Friday 1st May – Home Learning
How on earth is it Friday? More importantly, how are we in the month of May already?
With regards to the learning today, do as much as you can and, remember, if there’s a piece of your child’s learning you would like to share, please feel free to send me a picture or video at t.prior@southill.dorset.sch.uk. I will be making a ‘home learning’ blog post at the end of the week so the more the merrier. You have until 12:00pm to get your photographs/videos in! It would be great if we could see as many Year Three faces as possible!
Final reminder- Thank you to those parents who have already emailed me in order to let me know they’re all ok. It is essential that you do email me at some point just to let me know that you’re all safe and well.
Apart from that, have an amazing day.
Mr. Prior ?
Spellings
Time for the test. Again, up to you how you deliver it. I tend to dictate a paragraph containing the 5 spellings. You may wish to just do 5 separate sentences with each of the words in order just simply read out the 5 spellings as they are. It’s entirely up to you.
bicycle
breath
breathe
build
busy
Here are the new spellings for Friday 8th May…
business
calendar
caught
centre
century
Challenge- find out what the spellings mean using a dictionary and try to use the words in your own brilliant sentence.
Reading
Please ensure your children reads daily for at least fifteen minutes. A combination of them reading independently, out loud to an adult and letting them listen to the story being told by the adult is advisable. Simply record any reading in your child’s reading record book. Remember to also quiz your books.
IMPORTANT REMINDER- we are still monitoring book quizzes on Star Reader so please ensure your child is still doing them. Children are more likely to do well on quizzes if they are able to quiz the book straight after reading it. Parents- you are also more than welcome to read the question out loud for your child if it helps them.
Challenge- As you have already written a film review, why not have a go at a book review as well? Think about how you are going to introduce your review and how you are going to structure it using subtitles.
Writing Task- Non-Chronological Report
Over the past few days we have been focusing on grammar. We have learnt about adjectives, fronted adverbials and relative clauses. I’m hoping that we will see these appearing in our piece of writing over the course of this week. In order to prepare for our non-chronological report, you were then asked to find some fascinating facts about three prehistoric creatures
Today, we are going to write the conclusion of our non-chronological report. In order to do this, we need to summarise some of the key things we have learnt about the three prehistoric animals and deliver one final fact about the Stone Age to round it all off.
I have written a conclusion for my trolls non chronological report in order to give you an idea on how to structure your conclusion and how detailed to make your paragraph. It also demonstrates how you can include the grammar that we have previously learnt about- The Truth about Trolls
Top tip- write your paragraph on a scrap piece of paper first. That way you can proof read it and you will definitely produce your neatest handwriting when writing it into your exercise books. Remember, everything we write must give us a sense of pride.
Arithmetic Task- Steps to Success!
A little bit like ‘Times Table Twister’ I came up with this next game so I hope you like it! This activity is called ‘Steps to Success’ and it is really fun if you use the stairs in your house. If you live in a bungalow or a flat however, simply put them in a line along the floor.
The aim of the game is simple. In order for your child to more up to the next step, they must answer the questions on the flash cards (or pieces of paper). If you are overseeing the game, you may wish to have the flashcards and read the questions out loud. If your child however is playing on their own, write the answer on the back of the card and, if they are correct, they can move on. I have provided some mental arithmetic questions below which you are more than welcome to use.
A stopwatch is a great motivator as children could see if they can beat their time. The more goes they have, the more likely those arithmetic facts stick in their brains!
Here is a set arithmetic questions that you can use, however feel free to come up with more if you want to keep playing. You may even wish to simplify the game and just focus on a times table.
1) 5 x 5 = 25
2) Which column is the digit 3 in when looking at the number 325? = hundreds
3) How many zeros are in the number two thousand and thirty? = 2
4) What is 10 times 4? = 40
5) Is the number 45 odd or even? = odd
6) What is 23 add 10? = 33
7) What is 26 – 5? = 21
8) What is half of 40? = 20
9)Add together 3, 4 and 5 = 12
10) Which 2D shape has 6 sides? = Hexagon
11) How many legs do 2 dogs have? = 8 legs
12) Say the number 4531 in words = four thousand five hundred and thirty-one
13) Add together the sides of 1 triangle and two squares = 11 sides
Challenge- If the children get the answer wrong, they start again or go back 1 step.
I would love to see pictures/videos of the children having a go at this in order for me to put it on the ‘end of the week’ blog post! I certainly had fun playing it on my stairs, although Olly (my dog) did try to eat half of the questions!
Maths No Problem Task- Picture and Bar Graphs
First of all, here are the answers to the questions from yesterday (pages 69-72)…
In focus task (page 105)- Take a look closely at the bar graph and what it shows. The children should be able to answer the question quite quickly as the doughnuts bar is on the number 15. Ask the children however what each small marking (increment stands for…1). The x axis scale is going up in 5’s, however between each 5 the small markings are going up in ones. Now that the children know this, can they work out how many pastries the baker sells.
Teaching tip- use a ruler in order to line up the end of the bar and the scale accurately.
Ask children what else we can learn from the graph?
Which pastry is the most and least popular? Why might this be important information for the baker to know?
Let’s Learn (page 106)- Take a look at Let’s Learn to compare what they learnt from the bar chart to what you learnt. Is there anything that they found out which you didn’t? Notice how the person working this out drew dotted lines going from the end of the bar to the scale. This helps them read the bar chart accurately. Top Tip- could the children do this in their workbook?
