Beaver Class (Year 3) 2025 - 2026

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Beaver Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 3. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you

Miss Walker

Class staff

Teacher: Miss Walker

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Duncalf

Spring 2

We have two English lessons a day; a reading lesson and a writing lesson.

Reading:

In reading this half term, we will be reading a variety of texts such as:

Hello Universe, How to Train Your Dragon, My Encyclopaedia of Very Important Science, My Very Important Human Body Encyclopaedia, A Whale of a Time and When Poems Fall from the Sky.

There are a selection of fiction, nonfiction and poems that the children will analyse. 

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to improve our understanding of what we read.'

Writing:

In writing this half term, we will be looking at The Rhythm of the Rain

by Grahame Baker-Smith.

A breathtaking picture book about the water cycle. Issac plays in his favourite pool on the mountainside. As rain starts to fall, he empties his little jar of water into the pool and races the sparkling streams as they tumble over waterfalls, rush through swollen rivers, and burst out into the vast open sea. Where will my little jar of water go now? Issac wonders. From the tiniest raindrop to the deepest ocean, this breathtaking celebration of the water cycle captures the remarkable movement of water across the earth in all its majesty.

'Reading for Pleasure' has great amounts of benefits for your child. In Year 3, we ensure your child has time to read for pleasure and each day, we set time aside to read our class book for pleasure.

Benefits of 'reading for pleasure':

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

Read with your child every day even if it is just 2 minutes- this can make all the difference. 
Record in their reading diaries to ensure that your child is receiving their stamp for their book from the vending machine, or reading buddy. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

In maths this half term, we will be exploring fractions, mass and capacity.

We will also be doing some work on our timetables every day! It is important for the children to build their times table knowledge as they will be required to apply it to their mathematics learning. We will also be completing weekly times table tests. 

Children will have ongoing access to their TT Rockstars logins at home. I will set your child specific times tables for them to practice. Please ensure that your child is practising them at home as it is very beneficial for their learning.

If you have misplaced your child's login, please drop me a message on Dojo and I will resend for you.

This half term in science we are going to be looking at Light. In this topic we will be conducting lots of observations about what light is, what reflection is and how shadows are formed!  

In Geography, we are looking at settlements, we will be exploring what a settlement is, exploring the UK, explore how my local area has changed over time, and using an OS map to plan a walk around my local area to explain the locational features of my local area.

Your child will have a music lesson each week where they will be learning all about pentatonic melodies and composition with the Theme: Chinese New Year! We will learn about the music used to celebrate Chinese New Year, explore the pentatonic scale, use letter notation and perform a composition of a group.

Your child will have two PE lessons each week. Their days this half term is Wednesday and Friday. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be developing dance techniques through witches and wizard themed dance as well as golf skills. 

 Mondays- Each Monday morning, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week. They will then complete a spelling test each Friday, and, if they receive a mark of 10/10,  they will get a Dojo. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings some mornings in class so extra practice at home is essential.

Maths Homework Books - The children will also be given their maths homework books with their homework activity inside on Mondays, these will be due on the Friday. 

Every day -Your child should read as often as possible when not in school and this should be logged in their reading diaries. Please ensure your child is also practising their timetables whenever they can as well. 

Please note: I will often upload additional activities and links for your child to support their learning at home, however this is not specific homework, this is just a little extra for them. For example, I may upload interactive links to games that I know they will like. 

Other useful links:

Please see below links to useful websites for your child to use when they are at home. I will be adding to the list throughout the course of the year so please make sure you check for updated links.

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.