Toucans

Welcome to Toucan's Class webpage

Mrs Davies, Mrs Hayward and Miss Copeland all hope you enjoy sharing in your child's learning through this page!

Please let us know of any useful updates we can make to help you at home.

On this page you will find;

• Latest Toucan class attendance figures.
• Star of the week.
• Exciting news linked to our class!
• Recent learning experiences in our topic lessons.
• Outline of literacy and numeracy.
• Celebration of progress and great learning examples.
• How you can help at home!
• Outdoor learning challenge(scroll down for the weekly challenge).
• Learning letters (please scroll to the bottom of the page).
• Homework reminders.
• Useful links.

Attendance!!

Toucan class are aiming for perfect attendance! Everyday matters to the learning of your child so please make every effort to ensure they are here and making the most of every learning minute!

Toucan class have blown the rest of the school away this week !! We have come to school every day for a whole week and gained a percentage of 100%. this is a first within the whole school and we are incredibly proud of ourselves.

Stars of the week !! Jayden for his amazing maths and for independently challenging himself. Also of course the WHOLE of Toucans class for our 100% achievement in attendance.

Music

It was our final week of guitars.

Literacy

We have been innovating our warning stories and telling them to a partner.

Maths

We have had a busy week recalling and using multiplication and division facts.

Science

We have been investigating magnetic poles.

Literacy

This week we have been introduced to a warning story! We have been using actions to help us remember it.

Maths

We have been exploring fractions this week. We have been adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator.

THE  QUEENS BIRTHDAY

We had a fun day celebrating the Queens Birthday.

Ancient Olympics

What an amazing afternoon we had taking part in our Ancient Olympics!!

Thank you to all our parents who came to support us and for also taking part.

Literacy

In Literacy this week we have been learning about Medusa, her history and her character.

Skip 2 B Fit

The children had great fun skipping today !! Well done Jake for never giving up and Paige for being year3 champion.

  This will change weekly to celebrate our star learner of the week!

This weeks stars are Alisha and Marek who excelled in Maths and grew in confidence. Well done !!

All the Toucans have blown me away this week with their successes in different areas.  Some children have shown wonderful improvements in reading, whilst others have produced incredible writing or maths work!  Well done Toucans keep up your fantastic effort!

I am proud of each member of the class for their individual success this term.  Keep it up guys!

Maths

This week we have been learning about 2d shapes and lines of symmetry within them.

We have also been doing our learning outside.

Literacy

In Literacy we have been report writing and learning about the story of the Minotaur.

We had an unexpected visitor in our classroom during our playtime.

We came back to devastation !

Toucans have blamed the Minotaur but have found out this can't be possible. We have a list of suspects, watch this space!

Look at our wonderful learning this week!

Stone Age to Iron Age

What can we learn about the Stone Age from this image?

Useful links to support our topics learning!

http://timetravellerkids.co.uk/time-travel/stone-age/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z34djxs

http://www.kidspast.com/world-history/0008-tools-and-the-stone-age.php

This week Toucan Class have shared some wonderful examples of home learning which have really impressed and excited us!

well done to Giselle who made her own volcano and the created an eruption using everyday kitchen resources!

Toucans loved sharing the eruption you created Giselle!

What do you think would happen if we added more bicarbonate of soda?

Race for Life

The children had a fantastic day on Tuesday for our Race for Life challenge.  We investigated the problem:

'Mrs Todd says tall girls are the fastest runners.  Is she correct?'

We planned a way to test this problem; choosing to measure girls using tape measure in cm and to use ordinal numbers to rank fastest to slowest runners.

We made predictions and collected data when we competed in the race.  Finally,  we used this data to produce tables and bar charts and ended the day challenging one another to interpret our bar charts!

We had a fun packed day and progressed in our mathematical understanding in a real life context!

Marvellous Maths!

This week one of our highlights has been maths!  We have had fun decoding Roman numerals and enjoyed a scavenger hunt based on our new knowledge!

We then applied our understanding of Roman numerals to telling the time.

Year three took Alan Silvestri as our composer for our exciting music day! He wrote the soundtrack for the film Volcano.

We began the day by listening to the music. Before we knew what the music was about, we thought about how the music makes us feel and what we think the music was based on.

Here are some of our thoughts:

Once we had discovered that the music was based on volcanoes we discussed how we could recreate the music using body percussion and everyday objects as instruments.

