Welcome to Year 3 - Bumblebee class
Class Teacher - Mrs L Bowden
Learning Support Assistants - Mrs S Midgley
Key Information
Welcome to the Y3 Bumblebee Class home page of 2023-24. Please check in regularly as there will be weekly updates, reminders and lots of information about our wonderful learning in Bumblebee Class. One afternoon a week our class will covered by Mrs Hellawell who the children know very well from Year 2. The children will need to have their PE bags in school all week but our usual days for PE will be Mondays and Tuesdays.
Please feel free to contact me if you have a questions or queries about Bumblebee Class - I am always happy to help!
School Council
The Bumblebee school councilors are - Jessica Webber and Ted Coy who were voted for by the Bumblebee class.
Our Weekly News
Week beginning 20.11.23
This week we began investigating which type of rock would be the best for building Stonehenge. We started by exploring the hardness of different types of rock using a nail to see if we could scratch the surface. Next week, we will investigate to find out which rock is non-permeable. In English, we have enjoyed started our new learning journey based on The Stone Age boy but learning about and writing adventure stories. The children loved talking and sharing their favourite adventure stories and discussing the features and structure of this genre.
In Maths, we have moved on to learning about the properties of 2D shapes and identifying vertical and horizontal lines as well as right angles. We had great fun using our right angled square to find right angles in the classroom.
I am sure that many of your children have come home telling you the names of the animals in French. I was very impressed with their retention of the newly learnt names - well done Bumblebees! In art, we have begun our learning about prehistoric art which started by us sketching our own very simple line drawing of animals - just like the Stone age people would have done!
The children are very excited about our new Computing learning journey - 'stop-frame animation' and found making their own flip books fascinating. There was lots of smiley faces of pure joy when their picture moved in their book.
Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday! Remember, next Friday afternoon is our Christmas Fair.
Week beginning 13.11.23
Well, this week has been very exciting…we have investigated Stone Age poo! Yes, that’s right! We became archaeologists and used the poo to discover what Stone Age people used to eat. Ask your child what evidence we found. J In Science, we learnt about the layers of rock that make up our earth and created our own collages to represent these.
Continuing our English learning journey, we have begun to write our letters home to our mum and dad to tell them about our adventure in the Stone Age as the Stone Age boy. We are trying to use contractions (I’ve, you’ll) in our writing as well as conjunctions, such as, firstly, secondly etc.
Our Maths learning has focused on fractions this week and this included learning tenths. The children, although a little worried to begin with, really flew with using and identifying tenths of shapes. Great job team Bumblebee!
We have enjoyed our focus on anti-bullying this week and the children have been writing down all the acts of kindness that they have experienced in school. It has been wonderful to share those as a class and appreciate the kindness that we see every day. On Friday, we learnt about different faiths around the UK and the world. This was made even more special because some of the children took the opportunity to talk about their beliefs to their class mates. I was really proud of the respect that all of the children demonstrated to the different beliefs. We were also extremely lucky to have our Fijian assembly today, courtesy of Rose’s dad, who gave us a fantastic introduction to the country and culture of Fiji. Back in our class we decided to explore Fijian dance in more detail and even had a go ourselves. There was lots of laughing!
I have also included some photos from our Science day (last week) which show the children making their freeze frames to represent ways of changing our buying behaviour in order to be more eco-friendly.
Week beginning 6.11.23
Many thanks to all of the parents who join us for our remembrance service this afternoon. Such a poignant moment, particularly in our military community.
This week we have enjoyed learning our 3s and 4s times tables and using many different ways of representing them. We have been linking the multiplication to division and solving problems. Many children have had that light bulb moment when they suddenly say 'Ah, I get it now!' Well done Bumblebees! In Science we have enjoyed exploring and describing rocks using some scientific terms - and we even found some fossils. The children are very excited to be learning about rocks and soils as well as the Stone age era. Our history learning journey began with our hook of building our own model of Stonehenge. We used various materials and then we used a watering can and a hair dryer to see if the models could stand the rain and wind test. Lots of fun was had! Our new English learning journey of 'The Stone Age Boy' has involved lots of drama and debating which the Bumblebees have loved. It is fantastic to see the children confidently using conjunctions, such as, 'In addition to', 'Finally', 'However', when presenting their idea or an argument.
On Friday we enjoyed our Science Day focusing on climate change and how we could change our buying habits to slow global warming down. Ask your child to tell you what can be done to help! They came up with some awesome ideas and created amazing freeze frames to show their understanding.
