Welcome to Manta Rays Class (Year 3)

Here is the timetable for Manta Rays Class for the Spring 2 term:

** PE DAYS ARE WEDNESDAYS AND THURSDAYS - PLEASE WEAR PE KITS TO SCHOOL ON THESE DAYS**

March 2025

Year 3 have had a busy month with lots of new and exciting learning opportunities, including Book Week with a workshop with the Bookman, Walking Training to help us keep safe when we are out walking near or crossing roads and a trip to Marwell Zoo to experience a rainforest. What a busy month!

In Science, the children have been carrying out investigations to test the best growing conditions for cress seeds.  They chose whether they wanted to put them in the dark cupboard or in the cold fridge.  They predicted what they thought would happen and why and were excited to check on their seeds after a week to see if their predictions were correct.  We have also dissected flowers to identify all the parts to involved in pollination and fertilisation.

 

In Computing, the children are thoroughly enjoying our Creating media – Photo editing unit.  They have learnt how to crop, clone, rotate and retouch images.

In DT, the children have been working towards making their own rainforest animal out of felt.  They created their own rainforest animal design and sewed the felt together, before adding the stuffing and final details.  They all look incredible and so unique!

 

In PE, the children are enjoying Tag Rugby and Gymnastics.  They have learnt to pass the ball backwards, defend, attack and score a try in rugby.  They have worked with a partner to create symmetrical and asymmetrical balances in gymnastics. 

          

February 2025

We are starting our new Geography topic this half term, comparing the Amazon Rainforest and Horsell Common.  The children were given a challenge in half term to visit Horsell Common with their family and take some photos or do some research online to create a poster.  It was lovely to see the posters the children made.

          

 

 

We have started our new Science topic about Plants this week.  The children recalled the key parts of plants and looked at the jobs each part does.  We are looking forward to carrying out some exciting investigations this half term to find out the best growing conditions for plants.

In Maths, we have just to come to the end of our Multiplication and Division unit.  The children have been learning about remainders and explored this using lolly sticks.  In the next few weeks we will be looking at Geometry and Fractions, Decimals, Percentages.

In Literacy, we are looking at the text ‘The Great Kapok Tree’ linked to our Rainforest topic from last half term.  Our focus is persuasive texts and how to write in a persuasive way.  We have explored the story through a playscript and linked this to our Reading focus this week.

In Computing, we are starting an exciting new Photo Editing topic!  The children love this topic and will get to edit, improve and create some funny looking images!

January 2025

We have started our new Geography topic this half term about Rainforests around the World.  We have located them on maps and found out that they are near the Equator and between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, as the climate and weather is the warmest there.  We found out that over half of the world’s animals live in rainforests, so they are a very important habitat!  We are focusing on the Amazon rainforest.  The children statements about rainforest deforestation.

     

We have started our new Science topic about Rocks this half term.  The children have really enjoyed finding out that rocks and fossils are millions of years old and can be formed in three different ways.  The children learnt how fossils are formed and even made their own fossils!  We have a new book about rocks that shows all the different layers under the Earth’s surface.  The children love folding it out and looking at what is beneath our feet!

          

In Maths, we have been continuing our learning on Multiplication and Division.  The children have been working so hard to learn the 8 times table and related division facts, using some friendly spiders in our classroom!  In Literacy, we have been looking at the story Dragon Post.  The children have been busy writing letters and including all the features of formal letter writing.

In Art, we have been learning about the artist Henri Rousseau.  The children have been learning how to mix yellow and blue paint to make different shades of green and adding black and white. 

          

In RE, the children have been finding out about the Golden Rules that underpin many religions.  They have been creating mindmaps of what they think Golden Rules should include.

     

In PE we have been doing Dance.  We have been imagining we are animals that live in forests and have used expression and creativity to move our bodies in different ways.

     

December 2024

It has been a busy time in Year 3 this month!  We all enjoyed taking part in the Christmas Concert and singing our songs to our friends and families.  The children did so well and we are really proud of them. 

In Science, we have been learning about magnetic poles.  The children had fun exploring the poles and finding out that like poles repel and opposite poles attract.  They then created their own magnetic games using magnets that attract.  We had fishing games, race tracks and mazes.

          

We have continued to learn about Fractions in Maths and have been finding out about equivalent fractions and ordering and comparing fractions.  We have started our new topic learning about Money.  We have looked at pounds and pence and added coins together to make different amounts.