Guided Practice (page 107)- I think the children will be pretty confident with this. See if they can use a ruler and draw a faint dotted line technique in order to read the scale accurately. This is a really good strategy for reading bar charts.
Workbook (pages 73-76)- Encourage children to take their time and use the strategy they have been practising. Ensure children know what the scale on each graph is going up in and what each small increment stands for. Question h on the last page is a tough one. I am sure that if your child shows resilience and grit, they may be able to answer it using column addition. Make Captain Shelby proud! 🙂
I will post the answers to these problems in Monday’s blog post.
Topic-based task – Cave Paintings
The Stone Age occurred over 65,000 years ago! The only things that still exist from this period are:
-skeletons (that have been dug up by archaeologists)
-monuments
-cave paintings
This means that a lot of things that occurred during prehistoric times we are still unclear about. A lot of guess work is involved. For example, we are still unsure as to why early man and woman painted on cave walls. Was it to warn others that a cave was cursed? Was it just for enjoyment? Was it a way of communicating with others. Who knows, but it is fascinating!
As the video describes, the main things you will see in a cave painting are – people (normally carrying weapons and tools), prehistoric animals and hand symbols (either coloured in or outlined).
Your task for this week is to create your very own cave painting. Here’s one that I prepared earlier…
You will have ALL WEEK for this task because it’s essential to take your time and make it look authentic. Here’s how you could split it up across the week…
Monday- tea stain some pieces of paper (preferably A4 or A3 however whatever you can get will be fine).
Tuesday- Split your exercise book up into quarters (you may need an adult to help with this). Practice sketching different prehistoric animals, stick figures carrying tools sketching around your fingers.
Wednesday- Continue to practise sketching some of the creatures, stick figures and hand symbols you would normally see on a cave painting.
Thursday- Using either black (and red) paint, pencil or pen, have a go at sketching out your design onto your tea-stained paper. Remember to take your time. Ask an adult if they can singe the edges for you.
Friday- Find some information about cave paintings and write it on a small piece of paper to go next to your cave painting. The information should explain what we know about these unusual markings.
Challenge- If you really want an authentic experience, try some of these with the other pieces of tea-stained paper…
-Use a stone or stick in order to paint your picture
-Draw or paint your picture inside a den or under a table (with limited light).
-Why not put the pieces of paper on a wall so that you are standing up whilst doing it? Obviously ask parents first (we don’t want black paint all up the kitchen wall).
I would love to see some pictures of the children doing this task so please feel free to send me any for the ‘end of the week’ blog.
Other Fun Ideas and Activities
Keen to do more? Not ready to call it a day? Then why not give some of the activities below a go (who knows, you might enjoy it)…
Science Experiments- Rummage around in the cupboards and you may like to have a go at some of these wicked science experiments! Make a massive marshmallow, create a bouncing egg, make pepper swim (link to the importance of washing hands) create a tornado in a glass, create dragon eggs, make your own slime, make a hovercraft balloon or even a skittles rainbow.
Get the children making predictions as to what may happen, draw labelled diagrams and then carry out the experiment. What did you learn from the experiment? Write a little conclusion to show what you have found out.
Want to know how to do these experiments? Visit some of the websites listed below…
https://www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/blog/easy-cool-science-experiments-for-kids
https://sciencekids.co.nz/experiments.html
https://mashable.com/article/science-experiments-for-kids/?europe=true
JOKE BOOK- Did you enjoy video last week? If you haven’t seen Jester Prior delivering his all-time favourite jokes yet, then visit the Year 3 news page. Why not create your very own joke book? You could create a title page and note down some of the funniest jokes you can think of. I’m sure your parents could do with a laugh! ?
Audible- a great app which you can download and contains many free books (great to listen to before bedtime).
Prior’s Top Audible Picks – Kid Normal by Radio DJ Greg James and Chris Smith.
-Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney
-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
-The Gift of Dark Hollow (the sequel to Podkin One-Ear) by Kieran Larwood
– Slime by David Walliams
Alternatively, if you’re a real keen Walliams fan, he is currently releasing a lot of chapters of his books for free! This includes an audio story from The World’s Worst Children every day for the next 30 days! Check out this link- https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses-catch-up/
Sumdog- Online maths and literacy questions delivered through entertaining games. Simply create a login totally free of charge, create an avatar and let your children explore and play. Mr Prior’s favourite game…JUNK PILE! It’s addictive- be warned. Parents- you can also set certain questions on there for your children to focus on. Any questions, please email me.
Maths Factor- KEEN FOR EVEN MORE MATHS? Carol Vordeman has made her website free during this strange time…feel free to login and check out some of the activities- https://www.themathsfactor.com/
ICT- Fancy becoming quicker at typing and brushing up on your fine motor skills? Why not have a go at BBC Dance Mat Typing…Dancing for your fingertips…you know the drill…follow the link- https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr
French– Bonjour! Can you find out the names of the following colours in French?
Blue, Green, Red, Black, Yellow, Pink, Purple and Orange
Then can you explain what is your favourite colour…
Ma couleur préférée ________________
Challenge- Create a ‘French’ rainbow to stick in your window. Simply write the names of the colours in French inside each arch.
Lego Construction- Can you create Stone Henge or even a cave out of Lego?
Lexia- If you have a Lexia account, please feel free to login and try to do it for at least 15 minutes.
The Daily Mile- If you have a garden big enough (or a quiet field nearby) why not head out for the Daily Mile? 15 minutes…how many laps can you do?
PE- Let’s finish the week with a bang, shall we!