This week we had a very special visitor! Graham, from Monkton Nature Reserve, came to speak to us all about rocks. He brought along a variety of fascinating specimens and explained how they were formed. The highlight was getting to see – and even hold – a real dinosaur bone! At Monkton Nature Reserve, there is also a museum where you can discover even more exciting artefacts.

Maths
In Maths, we have been learning how to use column addition. We focused carefully on “one digit, one box” and made sure we kept the correct place value columns. Next week, we will be moving on to subtraction, starting with finding the difference before using number bonds to subtract mentally.

English
This week in English, we wrote our own non-fiction texts all about Stone Age food. We learned how to use subheadings, included compound sentences, and began to explore complex sentences. Next week, we will move on to playscripts. We will begin by identifying the features of a playscript before having a go at writing our own.

Thematic
Our Thematic learning this week was centred around science. We began with the exciting visit from Monkton Nature Reserve, where we explored a range of rocks and even handled a dinosaur bone! Later in the week, we learned all about fossils, discovering the difference between body fossils and trace fossils. To finish, we had lots of fun creating our very own trace fossils. Next week, we will recap the achievements from Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. We will then go on to explore farming in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Age.

Home Learning

This week we will send home a sheet of addition calculations to practise column addition.

Some spellings to practice – every, great, break, steak and pretty

Term 1 Dates for the Diary

25th September – Chilton School’s 50th Birthday (please see separate letters for details on how we will be celebrating this)

26th September – Thrive coffee morning 9am-10.30am in the studio – a chance to meet our well-being team

6^th October – Year 3 trip to Pegwell (more information to follow)

7th October –2.45pm Year 3 Harvest assembly

17th October – Final day of term

TTRS

Ideally, children should aim to play for 5-10 minutes each day, the expectation is that by the end of Year 3 children will know the 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 8 times tables. TTRS is designed to be a fun way of learning times tables. TTRS is broken down into 8 game types.

Gig – this creates a heatmap to show times tables knowledge up to 12x12

Garage – this is a teacher set times tables game. Please complete this at home.

Jamming – a game to develop times tables confidence

Studio - games the are aimed at motivating (how many can you do in a set time etc) after 10 games this will give a rock status.

Festival and Arena – you can compete against other children from other schools

Rock Slam – you can choose to challenge anyone from within the school (adults and children)