Sapphire Class

Welcome to Sapphire Class!

We are Mrs Woodhall, Deputy Head Teacher and Mrs Medhurst, SENDCo and we will be your child's Year 3 class teachers.

Summer 1

Please find attached Summer 1 Curriculum Overview for Year 3. 

This provides an overview of everything the children will learn this half term.  Regular entries will be made below to allow you to see some the children's work and learning as the term progresses. 

Spring 2

Please find attached Spring 2 Curriculum Overview for Year 3. 

This provides an overview of everything the children will learn this half term.  Regular entries will be made below to allow you to see some the children's work and learning as the term progresses. 

Week beginning 18th March

Where have Year 3 gone? We are loving reading our reading text in English ‘Earth Shattering Events’. In this lesson we were reading about earthquakes and reading the text to unpick the key things to do in an earthquake. The key actions we identified in the text to do to stay safe were DROP , COVER, HOLD! We practise these actions so if there is ever an earthquake in Hetton Year 3 know just what to do although they can also tell you that the chances of an earthquake in Hetton is very slim because we do not live in a part of the world where the tectonic plates meet to cause earthquakes. 

Thursday 21st March

How is water transported through a plant? Is water transported from the root of plants up the stem to the leaves and the petals of a plant? That is the questions we are trying to answer in science. We have put some red food colouring in the water so the water turns red and then we have put our white flowers in the red water. 
Our predication : if water is transported from the roots of a plant to the leaves and the flower and petals then the flower will turn pink as the water is transported to the flower. 
Only time will tell if our prediction is correct. 

21st March

We used the skills we learnt in our electricity lesson in our DT lessons and we designed and made our own torches. And would you believe it - the day we made our torches we had 2 whole school powercuts for considerable lengths of time, Year 3 to the rescue with our torches!

w/b 18th March

This week we started to investigate electricity and how to make electrical circuits which included switches. We even made our own switches. 

Wednesday 20th March

This week we took our tennis skills outside and practised. We showed we were developing our racket control and our ability to direct the ball. We also showed we are beginning to consciously decide on the strength we use to hit our ball back to our partners. 

13th March

For the last 2 Wednesdays we have been lucky enough to have 14  Chinese students in school. They have been learning about education in England. This week they helped us learn about their culture and their food and they taught us some simple Chinese words. They loved being at our school and we loved having them. 

Tuesday 5th March 

In order to support our World Book Day celebrations, the children took part in an online "meet the author" session. The children met Helen Rutter, author of "Reggie Houser has the Power". She shared small parts of her new book with the children and spent a long time answering questions. We were lucky enough for Helen to answer one of our questions; we asked what it was that made her become an author. She went on to say that she was inspired by her son when he was 10 years old - he had never read a book about someone like him so she wanted to write a book that he could relate to. 

Monday 4th March

Today Nissan came to school for our final Lesson in a Box project session. They awarded prizes to some of the children for their effort and enthusiasm and their engagement in the project and everyone received a Nissan pen. Louis hopes to see many of us working for Nissan in the future. Our project has certainly made us curious about the job prospects that are available at Nissan for us.

Monday 4th March

Today we celebrated the start of World Book Day week. We came dressed as ourselves (readers) or in our PJs ready for a bedtime story or as our favourite book character. We shared lots of stories and had lots of fun and we will continue with our theme of reading as the week progresses. 

Friday 1st March

Today we read the story which explains the origins of The Daruma Doll. We created our own Daruma dolls and we only coloured one eye - we will colour the other eye when our challenge is achieved. We set ourselves some lovely goals and challenges. 

Thursday 29th February

Tennis, tennis, tennis.  Anyone for tennis - Year 3 are developing their skills with the help of a special tennis coach. 

Monday 26th February

Today the children were lucky enough to have a speaker from the Jewish faith come into school and discuss how families celebrate and mark   Jewish festivals.

As a class they were given lots of information about Rosh Hashanah, otherwise known as Jewish New Year. They learnt that this was observed for 2 days and Jews would pray to be added to the Book of Life. It is important to visit the synagogue during this time and spend a full day praying.

The children then learnt that 10 days later, Yom Kippur is observed during which Jews fast for 24 hours. During this time, Jews are not allowed to brush their teeth, shower or eat and must spend 2 days praying in a    synagogue. This time is important to Jews who wish to be given the chance to atone for their sins; this means to be given a chance to be   forgiven for any sins.

The children sat well throughout and showed interest and respect. Well done Year 3!

Spring 1

Please find attached Spring 1 Curriculum Overview for Year 3. 

This provides an overview of everything the children will learn this half term.  Regular entries will be made below to allow you to see some the children's work and learning as the term progresses. 

Friday 16th February

Today we were lucky enough to be invited to the Hetton Centre to see a string quartet. We were amazed at the music we listened to and at how skilled and talented the musicians were. They had us captivated! What a lovely way to end the half term. 

Thursday 15th February

Today we explored regular and irregular polygons. We explored regular polygons using cotton buds so we could ensure all the sides were the same length. We learnt that polygons are shapes enclosed by straight sides and If you ask us we can explain to you what a regular polygon is and also what an irregular polygon is. 

