Beaver (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

Autumn 1

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

Reading:

In reading this half term, we will are reading the book 'The Thames and Tide Club' by by Katya Balen. 

Clem, Zara and Ash are members of the Thames Tide club who go to search for objects revealed by low tides from the River Thames but a chance discovery causes havoc and the children have to enter a mysterious underwater world to save the city from destruction.

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 book 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. 

Described by some as a modern fairy tale, it narrates the unexpected arrival in England of a giant "metal man" of unknown origin who rains destruction on the countryside by eating industrial farm equipment, before befriending a small boy and defending the world from a dragon from outer space.

'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  place value as well as addition and subtaction.

We will also be doing some work on our timestables every day! It is really important for the children to build their timestable knowledge as they will be required to apply it to their mathematics learning. We will also be completing weekly timestable 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 Forces and Magnets. In this topic we will be conducting lots of observations and investigations look at all things forces!  

In History, we are looking at the Romans! We are learning all about how the Romans conqured Britain and many other parts of the world! We will be looking at famous leaders such as Boudica!

Your child will have a music lesson each week where they will learn to adapt and transposing motifs! They will learn a new song, singing in time and in tune while following the lyrics, identify motifs aurally and play a repeated pattern on a tuned instrument, create and performing a motif, notating it with reasonable accuracy. As well as transpose their motif, using sharp or flat notes where necessary and change the rhythm and combine different versions of a musical motif and perform as a group using musical notation.

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 this days. This half term we will be developing out basketball and dance techniques. 

 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.