Have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
Week beginning 30.10.23
The Bumblebees have loved Historical Heroes Week and have enjoyed researching our hero Mary Anning. The children watched videos, read information and biographies to gain knowledge and understanding of her life and work. They then produced their own biographies using all their research. The best part of the week was our VR session where we discovered the historical world and met people from history, like Martin Luther-King, Mary Seacole, and Rosa Parks. The sounds of laughter, delight and surprise that filled the hall were fantastic to hear! A great experience was had by all.
This week we have explored multiplication and division using number lines on the table and began to use our skills to solve problems. Our new learning journey in English is based on the text the Stone Age Boy and we have engaged in some awesome role play pretending to be the characters in the book doing their daily tasks. We have already learnt lots about Stone Age Life and can't wait to learn more.
Bumblebee Class have also been working hard on using the school values and have shown lots of kindness and respect in and out of the classroom. Well done Bumblebees!
Week beginning 19.10.23
We had a super final week of the term and loved our trip to the church for our Harvest festival. Thank you for to all the parents who were able to join us. The children sang beautifully and enjoyed showing off their wonderful flower garlands they made when learning about the harvest festival of Pongal. After finishing our shadow puppet shows this week, we also learned about the dangers of the sun and how we can keep ourselves safe. The children presented this knowledge by designing some awesome sun safe posters or an acrostic poem. Great work Bumblebees! In maths, we have been measuring lengths remembering to start measuring from zero and solving problems involving measurement. It has been fantastic to see the children using all the mental strategies we have been learning, such as, partitioning, making an easy number, number lines and bar models. We continued to work on our metal embossing trees and as a final touch added some colour. Photos will be published after they have been mounted - watch this space!
Have a wonderful, restful week and we look forward to seeing you all next term.
Week beginning 9.10.23
The children have enjoyed continuing their English learning journey this week and even got to pretend to be the Queen! The role play helped us to understand the difference between formal and informal language and what language we will need to use in our Shipton Bellinger flyers. Take a look at the photos to see how engaged the children were in their conversation with the Queen. We decided that because the audience for our flyers is children then we need to use informal language and make our information as interesting and descriptive as we can. We also worked in teams to mind map all the things that we want to share with children about Shipton Bellinger. Such awesome collaboration team Bumblebee! In maths, we have been solving problems to work out how much change to give. Lots of practice of using our mental maths strategies. We finally got to practise and perform our puppet shows which was very exciting. There were some very creative performances and lots of fun was had by all. We will finish the performances next week. In French we have been learning the colours. We now know how to say and read them in French. Great work Bumblebees.
Our art work this week has been making flower garlands linked to our learning about the Harvest festival Pongal which is celebrated in India. The garlands are given to the cattle during the festival to show appreciation. We have also designed our pumpkins for the pumpkin carving competition - we will find out our class winner on Monday.
Have a lovely weekend!
Week beginning 2.10.23
This week we have been busy learning about money in Maths which we will continue next week when we pretend to use money in the class shop to calculate change. We have begun to add amounts of money together to find the total using our mental strategies. We have also started our Flyers learning journey this week in English and the children have enjoyed looking at different leaflets and flyers to explore the features of non-fiction texts. We have talked about how important it is to design flyers to suit different audiences. Mrs Holloway has asked us to create a flyer all about Shipton Bellinger to try inform new children to our school all about our wonderful village and we can't wait to get started on this.
The children loved creating their puppets for their shadow puppet show. Some children really demonstrated a lot of resilience by keeping on trying to draw their character on the card and to cut it out carefully. Next week, we will be practising and performing our puppet shows to our friends, using all our knowledge of how shadows are made and how they can be changed.
In French, we have begun to learn our numbers to 10 and have been reinforcing the basic greetings of 'How are you?' and 'What is your name?'. The children have impressed us all with their new French skills. Great job Bumblebees!
We have been very lucky to be able enjoy an extra session of PE each Friday this term so I have added a few photos to show the enjoyment on the children's faces during this session.
National Poetry Day was on Thursday and it was a great day of being exposed to lots of different poems and to enjoy the opportunity to be poets for the day. The children created some awesome poems about their own 'refuge'. It was a great day of fun and creativity.
Week beginning 25.09.23
Yesterday, in Science, we investigated which material would be the best to make our shadow puppets out of. We made sure that our test was fair and discovered that card was the material which blocked the torch light the most because it was the most opaque material. The children have continued to love their descriptive writing and were not happy that we did not get to write more today. I have never seen such an enthusiastic class of writers ever! Well done Bumblebees, I am super proud. In maths, we have used all the different mental strategies for addition and subtraction to help us to solve problems. This has not been easy but with a bit of careful mathematical thinking and perseverance the Bumblebees did a super job. Next week, we are moving on to understanding money and will continue to use our mental calculation strategies to help us. Ask your child about strategies, such as, 'making an easy number', 'counting up to the nearest multiple of 10', 'using a number line to count forwards or backwards', and 'partitioning'.
