Year 3 News  

Week 4 already! It feels like we blinked and a month has simply vanished. Time truly does fly when you are having fun, learning new things and trying to keep up with the boundless energy of Year 3. We have had a remarkably busy and productive fortnight in the classroom. 

Literacy 

Our literacy block has been jam-packed with sounds, spelling and some fantastic storytelling. Students have been applying their knowledge of letters and sounds to read, spell and handwrite a collection of 'ear' words (including beard, ear, hear, spear and year) as well as an impressive list of 'eer' words (think cheer, deer, steer, sheer, veer, engineer, meerkat, peer, volunteer and eerie). 

We have also been investigating how words are built. The students learned the meaning and spelling of the prefix ‘in-’ through words like incorrect, inactive, incomplete and invisible. We have also been breaking down the root word ‘struct’ to see how it operates across past, present and future tenses. 

For handwriting, we are continuing to refine our skills, specifically practising anticlockwise letters within phrases and making sure our previously taught sounds look sharp when written in full sentences. 

Reading aloud remains a major focus. The students are reading to develop their accuracy, apply their emerging grammar knowledge, build fluency and most importantly, make meaning of the text. A real highlight has been our Wongutha Tales mentor texts, particularly The Kangaroos Who Wanted to be People, Smartie Pants and the wonderfully titled Barn-Barn Barlala the Bush Trickster.  

Numeracy 

We kick off with daily retrieval practice to ensure important math concepts stay fresh in our minds. Our main focus has been Multiplicative Thinking. We have been exploring the inverse operations of multiplication and division, looking at how they are connected through fact families to build our overall fact fluency. 

For homework, our students have been using Times Tables Rockstars. A massive shoutout to everyone using the heat map function—it is a brilliant tool to help pinpoint exactly which tables they feel comfortable with and which ones might need a little extra attention. We are incredibly proud of everyone who is giving it a solid go. The effort at home is genuinely showing in their school numeracy skills, and the rock-star status is well deserved. 

Inquiry 

We have just launched our exciting new Unit of Inquiry: 

Cultures Change Over Time. 

Throughout this unit, we are focusing on the concepts of Change and Perspective. Our main lines of inquiry include: 

• The importance of country and place to Aboriginal peoples 

• Stories, artefacts and histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture 

• The impact of settlement on the Aboriginal Community 

To kick things off, we had a truly fascinating incursion presented by Ronan from First Nations Incursions. The students experienced an incredible array of cultural tools and traditions. We learned about the didgeridoo (also known as a yidaki) and how different blowing techniques create completely different sounds. We looked at how various boomerangs are designed for very specific occasions, examined possum pelts that vary depending on the Australian region and got to handle different Aboriginal artefacts. 

A definite crowd-pleaser was seeing how ochre is mixed with charcoal and water to make paint, with the kids getting the chance to have some traditional colours wiped onto their own skin. 

School Cross Country 

Thanks to the predictable unpredictability of our weather, Cross Country was completely washed-out last week by tropical storms. Thankfully, we reconvened this week under absolutely beautiful skies. The Year 3 students had a fantastic opportunity to get out there and have a go. Even though they do not progress through the various representative levels this year, it was a fun, high-energy peek at what is in store for them in Year 4. 

Back at school the students wrote about their experiences. 

What we are learning next 

Literacy

• We will learn to independently read and spell words containing the sounds ‘ear’ and ‘eer’, the suffixes ‘-less’, ‘-ful’ and ‘-ment’ as well as the prefixes ‘non-’ and ‘in-’. 

• We will write a dictated sentence entirely independently. 

• We will continue to read texts to build fluency and make meaning. 

• We will consolidate our understanding of the root word ‘vert/vers’ (meaning 'to turn'). Students will match definitions and construct their own sentences to demonstrate their understanding. 

Maths

• We will be diving deeper into division, place value structures, fact families, retrieval and overall math fact fluency.