We used the images below to inspire and sequence our composition.

Our trip to Margate Library!!

Toucan class had a wonderful time at the library this afternoon.  The children were a credit to the school and to themselves and we were very proud of them!

We learnt how the library is organised, how to book books out and had so much fun exploring new texts!!

This is what we thought!

Tya- 'I liked the area where we chose our books.  It was beautiful and neat!'

Melody and Paige- 'I liked getting to choose our own books!'

Jayden- 'I liked it because all our class was happy.'

Charley- 'I liked that we were allowed to take books home!'

Jake- 'I loved the fact there were DVDs and books but my legs were extremely tired!'

Janet- 'Reading at the library was fun!'

Antwone- 'I learnt something from this book....there are some volcanoes under the sea!'

Year 3 term 2

What Makes the Earth Angry!

This term year three will be exploring the physical geography of our planet and discovering what really happens when a volcano erupts; Why do we have earthquakes and tsunamis and What impact they have on people who live there?

Help at home by researching recent vocanic eruptions earthquake and tsunamis.  If you find any newsreports over the next term please bring them in to add to our new, newsflash section of our book corner!

Ordering and Following Instructions!

Toucan class have been preparing to write their our recipes for a Lighthouse Sandwich by ordering and following instructions about how to make iced sea biscuits.

We had a fantastic time discussing and ordering the instructions and identifying what is helpful in a good set of instructions.

Kenzie- I used the numbers to help me order my instructions.

Tomas- I need a spoon, a biscuit and icing (point to the pictures in his instructions).

Melody- This one must come first....it says Firstly!

Thomas- This instruction is wrong, it doesn't tell us what to do with the laces!

Mrs Feuillatre- How would you write that instruction more clearly?

Thomas-I would add, use the laces to make your nautical design.

Year Three- Term 1

Our first key text is The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. The children have already had fun exploring this text through art and drama.  Pictures to follow so watch this space!

There are a whole range of these lovely books and they are bursting with engaging storylines and great vocabulary so why not give them a try.

Toucan class recommends The Lighthouse Keeper's Picnic! 

Investigating Angles and Shape

Year 3 have been investigating obtuse and acute angles in triangles and quadrilaterals.  We used new vocabulary of quarter turn and 90 degree turn to guide a character around a maze.

Picasso workshop!

Look at our amazing examples of portraits based on Picasso's work!

Maths

This week in maths we have moved into shape.  We have used key vocabulary to decribe the properties of shapes.  We have been using Reggie Right Angle to hunt for right angles in every day shapes around the classroom. 

Look at the shapes below.  Which of these shapes has right angles?  Which shape has the most right angles?

How many right angles can you find in your home?

Mrs Feuillatre's weekly outdoor challenge!

Every week I am planning to set the children a challenge in the great outdoors!  There is so much the children can learn from their outdoor environment so together lets make the most of it!!

Term 2 week 1...

This weeks outdoor challenge is to....

Fireworks night is coming up!  Your challenge is to listen to the sounds you hear either at display, as you are walking down the road or as you watch from your bedroom window.  What do they sound like? How could you describe these sounds using onomatopoeia (words that sound like the actual sound; fizz, bang)?  Have fun!

I would love to hear your fabulous words when you come into school!

Helping at home!

Please continue to support your child's learning at home by:

• reading and/or sharing a story every night
• spelling
• learning high frequency words
• practice multiplication and number bonds

This weeks home learning is to use knowledge of place value to solve problems and to double and halve.  Can the children show you the methods we have use in class to solve these problems?

 Remember to have your home learning handed in by Thursday!!

Roald Dahl Day

Friday Drapers Mills Primary Academy celebrated the birthday of the wonderful author, Rolad Dahl.  Year three chose to explore the text of James and the Giant Peach.  The children began learning how to change the tone and pitch of their voices to engage their readers by using a poem from the text.  I was very impressed with the fantastic expression the children were using in their reading! Ask them to apply this learning when reading their texts at home!!

We also began to think about the choice of verbs used as the peach broke free of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spikers terrible grasp!

In maths we used the growth of the insects in the story as an opportunity to measure in cm and mm!

Finally we linked in our current topics of Mediterranean Destinations to chose an alternative landmark for the peach to land on. We considered;

• What may James see from this landmark?
• How would he feel landing in such a place?
• What type of climate would he be experiencing?  

Learning Letter Term 2