Welcome to Year 3

Welcome to Year 3

All the children have settled well into Key Stage 2 and are very excited to now be a part of the juniors in Pendoylan.

We have already started exploring our topic which is called ‘Children of the Revolution.’

The Victorian era, spanning 1837-1901, is extremely interesting and we are all thoroughly enjoying investigating what life was like during this time period. We have already been learning about Queen Victoria and have produced some fantastic fact files detailing her life.
We have also enjoyed a trip to St Fagans and even had the opportunity to attend a Victorian school and participate in a usual classroom. The teacher was so strict! Did you know if you were left handed in school in that era, you would get the cane?

We have also researched important people of the day who influenced and made changes to society. Linking with Black History Month 2021, we explored Mary Seacole and Pablo Fanque to see how their influences during the Victorian era impact us today.

In Science, we are exploring the water cycle and states of matter. We have already conducted experiments linked to changes states and we are hopeful to soon be making a water cycle in a bag.

In Literacy, we are exploring Onjali Q Rauf’s ‘Boy at the Back of the Class’ and linking it to the Global Goals and United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are exploring the techniques used by the author, and it has even influenced some of our lessons. Our written work has and will include, letter writing, newspaper reports, diary entries, explanation writing, persuasive writing and creative writing.
We are also using this text as a thinking point for our  ‘Picture This’ worship sessions. During this worship, we have been exploring how the news links to our current school value.

We also will be looking at grammar and spelling as this is fundamental to our language lessons.
We are also continuing to learn Welsh through lots of songs, games, story books, conversations and Welsh lessons. We have also introduced ‘Tocyn Iaith’ in our classroom and the children are very competitive to see which table has the most tokens for speaking Welsh at the end of the week.
We also are all looking forward to being the classrooms Helpwr Heddiw, which means that we help the class teacher lead the Welsh learning.

In Numeracy, we will be using multiples of 5 and 10 bonds to 100 to solve additions and subtractions and adding and subtracting 1-digit numbers to and from 2 digit numbers. We will also be comparing and ordering 2- and 3- digit numbers; counting on and back in 10s and 1s; adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers and solving problems using place value. We will also be looking at time, shape and money.

We love the Expressive Arts in Year 3 and we have already drawn and painted portraits of Queen Victoria. This term, we will be exploring William Morris in more detail and try to emulate his painting techniques. We are also very excited for our Christmas crafts and can’t wait to celebrate Christmas in Pendoylan with our Christmas play called ‘Children of the World’.

We are also enjoying our P.E lessons. We have ball skills on a Tuesday and multi-skills on a Friday. As the days get colder, we will be moving indoors and beginning gymnastics soon.

We have also enjoyed our Harvest celebrations and it was lovely for us to gather with the rest of Key Stage 2 and celebrate this together.

This term has been action packed so far, and it’s full steam ahead to Christmas. We are learning lots of new skills and knowledge which having fun and laughing each day.