Grade 3 News

📅 Important Dates & Reminders

🏊 Thursdays (Weeks 1–5): Swimming Program

💛 Wednesday, July 30: Friendship Day

🧮 Wednesday, August 6: Australian Maths Competition

🎭 Friday, August 22: Whole School Production Rehearsal

🛍️ Wednesday, August 27: Father’s Day Stall

Learning in Action

📖 Literacy

Our novel study this term is Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, a heartwarming classic many parents may remember. The story follows Wilbur, a runt pig saved from slaughter by a young girl named Fern. As Wilbur grows, he is moved to a farm where he forms an unlikely friendship with a wise spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur’s life is once again at risk, Charlotte weaves messages into her web, like “Some Pig” and “Terrific”, to convince the farmer and community that Wilbur is truly special.

This timeless story explores themes of friendship, loyalty, and the cycle of life, and we anticipate students will thoroughly enjoy the book and its related learning tasks.

During the unit, students will:

• Develop sentence-level writing skills
• Plan and draft narratives by innovating on key themes from Charlotte’s Web
• Engage in daily Word Work, fluency partner reading, and regular handwriting practice

Literacy Preview

Students will focus on narrative structure, beginning with planning and writing characters, settings, and action. They will also:

• Combine, expand, and summarise sentences
• Use a range of conjunctions across different sentence types

➗ Maths

In Term 3, students will focus on multiplication and division during number lessons. They will:

• Learn a variety of strategies to solve problems
• Make connections between times tables
• Partition numbers to simplify complex operations

Students will also participate in a four-week Time unit, where they will:

• Learn to tell time on analogue and digital clocks
• Understand o’clock, half-past, quarter-to, and quarter-past
• Explore elapsed time and duration of events
• Work in targeted groups to strengthen time concepts

Maths Masters practise will continue, and students are encouraged to work on their individual goals at home to support steady improvement.

Maths Preview

The term will begin with multiplication, focusing on the idea that the multiplication symbol (×) means “groups of”. Students will explore commutativity, learning that numbers can be multiplied in any order to reach the same result.

🗺️ Knowledge Rich Unit

This term’s Knowledge-Rich unit is Australia and Its Neighbours. Students will investigate the similarities and differences between Australia and nearby countries, with a focus on climate, constructed features, and the impact these have on how people live.

They will:

• Build map-reading skills
• Engage in rich discussion
• Demonstrate learning through various writing tasks

Knowledge Rich Preview

Students will begin by identifying Australia’s neighbouring countries using maps. They’ll then explore the climates of these regions and examine how different environments shape the natural and built features of each location.

😊 Wellbeing

In Term 3, students will explore a range of social and emotional learning topics. They will:

• Learn to identify and understand emotions
• Develop positive coping strategies
• Explore how emotional responses can differ between people, encouraging empathy and respect
• Continue learning about the difference between “Mean-on-Purpose” and “Friendship Fires” through role-plays and discussion
• Practise how to regulate emotions and make appropriate apologies

Wellbeing Preview

Students will begin by creating their own “calm down sandwich”, a fun activity where they identify three coping strategies that work best for them when experiencing strong emotions.

Have a wonderful weekend.

The Grade 3 Team

Mrs Rosewarne, Mrs Huxley, Mrs Stokol and Miss du Vallon

Updates from around the school

Green Team News

Under the guidance of Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander, the Green Team met for the first time this week, and what a meeting it was! Across Years 3 to 5, we had nearly 50 excited and passionate students eager to do their part for the environment.

Whether it’s helping to keep the school free of rubbish, caring for and developing the gardens, or educating our community about sustainability, there was a real buzz in the air as students shared ideas and signed up for various roles.

A new initiative launched this term is the collection of 10c containers. Thanks to the special lunch day last term, we raised $21, a fantastic start! We’re now working to collect eligible containers daily to reduce landfill waste and turn recyclables into funds that will be reinvested into future Green Team projects.

Participation in the Green Team is inclusive and open to all. It’s not too late for your child to get involved; we’d love to have them on board!

Green Team Newsletter #2

The enthusiastic Green Team members from Years 3 to 6 continue to meet with Mrs Alexander and Mrs Stokol each Wednesday lunchtime. Meetings begin with a check-in on how the yard cleaning roster is going. Students report which areas are the cleanest, which need more attention, and share ideas for improvement.

Sustainability remains a key focus. Whether it’s managing waste, maintaining garden spaces, or spreading awareness, students have shown impressive initiative and creativity.

Our 10c container collection is going strong! We've raised over $30 in just a few weeks. Green Team members manage the collection bin outside the canteen on lunch order days, and also visit classrooms weekly to gather containers from specially labelled tubs. By collecting these items daily, we are preventing waste from going to landfill and turning it into cash to support our environmental efforts.

Be sure to check out the Sustainability Display in the gym over the coming weeks to see what we’ve been up to!

Did you know? You can support the Green Team by nominating Lysterfield Primary School (LPS) as your donation partner through Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme.

Download the app or visit:🔗 Victoria's Container Deposit Scheme | Learn How To Donate

It’s planting season, and what’s better than free plants? 

Help the Green Team — and Earn Free Plants!

Did you know that the Knox Environment Society (KES) offers free native plants as prizes through their Nature Discovery Passport program?

By playing an interactive game and collecting stamps at local reserves, participants can earn plant prizes, and what better way to use those plants than by donating them to our school for the Green Team to grow and maintain?

Explore one of the many beautiful reserves in Knox on the weekend, learn about your local ecology, collect stamps, and claim your prize. It’s a fun way to get outside, support the environment, and contribute to our school’s sustainability efforts.

And who says the fun is just for the kids? Families are welcome to join in too!

To learn more, visit:

🔗 Nature Discovery Passport – Knox Environment Society

🔗 Knox Environment Society Home Page

Thank you — every little bit helps!

Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander