Friday 26 May 2017

What a magical week!


Dear parents
This week has been brilliant. We have all thoroughly enjoyed Eisteddfod and multi-cultural week. Please see photos below for a flavour of just some of the activities that show the children of year 3 being really creative. Please also find the song words attached for year 3 to learn in preparation for the musical night in June.

Have an enjoyable half term and thank you for your continued support.

The year 3 team



























We are the Young

We are the young, the children of the world
We hold tomorrow in our hands
We are the young, the promise of a brighter day
The future waits at our command.

Teach us well; teach us how to care,
Give us love, love that we can share
And we’ll walk hand in hand in the light of the rising sun
We are the young.

We are the young, and so we look to you
To show us how the world should be
We are the young: we trust in your experience
To help us shape our destiny.

 Teach us well; teach us how to care,
Give us love, love that we can share
And we’ll walk hand in hand in the light of the rising sun
We are the young.

That day is dawning when we will be grown
We will inherit this world for our own

We are the young, the children of the world
We hold tomorrow in our hands
We are the young, the promise of a brighter day
The future waits at our command.

Teach us well; teach us how to care,
Give us love, love that we can share
And we’ll walk hand in hand in the light of the rising sun
We are the young.
We are the young
We are the young.


 Sleep-walking
Last week I wandered into town and
met a funny little clown.
He smiled at me and gave me three big
chocolate muffins for my tea.
He asked me if I knew the time,
I said, “of course, it’s not a crime
To wander round this lovely town at
four o’clock in the morning”!

Then I realized what had happened
Yes of course, this is a pattern!
Every Friday night’s the same ‘cos I
go to bed late, what a shame!

It’s sleep walking, that’s the problem!
Sleep walking, what’s the solution!
Listen to my mum and go to bed on time,
Don’t listen to my Dad who always says it’s fine!

The problem is my guilty crime
With all the time I spend online
I stare at screens the whole night long
This song is telling you it’s wrong
I’m texting, messaging, posting, boasting
Not in bed curled up with ted
This bloomin’ tablet, yet another gadget
Why don’t I just chuck it out the window?

At last when I fall fast asleep
My legs they feel they want to creep
Outside and down the moonlit street
To meet my friend with his chocolate treat.

It’s sleep walking, that’s the problem!
Sleep walking, what’s the solution!
Listen to my mum and go to bed on time,
Don’t listen to my Dad who always says it’s fine

Then I had a great idea
Make my friend the clown appear!
Tell him that my mum would like
Three chocolate muffins in the night.
Then she’ll know I’ve not been fibbin’
When I tell her I’ve been nibblin’
Muffins from my friend the clown
Who seems to like my dressing gown!

After that I slept all night
My clowning friend kept out of sight
But mum, oh dear! was cross I sense
The chocolate stains as evidence!

It’s sleep walking, that’s the problem!
Sleep walking, what’s the solution!
A hot milky drink and a bowl of cornflakes
Turn off the Wi-Fi for goodness sakes!


El cumbanchero

A cumba, cumba, cumba, cumbanchero,
A bongo, bongo, bongo, bongo sero.
When in Cuba you can do the cumbanchero, bongo sero
que seva
Bongo sero que seva

Hear all Havana bongos drum,
Bum bum ba.
See all Havana guitars strum,
Tum tum ta.


A cumba, cumba, cumba, cumbanchero,
A bongo, bongo, bongo, bongo sero.
When in Cuba you can do the cumbanchero, bongo sero
que seva
Bongo sero que seva
Cumba!

Do-Re-Me
Let’s start at the very beginning!
A very good place to start,
When you read you begin with A, B, C,
When you sing you begin with Do-re-me
Do-re-me?
Do-re-me.
The first three notes just happen to be
Do-re-me!
Do-re-me.
Do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti

All right, I’ll make it easier. Listen:

Doe a deer, a female deer,
Ray a drop of golden sun
Me a name I call myself,
Far a long, long way to run
Sew a needle pulling thread,
La a note to follow sew,
Tea a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to (do-oh-oh-oh!)

[Middle section – small choir]
So do la fa me do re
So do la ti do re do
When you know the notes to sing
You can sing most anything.

Do me me, me so so
Re fa fa, la ti ti
 ENDING: Do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do!

.



Sunday 21 May 2017

What's been going on in year 3?

The children in year three are thoroughly enjoying the summer term. They get to go onto the field most play times and during PE they get to enjoy the summer sports. We have seen many more children attain their pen licence and there is a buzz of excitement about what to expect for Eisteddfod next week!