In DT, we loved designing and making our own pneumatic monsters.  The children used a piece of plastic tubing and two syringes to make their monster open and close its mouth.  They all looked so different and unique with different teeth, horns, eyes and colours!

               

In Computing we have been learning to program and add sounds in Scratch.  The children are becoming confident at programming a sprite to move and make sounds and love their Computing lessons.

In Literacy we have been looking at instruction texts and have written our own instructions about ‘How to Mummify a Tomato’.  The children included key features such as a title, sub-headings, numbered instructions and imperative (bossy) verbs.

November 2024

In Science, we are learning about Forces and Magnets.  We have carried out several different investigations, including finding out if friction affects the distance a toy car will travel down a ramp.  The children made their predictions and then tested different surfaces to explore their ideas and come to a conclusion.  We have been exploring magnetic and non-magnetic materials and how not all metals are magnetic and also learnt about different types of magnets and carried out an investigation to see which magnets are the strongest and can pick up the most paper clips.  The results were very different for each group!

     

In DT, we are working towards making our own pneumatic monsters using syringes and plastic tubing.  The children enjoyed exploring a range of pneumatic toys and looked at how they work.  It was great fun launching rockets, releasing cars and racing horses!   The children are now busy planning and designing their own monsters, incorporating a pneumatic system and are really excited to make them in a couple of weeks.

          

In Literacy, we have been looking at the story ‘Dolphin Boy’.  It is a lovely story about a boy who finds a dolphin stranded on a beach and how they become friends.  The children have been using ideas from the story to plan and write their own story with their own choice of setting, animal and main character.  We have been focusing on using fronted adverbials and adjectives to add detail and excitement to our story writing, and the children have written some wonderful stories!

In PE, we are doing football and hockey.  The children really enjoy their weekly football lessons with Miss Young each week and are developing lots of great skills that they can use in both sports.

     

     

In History, we are continuing to learn about the Ancient Egyptians.  We have been learning about why the Egyptians mummified bodies and the mummification process, and the children have used a similar process to mummify some tomatoes!  We are hoping they will be preserved well and not rot!  We also had a fantastic interactive performance from Mr Dilly, who took us back in time to the Ancient Egyptian times.  The children LOVED it and came out saying "that was excellent!" and "that was so gross when he removed the organs!" (fake ones of course!)

              

     In half term, some children made a pyramid at home.  They all look fantastic!

October 2024

We have been enjoying learning about the Ancient Egyptians this half term and have written some excellent non-chronological reports about human and physical features of Ancient Egypt.

In Art, we have been learning how to draw a 3D pyramid and add shading and tone to create realistic images.  The children completed their final unique piece and they look amazing!

 

     

In Science, we have been learning about bones and skeletons and the children made their own model to explain how the muscles in our arms work.

In History, we have been learning about how important the River Nile was in Ancient Egyptian times, and how Egypt wouldn’t have existed without it.  We have learnt about some of the hundreds of gods and goddesses that were worshipped and that many of them had the head of an animal.

          

The children had a go at writing the god or goddess name in hieroglyphics using the Ancient Egyptian writing code.  The symbols are much trickier to write than our letters!

This week it is International Week and our class have been learning about Italy.  We made pizzas to sell at the food event and welcomed a visitor into our class to teach us some Italian.  We are able to find Italy on a map and discuss some of the Italian landmarks.

In computing we have been learning about online safety and how every time we go online we live a ‘digital footprint’.  We know how important it is to keep ourselves safe online and to think about the information we share with others.

September 2024

Welcome to a new school year!  Keep an eye on this page for all the exciting things we will do this year!

The children have settled into Manta Rays class really well and have been enjoying starting to learn about the Ancient Egyptians. We started off our new topic by looking at some ancient Egyptian artefacts that we borrowed from Chertsey Museum.  Some of them were very tricky to work out!  We have enjoyed finding out about how different life was in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago!

          

In Literacy, we are using a lovely picture book called ‘Journey’.  We have been looking carefully at what happens in each picture and writing the story ourselves using adjectives and nouns in expanded noun phrases and including adverbs. The children are excited that they are now using a handwriting pen.

In Science, we are learning about healthy eating and bones.  We looked at food labels and learnt about eating a balanced diet with not too much saturated fats.

In Maths, we are learning about place value and how to represent 2 and 3-digit numbers in different ways.  We have been ordering and comparing numbers and counting in 50s.

          

The children are showing great team work skills in PE and are learning different skills in Netball.