Dear Year 3 Parents/Guardians,

Camp

We’re thrilled to offer our Year 3 and 4 students the opportunity to attend Camp Sunnystones, located in the beautiful bushland of Merrimu, Victoria. This two-day camp is more than just a getaway, it’s a chance for students to build confidence, strengthen friendships, and learn valuable life skills in a supportive outdoor setting. There are limited places available and payment is due on the 15th of August via the Compass app. We will be providing more details soon, so please stay tuned!

Learning Focuses- Below is what we have been focusing on with our learning at the start of this term.

Phonics

Over the last few weeks, we have been revising sounds with alternative spelling patterns to help strengthen students’ reading and writing skills. The English language has many sounds that can be tricky because they can be spelled in multiple ways. Each class has been focusing on different sounds which are dependent on the students in the classes.

Grammar & Syntax

We have been identifying the independent and dependent clauses in the sentences and using subordinating conjunctions.

A clause is a group of words with a subject (who or what the sentence is about) and a verb (what they’re doing).
Independent Clause - This is a complete sentence. It makes sense on its own.
- An example of this is: The dog barked. It has a subject – “the dog” – and a verb – “barked” – and it makes sense on its own.
Dependent Clause - This is not a full sentence. It needs more information to make sense.
- An example of this is: Because the dog barked. We don’t know what happened because the dog barked – the sentence feels unfinished.

Writing

To start the term we have been learning about the structure of a wishing narrative. Students have learnt about a character who wished to paint and help others.

Tool 1 Students were able to use the rule of 3 to describe a character.

Example: He was tall, scruffy, and always scowling.

Tall is talking about the characters appearance, Scruffy is talking about the characters appearance/personality and Always scowling is talking about the characters expression/attitude. These are 3 different ways to describe a character in one sentence.

Tool 2Students use a speech sandwich for their character. This is where the character speaks, we describe how the character is speaking and then they continue speaking. Example: “Where is my food?” screamed the queen “I’m starving!”

Where is my food is the first part of the characters speech
Screamed the queen is how the character is speaking
I’m starving is the continued part of the characters speaking.

Tool 3 Students give their character an action while they are talking. This gives the reader a bigger picture about the character and how or what they might be doing at the same time as they are speaking. Example: Tom bounced on the spot. “This is going to be the best day ever!”

Tom bounced on the spot. This is the action that the character is doing while he is speaking, this shows the reader that Tom is excited

We’re looking forward to seeing the students’ creativity as they begin crafting their own stories using these tools.

Knowledge

In Knowledge and Literature, students have been learning about the importance and meaning behind NAIDOC week and why we recognise and celebrate this every year. Students have also started a literature study on the book ‘Black Cockatoo’. It is a short but powerful story about a young Aboriginal girl named Mia, who lives in a remote part of Australia. She’s growing up between two worlds: the strong traditions of her Indigenous culture, and the challenges of modern life and school. When Mia rescues an injured black cockatoo, it becomes a symbol of her own journey — learning to speak up, find her voice, and protect what matters most to her. This text is a gentle, meaningful read that sparks conversation about culture, country, and standing up for what’s right, as well as allowing students to continue to connect to their previous knowledge from within our First Nations unit and NAIDOC unit.

Maths

In Maths, we’ve been focusing on multiplication and division. Students have been focusing on multiplying by 2, 3 and 4 as well as dividing by 2, 3 and 4.

Students have been using their doubles facts, pictorial representations as well as fact families to prove their answers.

SEL

In Social and Emotional Learning, students have also been learning about strong emotions, such as anger, excitement, frustration, and joy. We’ve been discussing how these emotions feel in our bodies, what might cause them, and ways to manage them in healthy and respectful ways.

Reminders:

Just a quick reminder that students need to bring their satchel and diary to school every day. This helps with organisation, tracking reading progress, and ensuring teachers can send home any important notes. Also, nightly reading is a big part of our routine, we ask that students aim for at least 10 minutes each night and record this in their dairy’s.. Regular reading at home helps build fluency and comprehension skills. To support this, students can also access extra reading practice on Little Learners.

Please continue to check Compass regularly to stay up to date with any new information, including the release of CATS (Common Assessment Tasks). Our first CATS for this term will be released next week. We encourage you to take the time to view your child’s work and leave a comment in the conversation box. This lets their teacher know that you’ve seen the task and helps maintain a strong home–school connection.

Upcoming Events:

Friday 15th August - Camp Payment DUE
Monday 18th August - Book Week Parade
Tuesday 26th August - Parent teacher interviews
Monday 1st September - Curriculum day (Student free day)
Monday 15th September to Tuesday 16th September - Camp

Thank you for your continued support in continuing and strengthening our home and school relationship, which is so vital for students.

Miss Stapleton, Miss Henzell and Mr Francis

Kelly Club