Our Geography learning journey has led us to exploring how villages can change over time and the effect this has on the people who live there. We talked about the pros and cons of urban development by reading the wonderful book 'the window'. I hope that your child has come home from school speaking French at some point this week as we have been learning basic French greetings. Ask your child how they can say hello and how are you in French, as well as reply to these questions.
Most of you should have seen the little blue spelling books that have come home during the week. Please can these be kept in your child's book pocket so we can use them in school too. You child can learn the words in their spelling book to help them with their writing. These words are unique to your child as well as any spelling patterns we are learning in school. We will see the success of their practice at home through their writing in school.
Thank you to you all for continuing to support your child with their reading at home. The Bumblebee Class really do have a love for reading and I would love this flourish further.
Please remember to supply your child with a healthy snack (fruit, veg or plain biscuit) for breaktime as it can be a long time between breakfast and lunch. Many thanks!
Have a lovely weekend!
Week beginning 18.09.23
We have had a very exciting week this week and have all enjoyed learning and exploring new things. Our Shipton village and woodland walk was a massive success this morning and the children love learning new facts and interesting things about the village. All of the children were great role models for the school values and showed awesome perseverance in walking around 4 miles. We explored the streets and local amenities as well as fields and woodlands. On that note please check your child for any ticks which are apparently in the area. In Science, this week we have been exploring different materials and learning about opaque, transparent and translucent. We will be making a shadow puppet show using the best materials so, next week we will conduct an experiment to make sure that we know which material is the best for the job. In art, we sketched trees using our mini 'trees' to help us to think about the texture of the trunk and branches. The children's writing in English has been fantastic and their understanding of how to make their writing better is really shining through. I am so proud of them all.
Our maths journey this week has found us exploring different mental strategies to solve problems. We asked ourselves - can we make 10 or use doubling to help us or could we partition the number to make it easier?
Have a good restful weekend and we look forward to seeing everybody on Monday.
Week beginning - 5.09.23
What a great week we have had getting to know each other in Bumblebee Class. We have thoroughly enjoyed our discussions and our learning this week and we are all looking forward to finding out where our learning journeys will take us. This week we have started our English learning journey based on the text driver 'The Tin Forest'. We have made a story map to recall the events in the story and begun to collect awesome vocabulary to describe the forest. In Science, we are learning about light and I was completely wowed by the number of different light sources the Bumblebees thought of in our first Science lesson. We have thought a lot about our school values this week and talked and demonstrated ways to show 'perseverance', 'respect' and 'collaboration'. It has been amazing to see how the Bumblebees have already shown our values in everything they do. I am already very proud of them. As a special treat we were lucky enough to have an extra PE lesson on Friday - which the children were very happy about.
Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday after we have all had a good and much needed rest over the weekend.
Week beginning - 11.09.23
It's been another busy week and the children have produced some awesome writing already. We have been learning about expanded noun phrases, adverbs and fronted adverbials and the Bumblebees have blown us away with their amazing description. I think moving around like the animals in the forest helped with their creative verb usage. On Wednesday, when we go on our woodland and Shipton walk we will add to our wonderful descriptive writing to make it even better. Watch this space...
In maths, we have been working on using different mental strategies to solve number problems. Some of these new strategies have been challenging but with perseverance and more practice we got there. Well done Bumblebees! We are practising our times tables daily to see if we can get faster and faster at solving them. It is working but any practice that you could do at home would be very much appreciated. We are currently working on our x10.
Science was great fun this week as we explored shadows using torches in a darkened room. Mrs Holloway was very confused when she found our classroom door covered in sugar paper. During our investigation, we discovered how we can create shadows and how to change the size of them.
The children are loving our class book 'The nothing to see here hotel' by Steve Butler, and today we spoke about our favourite books. It is so lovely to see such enthusiasm for reading. Thank you for supporting your children's reading at home and recording it in their reading log - a little daily practice goes a long way to support their progress.
Next week, the children will come home with a little blue spelling book which will contain words that they need to learn to spell. These are either words from the Year 2 or 3/4 Common Exception word list or from their work in class. Please support you child to learn to spell these words. I will be looking for these words to be spelt correctly in their work. Please keep the spelling books in their reading pockets so we can use them at school as well as home. Many thanks!
Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
