreed, humungous, steep, discovered, and distant.
Students enjoy sharing their learning of these words with you, and we encourage you to support and surprise them by using these words when the opportunity presents itself.
Friendly Reminders
● We ask students to read for 20 minutes each school day and then record their reading nights in their student reading journals that we keep at school to track their reading nights. Young readers who read frequently develop essential reading skills.
● We thank and remind families to continue to support their children in charging their iPads and bringing their headphones ready for each school day.
● In weeks 8 and 9, we have our upcoming excursion to the Melbourne Museum; please make payment & give consent ASAP.
PLC 3