Cedar Year 3

Welcome to Cedar Class, Year 3  2024-2025.

Cedar Class has 28 children.  The Cedar team are  Mrs Giles (Mon-Thurs),  Mrs Downs (Fri),  Mrs Hall (full time), Mrs Johansen and Miss Lucas (both part-time in our class). Making learning fun is our speciality!  There are so many fun things  to look forward to in the year ahead.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you ever have any queries or concerns. 

Term 3 PE is on Tuesday and Friday.   Please wear your PE kit to school on these days and bring  extra warm layers for cold days.  This term we have gymnastics (Tuesday) and cricket (Friday). 

Please bring a coat to school everyday. Children need fresh air and exercise so they can learn best and we do go out in light rain. Remember  a water bottle every day.  A piece of fruit at playtime really helps children to concentrate on learning up to lunch time.   Many thanks.

Useful Information and Links

Term 2

Dance with Emma Seymour.

The children talked about what they knew about the Stone Age, then they thought about  movements for Hunter Gatherers.

In the lesson they  learnt what a 'gesture' movement  was and explored working at different levels. It was great  fun and  revealed that  there are many talented dancers in our class!

Non-chronological report writing

When learning to write features of different types of text, we often  learn and practise vocabulary.  For non-chronological text features  we have looked at  interesting sentence starters, causal conjunctions, generalisers, and the language of comparison.

Interestingly,    Surprisingly,     Amazingly,    Intriguingly, 

These are all examples of interesting sentence starters which hook the reader in and keep the  text exciting.  We  learn that each of these words  would have a comma after it when used at the start of a sentence.

most     all      some    many    a few    usually    occasionally       the vast majority

These are all examples of generalisers. They often tell us more information  such as how many  and how often. These types of words are useful in report writing to aid understanding.

caused by    results in        so       so that        because       therefore

These are examples of  causal conjunctions.  They are words  or phrases that give reasons or explanations for something in  a sentence.

like     unlike     similar to      related to       differs from

These are examples of language of comparison.  By comparing  and contrasting people can learn about similarities and differences and understand subjects better. 

We rehearse sentences orally using many examples before we begin to write them down. The more we practise, the more confident we get.

We looked at this picture and were able to  zoom in and look at things closely to inspect the finer detail. 

We noticed the feelings of all the different people within the picture.  It differed greatly from person to person and their perspective of things!

The clothing of the people was quite a talking  point and helped us to place this picture in history.

We supposed the professions of people and family relationships and what the interests of people were.

We discussed the light and dark within the picture and how it made us feel.  The tiny moon through the window was observed.

The more we looked, the more we saw!  We had great discussions and everybody noticed many different things.

How good is your superpower of looking!

Some of the facts we have read about Stonehenge

Stonehenge is the world's most famous stone circle.

It is in Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire which is about 2 hours from London.

The land is flat. 

Early British people settled here.

Some people believed the stones had special powers.

The bluestones at Stonehenge come from Wales and they are not actually blue, they are grey!

Some of the sandstones used are 4-7metres high and weigh as much as eight female elephants!

Some of the stones have fallen. Some are missing. Others have been damaged by the weather.

Nowadays, many tourists travel to England to see the  stones.

French

Bonjour! Salut! Since the beginning of the academic year, we have been learning the French letters of the alphabet  and several phonic sounds.

At the time of writing we have learnt these phonics; ch, oi, ou, on, i, ique, ille and in.   We have looked at examples of words containing these phonemes such as;  cinq (5), six (6), cheval (horse), oisseau (bird), famille (family), musique (music) and  cochon (pig) . French accents are coming on really well within the class.  

Below is some of the work completed in the last academic year to give you a flavour of what we get up to in Year 3.

Term 6 -The Tempest by William Shakespeare and Plants

We have been writing our own  beginning of The Tempest story. We have explored ‘ninja’ vocabulary through work with a thesaurus and generated similes, personification and more! We couldn’t be more proud of the  work ALL the children in writing and the progress they are making. 

A strong hurricane was erupting over the island. Palm trees were cut, ripped and sliced.  The gale hissed and slashed off their  branches which sent them falling through the air uncontrollably.   

On a sandy beach, not far from the mouth of his cave,  stood Prospero, the king wizard, his white lily hair and white lily beard streamed out in the hissing wind. His jet black robes flapped around.

By Esme 

Long, long away there was an island perished by a devilish storm. Hurricanes, gales and tornadoes, cracked and thundered. The heavy wind blew and sliced the poor palm trees. They rotated like dancers doing great backflips.  The gales squealed as loud as ten thousand lions roaring at the same time.  The palm trees that slouched were already in the distance.   The storm, which screeched and howled, got heavier and heavier.

On a wet, miserable beach stood mute Prospero, the hairy, wrinkly wizard.  Raging, wild weather yelled into the ears on the wizard.  In the dark, blood-curdling cave, his raven black robe fluttered furiously.

By Milan 

An aggressive, violent, horrific and torturous storm was raging over the island. Palm trees arched and the branches were crooked. They twisted and turned as flew through the air.

On a stormy beach, not far away from the mouth of the cave, Prospero, the evil wizard, was positioned with his  snowy white hair and beard streaming out in the wind. His charcoal robes were flapping around him.

By Ryan

Term 5 -Take One Tale and Amazing Bodies

Collective class thoughts on  what could be the odd one out.

Snake

• only one that doesn't have legs/feet/only one that moves by slithering
• only one that is a reptile
• has a very flexible spine and can coil right up
• it's spine is made up of many bones (between 200-400 vertebrae)
• it  may have more bones than the others

Elephant (or is it a woolly mammoth?)

• it has tusks
• only mammal
• it has the biggest, strongest, heaviest bone
• it is the only one with  4 legs/ it is the only quadruped
• it has teeth
• could be the only one extinct now if it is a woolly mammoth
• maybe it has the least number of it's species left in the world 
• it is the only one that doesn't lay eggs
• only one with ears on the outside

Bird

• only one that would have had feathers
• it cold fly
• only one with a beak/wings
• it has small bones
• birds have hollow bones
• it has claws
• it has 2 feet/ is a biped

What else could we have added?

Term 4 - 'May the Force Be With You' and  Robots