Class 3 Blog

Highlights

Another busy week in Class 3 this week. From place value work in maths to punctuation in English, from exploring the River Nile in History to discussing online safety in Computing – we have completed so much.

A couple of highlights include some more amazing work in Science – the Year 3s have enjoyed finding out about the properties of different types of rocks and the Year 4s have explored the melting points of different chocolates and sweets – the children are all loving the investigation side of our science work and the discussions they are having is really interesting to hear.

This week in Guided Reading we have continued to read our text ‘The boy who stole the Pharaoh’s lunch’. We are doing lots of echo reading to work on our expression and earlier in the week we had a great session focusing reading dialogue between two characters. The children loved the opportunity to work in pairs and really get into the role of a character.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, as part of our Religion and Worldviews work, we discussed remembering and the events of a Christian funeral. The children were so sensible and sensitive to others in their discussions, it really was lovely to see.

Failed Project Challenge – I have loved to have ‘failed projects’ arriving on my desk this week – I was so impressed with the children’s ideas and designs. Everyone who completed the challenge received Class Dojo points for their efforts. Please do continue to bring in any work completed at home – we love to see it!

What’s happening next week?

Next week, the children need to come to school in PE kit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Please ensure your child has a pair of indoor shoes as well as their trainers, just to wear after PE and hopefully keep the carpets in school as clean as possible.

On Tuesday, we are lucky to have someone from the school sports partnership to run a cross country event just for year 3/4. I’m sure all the children will enjoy the event!

Reading Percentages

Each week we check through reading logs to see who has read at least 3 times. Last week, the year 4s beat year 3 with 14/15 of the year 4s reading 3 times or more. Please support your fellow classmates by ensuring you read at least 3 times. I wonder who will win next week?

Spellings

Below are the spellings that will be given out on Tuesday. This week’s spellings focus on the Common Exception Words, words that do not follow a spelling pattern. Please work with your child to learn these at home.

Diary Dates

Highlights

A massive well done to Class 3 for a great week of learning!

In English we have continued to use the book The Barnabus Project as our stimulus. Today we have enjoyed designing our own failed projects and we are looking forward to writing about them next week. If you would like to have a go at drawing in the style of the Fan Brothers the following video shows you how they do it – Can you draw Barnabus?

Challenge

If you would like an extra challenge – perhaps you could make your own failed pet in a ‘plastic bottle’ Bell Jar. Take a look at this photo for inspiration.

Everyone has worked hard in Maths again this week. A highlight for the Year 3s was getting to write on the tables! We worked very hard on flexible partitioning and also had great fun!

The Year 4s also had a fun in Science this week exploring changing states of ice cubes and using thermometers to measure temperature.

We have had a very busy week!

What’s happening next week?

On Thursday the children will enjoy an assembly linked to European Day of Languages. Perhaps you could watch a french cartoon at home or have a French chat.

Please ensure the children have their logs and books in school each day as we have opportunities for 1-1 reading sessions throughout the week. We will look at reading logs on a Friday to see who has read 3 times and choose our star readers.

Spellings

Well done to everyone who has been working hard to practice their spellings. Below are the spellings that will be given out on Tuesday.

Our Class Targets

This week we have begun daily handwriting sessions to really work on our handwriting and presentation. We will continue to build up our joined writing skills and we look forward to seeing the results in our written work.

Diary Dates

Extra Date for Class 3 – Tuesday 1st October – The children will need to come to school in PE kit as we will be joining in a Cross Country event at school. Please ensure the children also have a change of shoes to wear in school after the event.

Highlights

Class 3 have had a great week! They have now begun to set our daily routines and start our different topics and units of work.

In English we have begun our character description unit using my fab new book, The Barnabus Project.

Next week, after writing our descriptions of Barnabus, we are going to work on designing our own ‘failed projects’ and then write descriptions of them.

In Maths, both year groups have worked hard to develop their place value skills – Miss Northen has been impressed with the Year 4s knowledge of thousands and the Year 3s have begun to explore hundreds – we look forward to more work on place value next week. An area we are working on as a whole school is using a numberline, this could be supported at home through activities such looking at numbers on a street and reading scales.

What’s happening next week?

Please remember our PE days are Monday and Wednesday.

All the children now have reading books and logs. Please ensure the children have their logs and books in school each day as we have opportunities for 1-1 reading sessions throughout the week. If anyone would like to volunteer to hear readers please contact myself.

Spellings

Well done to all the children who have practiced spellings this week. Next week’s spellings which again focus on homophones (issued on Tuesday) can be found below. Can you think of any other examples of homophones?

If your child would like a further challenge, below you will find the common exception words for Year 1/2 and Year 3/4. Being able to spell these words is very useful and can speed up your child’s writing if they know these by heart.

Our Class Targets

We continue to focus on presentation. This week we have worked hard on making sure the date is written neatly and correctly. Please support us with this by ensuring your child can spell all the days of the week and the months of the year. Our presentation superstar this week was Olivia, who I have noticed always tries her best with any piece of work. I wonder who will be our superstar next week?

Diary Dates

Here’s to another great week next week

Mrs Altoft

I can’t believe its the start of another school year!

Highlights

Class 3 have made a great start to the year. We have enjoyed getting to know our new classmates and our new classroom, completed a range of different problem solving activities linked to our ‘Toolkit for Life’ and explored our Growth Mindset using a book called ‘The Dot’.

It would be lovely to share the story as a family and discuss how Vashti’s mindset changes through the story. Can you think of a time that your mindset has changed when you have found something tricky?

