Year 3 Newsletter

 Newsletter

Writing
In writing, we have been exploring non-chronological reports. We have investigated the shapes and features of this style of writing and used examples to help inspire us when writing our own reports. Using the unusual creature, the pangolin, we have created exciting reports detailing the epic features of this strange animal. For instance, did you know it is actually a mammal and that the "scales" are made from keratin just like human hair and nails!

Art
Our artwork this term has been inspired by all the research we have done on the Egyptians this term. We have explored:

• Where Egyptians painted their murals (walls, ceilings, tombs, floors, houses, palaces)
• What they painted (Gods/goddesses, landscapes, lives of the Egyptians, stories, afterlife)
• The colours they used
• Colour mixing practice
• Whole page colour wash techniques
• How to draw a person in profile (ancient Egyptian style)

We used our own poses to help reference how we could draw ourselves as an ancient Egyptian and used our knowledge of human skeletons to help us practice our designs.

Maths
In maths, we have been exploring column addition and how we can use our knowledge of number bonds to help us with our regrouping. This is something brand new to year 3 and we are really enjoying learning a new skill to help us work out sums with larger numbers!

The mummification process

Topic
History

This week in year 3, we have been lucky enough to have a drama workshop led by Mrs Moore. The session taught us the importance of mummification and why the Ancient Egyptians did it!

To warm up our voices and bodies, we did a range of activities that would help us be the best actors and actresses. One activity involved us repeating Egyptian headlines in a newspaper style!

After we were all warmed up, we investigated the process of mummification and took it in turns to act out each step that the Ancient Egyptians took. Mrs Moore was so impressed and could not believe our knowledge on Egyptians, great work year 3!

Pyramids and percussion!

Topic/music
Today in topic we learnt many facts about the Ancient Egyptian pyramids and used this helpful song to help remind us of those important facts.

In ancient Egypt where the desert sands lay,
The sun beats down and rain stays away,
130 pyramids appear tall,
Even today they stand and don’t fall,
20,000 slaves to build one pyramid by hand,
To make the pyramids appearance regal and grand,
Designed like a stairway aiming up high,
To reach Ra, the sun god, way up in the sky,
The pyramids protected our beloved pharaohs,
Near our Egyptian city of beautiful Cairo.

We used instruments to explore the facts and work out how best to represent different aspects of the song in our groups. After practising with our friends we performed these to our class to put the whole song together for us all to learn and enjoy. 

To explore the pyramids even further we learnt ANOTHER song about the pyramids and the slaves used to construct it. We had a great time understanding rhythm, pace and how we can use actions to help us remember important facts about our learning. A great afternoon of learning and noise, well done year 3!

                                       

Egypt, explorers and exciting adventures.

Writing
In English we have been exploring the story of Tadeo Jones, a famous explorer of Ancient Egyptian artefacts. 

We have been using the clip to inspire our setting descriptions and help us to practice essential writing skills that help to build our understanding of a successful piece of writing. 

Setting description
We explored a set of images and created an extensive list relating to our sense about what we could hear, see, feel and smell. This helped us to structure our writing throughout the week ad build upon these senses with skills such as metaphors, similes, personification and adverbs. 

Diary entry
This week we have taken our understanding of Tadeo Jones and begun to apply this to a diary entry. We acted out the key story plot points as a group and became the explorer himself. This helped us to reflect upon how we can use show-not-tell body language and actions to display how someone is feeling and what their inner thought may be. 

Let's do the time warp...To Ancient Egyptian times!!

Topic

Today in year 3, we strapped our seat belts on, waved goodbye to our families, grabbed onto our tables and whizzed into the past all the way to Ancient Egyptian times! 

Once we arrived in Ancient Egypt, we were eager to discover the Egyptians and their inventions. We found some research packs and observed them in their everyday lives to see how they lived. We identified inventions in: 

• Sports 
• Weapons
• Pottery
• Hunting and fishing
• Crime and punishment
• Games
• Musical instruments

In groups we created a drama piece and performed for our class so that we would blend into our new surroundings and immerse ourselves in the world of Ancient Egypt. Here are some images of our drama performances: 

 

We enjoyed travelling back in time but we were glad when we finally got home.. Some of those Pharaohs were a bit scary!