In terms of the curriculum we have just completed an exciting unit of writing on persuasion and the children wrote a fantastic piece about 'Crabtree at the Weekend' and what activities it might offer. In their writing the children wrote imaginatively and with a proposal from some about a spa suite, even the teachers' were feeling tempted by the weekend retreat! We have now moved onto a narrative unit and we are using a text called 'The Caravan'. The story stimulus we have chosen is a warning story about staying safe and written by Pie Corbett. The story is a classic five part story and follows the structure of introduction, build up, problem, resolution and ending, that we would like the children to adopt. They have written each paragraph separately and including the grammar points we have suggested. We would looking for a combination of speech, descriptive techniques like expanded noun phrases and a variety of sentence types. Why not ask your son or daughter if they can tell you the three sentence types there are and why an author uses a variety?
Please find the story below if you would like to read it.

The Caravan by Pie Corbett


In Maths in Mrs Gaines and Mrs Mercer's class we have moved onto multiplication and division, which we will stay on for a couple of weeks to ensure we are confidence of both mental and written methods and know how to apply our skills to word problems. For word problems at Crabtree we use an approach called RUCSAC which means Read, Understand, Calculation used, Solve, Answer and Check. By using this approach the children are able to go step by step through what initially may appear a difficult problem but in small stages it is able to be tackled with confidence. In Mr Clifford's Maths class the children have been working on measuring and time.
A website called 'hit the button' please see the link below will help you child with times table practise, consolidation of number bonds and by using this site develop quicker mental methods.

Top marks fun games

In Music we are practising our songs that we are performing at the summer music festival, you are all in for a treat it is sounding brilliant.

In the creative curriculum we are still enjoying learning about the Anglo Saxons and this week we learnt about town names. We used atlases and maps to find places with Anglo-Saxons words like 'ford, bury and wood'. The children thoroughly enjoyed doing some research and discovering just how many towns still exist today with Anglo-Saxon influences on their names. Why not ask your children what towns near us have Anglo-Saxon names?

Please remember that the children have swimming on a Monday, this does continue after half term, so if you could send them in with a costume, a towel, a snack, a hat and goggles this would be brilliant. In addition to this, it is particularly helpful if the girls don't wear tights as it takes longer when changing.

We thank you for your continued support and look forward to seeing you at the summer concert, if not before.

The year 3 team

Thursday 4 May 2017

A wonderful day

Good morning.
This week in English we have continued to look at persuasive writing. We are now at the innovation stage of our writing where we are creating a leaflet to persuade people that Crabtree would make an excellent weekend attraction. Why not ask your child what activities they said you could do during the weekend? In Cedar we had laser tag, Jacuzzis, flight simulation and pitch and putt. In Rowan we had a wedding venue, dazzling dance studios and glitter tattoo parlour! We will be writing our leaflets next week and hoping the children incorporate all the grammar skills we have taught them. These include - rhetorical questions, personal pronouns, bossy verbs, alliteration, exaggeration and emotive words. Maybe your child could tell you what they remember about these specific skills for persuasive writing?


In Maths Mr Clifford's set has been working on consolidating written methods for multiplication and division. The children have really enjoyed some investigative approaches too. In Mrs Mercer's and Mrs Gaines' set we have been looking at addition and subtraction and techniques to apply to our work to help us spot patterns and use what we know. For example if we know that 7 + 8 = 15, we also can also workout that 27 + 8 = 35. We have moved onto more efficient written methods now which the children have enjoyed and been tackling some word problems. Our next unit will be to revisit multiplication and division so please keep working on the times tables as it really helps the childrens' fluency.


If you would like to support your child in their maths fluency this game called hit the button is highly recommended.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button




In science we are enjoying the practical side to testing magnets and this week the children devised their own question to investigate. Some questions include-
1. Are small magnets as powerful as big magnets?
2. How far does the magnetic field extend?
3. Are horse shoe magnets as effective as bar magnets?


Please continue to support your child with their reading and recording this in their reading records. It is beneficial that they are encouraged to read a variety of different authors and a mix of fiction and non fiction.


Last Tuesday, the 25th April, year 3 had a wonderful day at St.Albans Abbey. We had the opportunity to dress up as Anglo Saxons; learnt about how they invade after the Romans and enjoyed learning about the food they ate. Please see below for some lovely photos of the children so you can see what activities we did.