Year 3
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| Hits: 1330Summer Term
Dear Parent/Carer
Thank you to everyone who came to support the children in the Easter Service at St. Matthew's Church. I am sure you'll agree that the children did a fantastic job.
This half term, our topic is 'Places of Worship'. It will celebrate and explore the religious diversity of our school community. We will be immersing ourselves within this topic through visits to the different places of worship for each major religious denomination. We will visit the Sikh Gurdwara, Mosque, Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Church (St Mark's), Cathedral and have a Hindu visitor coming into school to share artefacts and her religion with us. At the beginning of next half term, we might also get an opportunity to visit the Synagogue, which is currently being refurbished.
Our focus will be on learning about these places of worship as religious buildings – we will not be going there to worship. The children will hopefully gain a rich and diverse knowledge and understanding about others and their beliefs and religions. These places of worship will allow us to explore art and artefacts from these religions and gain a deeper understanding of people and places around us. The children will learn about the beliefs of different religions and make comparisons. Any parents/carers/friends that have any knowledge or resources to share in any area would be greatly welcomed, as would any help to visit these places of worship.
Our work in Literacy this half term will be based on our trips to different places of worship around Exeter, writing non-chronological reports, instructions, brochures and leaflets for places of worship. A visit to Exeter library with your child would be a great support for this work, looking at the layout and features of non-fiction books on various topics, especially different religions. Collecting and looking at different leaflets and brochures would also help to develop the children's knowledge and understanding of layout and text features of this type of writing. The children will be writing recipes after cooking some traditional Sikh food so any support at home in relation to this would help your child greatly.
In Maths, we will be doing work on data handling and will then move onto exploring shape and space. Here we will focus on angles as well as revisiting 2D and 3D shape, sorting shapes according to different criteria using Venn and Carroll diagrams. We will also look at measures and in particular the measurement of 'mass'. Any work at home weighing things and reading scales will support your child with this work. After this, we will be involved in number work, exploring the different operations and strategies which we know to solve problems.
In Science this term, we will explore the topic 'Electricity', looking particularly at circuits, electrical conductors and insulators and switches. Through our D.T. work, this will also link in with the designing and making of places of worship with lights and switches. To support the children with this at home it would be great if you could discuss electrical safety around the home and look at objects and materials which allow electricity to pass through them and why some materials are used to insulate and not allow electricity to pass through. You could also explore different switches around the home which are used to turn various things off and on, discussing whether they are push, slide, press switch or other and describe how they work.
In our P.E. sessions we are going to play the striking and fielding game of T-ball, an adapted form of rounders. We will also be doing orienteering tasks and team building games around the school. Please make sure that your child has their own labelled P.E. kit in school at all times as borrowing kits from other children is not allowed.
Mrs Rice will be taking the children every Wednesday morning, when she will be teaching them ICT, Music and French.
If you have any concerns or worries please feel free to come and speak to me after school.
Yours sincerely
Miss Hayley Dymond.