What’s happening next week?

Now that the new Class 3 have really gelled as a team, next week we are going to begin our curriculum journey. The children will begin to look at place value in Maths, character descriptions in English, the Ancient Egyptians and much, much more!

Spellings

Spellings will be introduced every Tuesday as separate year groups. The children will tested the following Tuesday and new spellings given out. The children will explore the spelling pattern not just learn the spellings on the list. It would be great if they could find any other words with the same pattern/word type. We will gather extra words on a display in the classroom.

This Tuesday’s spellings.

Our Class focus this half term

This half term we will be focusing on Handwriting and Presentation. We will be looking for superstars who are trying to make their work the best it can be….here is this week’s star piece of work…

Dates for your diary linked to Class 3

PE will be on a Monday and a Wednesday afternoon.

1st October – Year 3/4 Cross Country

Whole School Dates

Finally, as it is the start of a new year I thought it would be useful to post our Class Newsletter here in case anyone needed to check anything. Please try to get into a routine of checking our blog weekly. We will post an update of what we have been doing, our weekly spellings, any important information and any dates you need to be aware of each week.

Lets have a super year!

WOW! What a busy end of term!!

Class 3 you completely smashed the end of term…

– We loved watching the Year 6 leavers play – Freya played me so well!!

– Our Art and DT showcase was so well attended and we look forward to putting the money we made towards a new class text for guided reading.

– It was also lovely to see you all sharing the Big Brid Sing Songs with parents. It was great to see you all singing along again.

– We also had a great time sharing memories of the year – we have done so much, trips, visitors, amazing work, GREAT FUN!

Everyone should be very proud of everything they have done – have an amazing summer!!

Class 3 had an amazing time yesterday at the Big Brid Sing. It was such a brilliant event with everyone enjoying themselves so much, singing and dancing alongside so many other schools and children. Class 3, you did us proud!!

Look at these amazing photos from the weekend…

How cool to meet the author of our guided reading text – Guy Bass!!!

I thought it might be useful to share a few important dates for Class 3 in the run up to the final weeks of the year – it’s always a very busy time.

It may seem that much of the above list involves you spending money, however I am sure you will agree that the children have had some amazing opportunities this year…

• Dinostar workshop
• Creating, cooking and then eating a full Greek meal
• Experiencing using clay to make their own Greek Pot
• Day visit to Hands on History Museum in Hull for Roman Workshop
• Creating a Roman Tunic for their teddy bear
• Day visit to Wassand Hall to explore the grounds, complete a doodle workshop and make Viking shelters
• Creating framed Viking collages
• Trip to Big Brid Sing to perform at Bridlington Spa

Many of these experiences have been subsidised by the PTFA (Dinostar, Wassand Hall, Hull Museum, Bridlington Spa) and also by the school in order to keep costs low and provide your children with amazing opportunities.

Thank you to those who have supported us with payments to each of these events. Unfortunately, if payment is not reached, often the already overstretched school budget has had to cover the costs. This then subsequently will stop us paying for other fun things in the future.

All previous visits are still available to be paid for on Parent Pay, if you may have forgotten to pay or feel you could now contribute something, please can we kindly ask you to go back and make a contribution. Thank you. Please remember to check the class blog and twitter to see all the fun things we have been doing. Our twitter account is @brandesburton_p  

We look forward to seeing you at our final events of the year. Thank you.

Mrs Altoft

A massive well done to all the Year 4s who this week completed their Multiplication Check. All the children tried their best and were proud of their efforts – we can’t ask for more than that!!

All year we have talked about the Multiplication Check and your chance to show everyone how well you know your times tables. The chance is nearly here…

The Info…

The multiplication tables check (MTC) is statutory for all year 4 pupils registered at state-funded maintained schools, special schools or academies, including free schools, in England.

The purpose of the MTC is to determine whether pupils can recall their times tables fluently, which is essential for future success in mathematics. It will help schools to identify pupils who have not yet mastered their times tables, so that additional support can be provided.

In 2024, schools must administer the MTC to all eligible year 4 pupils between Monday 3 June and Friday 14 June.

THIS IS NOT FAR AWAY….

What is the test’s format?

The Multiplication Tables Check has been described as “an online, on-screen digital assessment” – meaning the children will take the test on a desktop computer, laptop or tablet (such as an iPad) at school. 

The times tables test will be timed, with the entire assessment lasting approximately 5 minutes in total. The children will be set a handful of practice questions to begin with – mostly from the one times table. Following the practice questions, the test itself will comprise of 25 questions, all formatted, for example, as 2 x 5 = with the child required to input the product or result, which in the example we’ve provided would mean inputting the answer 10.

Children will be given six seconds to answer each of the questions, with a three second blank gap between each question.

The questions will be randomly selected by the testing programme from 121 different options, ranging from 2 x 2 = up to 12 x 12. The test’s software has been programmed to show children more questions from the 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 times tables, as these are trickier times tables focused on more in Years 3 and 4.

So please spend some of the holidays practicing….

https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check

https://urbrainy.com/mtc/test

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/multiplication-and-division

https://talkingtimestables.uk/y4_ks2_mtc_practice_tests_multiplication_tables_check.php

Do some practice on the websites and then have a dance to one of the crazy times tables videos!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/topics/cnep90jwjj7t

We can do this!

Further info for parents….

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multiplication-tables-check-information-for-parents/multiplication-tables-check-information-for-parents-text-version–2