Wednesday 14th February

Today we concluded our learning on Ancient Egypt by emerging ourselves in a Now Press Play Ancient Egyptian experience. Mummification and Ancient  Egyptian life and believes were experienced by us all. It really felt like we had stepped back in time and we were really experiencing life over 3000 years ago in Ancient Egypt.

Monday 12th February

Today we looked closer at the work of Nissan and we looked at some of the cars Nissan build.we also thought about where car manufacturing might go in the future and designed our own cars of the future. Some of us would love to work at Nissan and really build these cars! Maybe some of Nissan’s future employees and designers will have been educated at Hetton Primary.

Wednesday 7th February

Today we all became employees of Nissan.  We worked in a production line to produce our own Nissan car and then we tested our products and quality assured them.  Some could be sold and some would need to be put into the reject carpark because their wheels feel off!  We worked in the rolls of production line workers, managers, quality assurance staff, team leaders and managers.

Friday 2nd February

This week we have been learning all about angles. We ended the week finding right angles in our classroom environment.

Thursday 1st February

This week we looked further at printing in art and we learnt about the process of mono printing - making a unique print which won’t be repeated in quite the same way again. We sketched our design then inked our ink base using printing ink and a roller. We then sketched our design in the ink with a blunt tool. We then put our paper on the ink and gently rolled the paper so the print was imprinted on the paper. Our results were amazing. We are really looking forward to extending this skill further. 

Thursday 1st February

What a super science lesson we had today! We used chocolate to explore the 3 different rock formations. We learned all about how sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks are made using chocolate! We will certainly remember this lesson and all the key facts we learnt by doing it for a long long time. 

Monday 29th January

Today we visited the Oriental Museum in Durham to bring our learning about The Ancient Egyptians to life and to allow us to learn first hand about this Ancient Civilisation. We have had the best day and we have learnt so much about their way of life, their beliefs, their rituals and the impact they have had on life today. 

Friday 25th January

Over the last 2 weeks we have been learning about mass and volume. Today we had our very own Junior Bake off competition where we had to read and follow our own recipe and measure all the ingredients accurately. We have had the best time applying our learning into real life contexts. We made biscuits, cakes, scones, rock cakes and brownies. We all tried all of the products we made and we voted for our favourite bake. This time the Star Bakers were the team who made the biscuits but everyone agreed that it was really hard to decide which was the nicest proving we were all amazing at measuring accurately, 

Monday 22nd January

Today we were lucky enough to start working with Nissan on their Lesson in a Box project. We were introduced to the topic by learning about Nissan, it’s origins and some of the Japanese Traditions which Nissan follow and believe. We are looking forward to working through the work linked to Lesson in a Box over the next 4 weeks. 

Friday 19th January

This week we have started to use a new English text to support our writing. We are using The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Micheal Morpurgo. The children are loving the text and are fully immersed in the plot. We have done some drama, some writing in role and we are now working on writing an information text to provide the Mayor of Hamelin as much information as we can about the rats.

Wednesday 17th January

This week we have continued our dance work in PE. We are linking this to our learning in History about the Ancient Egyptians. This week we thought about how we can use all the parts of our body to incorporate different movements in our dance. We used the Ancient Egyptian statues as our inspiration.

Monday 15th January

Our new computing topic is linked to understanding how computing and technology can support effective and efficient communicating. We have looked at how communication has changed over time and we are now focusing our learning on email as a means of communication. Today many of us sent emails for the first time. We learnt how to compose emails, how to insert an email address into the address bar and we also learnt how to send our emails. We then learnt how to view and reply to emails too. We were fascinated to learn that every email address is unique and personal. We had great fun sending and receiving emails with our friends while also learning about online safety. 

Friday 12th January

This week the children have been working really hard with their number work. They have been using their understanding of place value to develop efficient addition and subtraction methods.We also worked in pairs to share our learning to help each other be the best that we can be.

Thursday 11th January

Today we started our new Art topic of printing. We started by looking back at different printing techniques we have previously learnt about. We made block prints, collagraph prints and rubbings. We really enjoyed reminding ourselves of how to make our prints the best they can be by not overloading the paint and by really thinking about where we placed or prints and how we removed our printing blocks and where we placed our hands and fingers. 

Wednesday 10th January

Today we started our new PE topic of dance. We used our history topic of the Ancient Egyptians to support our dance. We made big, strong shapes and combined them to make our own sequences. We certainly have some budding dancers in Y3.

Autumn 2

Autumn 2 Curriculum Overview

Please find attached a copy of what your child will be learning this term. 

Friday 15th December

Today we were also lucky enough to take part in a Tri-golf session with a visiting PE specialist. We learnt how to hold out clubs correctly, how to putt and how to chip. It was great fun and we were complemented on our skills and accuracy and enthusiasm especially as, for some of us, this was the very first time we had held a good club.  We think there are some budding Tiger Woods among us ⛳️⛳️

Friday 15th December

We have been learning about Italy in Geography.  Our DT topic was food - so we linked our learning and we decided to design and make our own pizza. Today was the end of our project and we made our own pizzas - following our design brief and plans we have made based on our own research and learning. Check out our own homemade pizzas - dough and everything! We also made pizza boxes so we could take our pizzas home and share our pizzas with our grown-ups.  

