Yr3 Curriculum Update – 13/12/19
Working together to achieve success for every child
Welcome to our 8th edition!
In each update, the Year 3 Team will bring you snapshots of what your children in Year Three have been up to every 2 weeks. You will see a variety of learning experiences exemplifying learning which is fun, exciting, challenging, innovative and/or creative…and whatever they are, we know that your child has worked really hard to get there and should you have the chance, you may want to share this newsletter with your child to find out the juicy details and discuss the great learning he/she have been doing!
Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!
Transdisciplinary theme:
How We Organise Ourselves
Central idea:
The food we buy goes through a process of change before we eat it.
Lines of inquiry:
- Where our food comes from (form)
- Processes food goes through (change)
- People and systems involved in food production and distribution (connection)
Our wonderful unit on food has now come to an end. However, we are excited that it is also the beginning of a deeper awareness and appreciation of where our food comes home and the elaborate systems involved to get our food to us.
Through conversations, it is clear that we are more conscious of why some foods go through processes and some are enjoyed as natural, whole foods. The children are also better able to make healthy choices by looking at food labels!
To reinforce the children’s learning, the teachers planned several engagements during our weekly, extremely popular Exploration Time. These included writing recipes, observation drawing, juicing and composting and kitchen play using different cooking processes.
Exploration time
Our Farm Visit
The highlight of our unit will most likely be our visit to Zen Organic Farms. This field trip allowed us to harvest carrots, make Kale chips from scratch, feed and visit animals on the farm and last but not least…make and eat delicious pizzas!
We are confident that the trip provided our children with a hands-on, rich experience of what organic farms are like and how valuable they are. Here are just a few of those moments:
We had a great time getting our hands dirty by harvesting carrots, lettuce leaves (which were made into salad) and kale leaves (which were made into delicious chips!).
The children rolled out the dough, spread a tomato base, added a variety of toppings, sprinkled generous amounts of cheese and then baked their pizzas in a beautiful clay oven. The wood-fired oven used the surrounding lychee trees to cook the pizzas – part of the farm’s philosophy to sustain itself as far as possible.
Literacy
Our literacy has continued to support our unit as we have explored articles, videos and websites on google classroom. They have been making flow charts to show their understanding of the various steps involved in the production of food.
We’ve also had some fun literacy connected with Christmas.
Short films are a great writing prompt! In 3I we watched this film and have begun to write another adventure inspired by ‘Mog’s Christmas Calamity’. The Literacy Shed, a free online resource has a collection of a wide range of short films which can often be an inspiration to young writers.
We have continued to hone the children’s writing skills by working through the writer’s process of planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.
Maths
In maths, some classes have had fun with some christmas themed challenges. These encourage us as mathematicians to persevere and try many different strategies such as drawing it out in the Elf Suit challenge (from the nrich.maths.org website).
Fun puzzles such as those below from mashup maths helps us to figure out what information we have been given and how we can proceed in an organised way.
Reminders
A few key reminders for students and parents:
- Please remind your child to pack his/her hat for school each day, as children who do not bring their hat will not be allowed to take part in snack or lunch play.
- There are extreme peanut allergies in Year 3, so please make sure your child does not bring nuts to school or eat peanut butter or nutella for breakfast before he/she heads to school.
- Please remind your child to pack his/her own cutlery as we do not provide extra sets of cutlery at school.
- Your child this week have home readers to read at home daily for up to 5-10 minutes. Please let your child’s class teacher know if the level is too hard for your child.
- Your child’s weekly timetable have been placed in their school diaries, should you have questions around the days and times they should wear their PE uniform to school.
- School Bag: Please ensure your child has a backpack for school, not a wheelie bag. Bags with wheels are not safe for our stairs and cause trip hazards for others;
- Shoes: Black shoes with school uniform or white shoes with sports uniform. Please do not send your child with shoes that are a bit black and a bit white.
- Jewellery: Many children coming with necklaces, wrist bands and other adornments. The only jewellery permitted is a non wifi watch, and religious adornments that are to be worn inside the uniform.
Key dates for the Diary
16 December – 3 January Term Break
Monday 6 January First day of Term 2
7 – 10 January School Photos
Friday 17 January Chinese New Year Celebration Assembly
Home learning
Some suggestions to support the learning taking place in school are:
- Write a journal of the most memorable parts of your holiday
- Make some treats to share with your family
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/christmas-kids
- Invent word games to play or choose a classic from the link below:
https://bilingualkidspot.com/2018/11/03/english-word-games-for-kids/
Most of all, from all of us in Year 3, we hope you have a wonderful holiday, filled with happiness and plenty of laughter together with your loved ones!