Wednesday 12th December

This afternoon Year 3 had an Opal afternoon.  They had the best time exploring our school grounds and using the equipment in fun, safe and creative ways.  They children worked together really well and were so supportive of each other - working together to achieve some amazing creations and experiences.  The mud made the afternoon even more fun!  We can only apologise to our grown-ups about how muddy we were but we can assure you that it was all worth it as we had the best time ever!  

We also saw the most amazing rainbow over our school while we were outside.  We didn't find the pot of gold at the end though. 

Thursday 7th December 

Today we all joined in with the Santa Dash around school. We all got our own Santa hat to wear and together to did the Santa dash. Some of the men who built our new school came to look round our school as we all were heading out of the hall doors. They had never seen so many Santas in the same place at the same time. It was lovely doing something Christmassy all together and it really made us all smile. Hetton Primary was certainly full of lots of happy Santas.

Today was also our Christmas lunch - yum yum! Lisa did an amazing job and we all had very full tummy’s afterwards. 

For Geography we are learning about Italy and in Design and Technology we are designing and making a food product. We have linked our learning and we are designing and making our own pizza.Today we made dough for our pizzas putting to the test our measuring skills to make sure all of our ingredients were measured correctly. 

Wednesday 6th December

This morning we had the pleasure of watching Cinderalla the pantomime in our school hall with our whole school. We laughed and giggled and joined it. It was the best morning and definitely started to make us feel like Christmas is very close. 

Monday 4th December

In computing we have been learning to type using both hands and all of our fingers. This has been really tricky but we have loved it. We have learnt all about where to place our left and right hands and the home keys and we have learnt which keys to use with which hand and with each finger.  We have tried really hard but we think we need lots of practise - especially using the keyboard on the chrome books as we are so used to typing with our 2 index fingers on our iPads. 

Autumn 1

Autumn 1 curriculum overview

Please find attached a copy of what your child will be learning during Autumn 1. 

Please note PE is on a Tuesday and Wednesday - please ensure PE kits are brought in on these days.

Thursday 19th October

Today in science we learnt about why humans and some other animals have muscles. We learnt how muscles work in pairs and we made a working model of our arms to show how when one muscle extends the other muscle contracts or relaxes to make our arm move. We learnt this is how muscles work all over our bodies. 

Wednesday 18th October

This term we have been learning all about The Stone Age to The Iron Age . We have looked at how housing and technology have changed throughout these prehistoric periods of history. To end our topic we all took part in a Now Press Play Stone Age audio experience. This allowed us to be fully immersed in and experience life in the Stone Age. It was a lovely way to end our learning. 

Friday 13th October 

The children have been looking at the work of Julian Opie and they have created their own self portraits in the same style as his work. The children’s finished art pieces are amazing. Wonder if you can guess who the self-portraits are of????.?

Wednesday 11th October
The children are loving learning to play Hockey in PE. They are developing in confidence, skills and sportsmanship. Year 3 should be proud of how they are support each other to develop their skills and their team game skills. Today we practice blocking the ball and how to hold the hockey stick when we need to hit the ball further. We also played a game of ‘sharks’ to practise all these skills together. 

Houghton Feast

We were lucky enough to spend time with a visiting artist making banners which will be used at Houghton Feast this year. The banner will represent and honour the history of our local area. We used silk paints to create our amazing art work. Our concentration and attention to detail was commented on by the artist. 

Week 4 

Wow! What an amazing start to Year 3 the children have had. They are impressing us with their  determination to do well and their fantastic enthusiasm for learning. 

History

In history we are learning about The Stone Age. We have learnt about some of the changes which happened during this period of history and the impact this has had on current day living, Last week we learnt about archaeologists and their work in finding artefacts to help us understand pre-history (periods in our past before there was a written method of recording).  We have used our work in English to explore cave drawings and how they have helped us to know about this part of history, We had great fun creating our own cave drawings. 

PE
This term we are learning how to play hockey. We have learnt how to hold the stick correctly and how to dribble and stop the ball. This week we learnt to pass the ball and how to move into a space to receive the ball. Soon we will be ready to move onto playing our first game of hockey.

Art

In art we have been experimenting with line and looking at the effects and pieces of art we can create when we use line in different ways. This week we looked at the work of Julian Opie and how he created portraits using simple lines to define shape. We loved using giant pictures of our faces and tracing just the main outline to create a our own line self portrait. Next week we are going to add colour to our portraits. 

Computing

We have been learning how to use spreadsheets to collect and represent data and we have been learning all about some of the features of spreadsheets. We are amazed at what we can get spreadsheets to do. This week we moved our learning on to using a graphing package. We collected our own data, created a table and chose the best way to represent our data using the tools within the package to look at different representations and different ways of ordering the data.