Welcome to Toucan Class!
My name is Miss Bellinger and I am the Year 3 teacher here at Stondon Lower. In Toucans class we also have Mrs Akenbrook and Mrs Wetherman who help support us with our learning. We aim to always try our best every day and to never give up. This attitude towards learning has helped us to take on the new challenges of Key Stage 2! We make sure that we work hard in all areas of learning, and most importantly, have lots of fun! We have the same 3 rules throughout the school which makes it easy for us to follow them. They are: Keep safe, Use your Values and Be the best that you can be. We learn about and practise these rules every day.
At the start of everyday, we complete a morning task to get us ready for the day. This usually involves practising key skills, such as number facts and spellings. Every day we have Maths and English in the mornings. Then in the afternoon, we explore a range of different subjects. We also make sure that we fill our day with lots of reading! This includes whole class reading, individual quiet reading time and a shared story at the end of every day.
In Year 3 we study the Stone Age in History. This allows for lots of opportunities to explore what life was like about 2.6 million years ago! We also go on a Faith Tour where we visit a Gurdwara, Mosque and a Church where we further our learning of different faiths. Through this first-hand experience. In Geography, we explore rainforests, finding out about what it’s like in the rainforest and the animals that live there.
In Toucans class, we understand how important reading is and how it helps us with all areas of learning. We read everyday when we return to class after lunch and have various opportunities to read to adults across the week. During whole class reading we have the chance to listen to other children in our class read and we carry out whole class discussions about different texts, including any new words or phrases we have identified. We also try to read at home as much as we can and if we read more than four times a week, our names are entered into the class raffle where there are some exciting prizes up for grabs! We have a different times table to focus on each term to develop our fluency of multiplication facts. We practise our times tables through a variety of games and catchy songs! So that we can become super at spelling, we have weekly spellings to practise.
To keep our bodies healthy, we take part in PE lessons twice a week. Depending on the weather and activity, we do PE on the field, on the playground and in the hall. For our PE lessons, we wear black shorts or joggers, a red school PE top and trainers. As well as our PE lessons, we complete a Daily Mile each day. This means that we do some form of physical activity a day for 5 minutes to keep our bodies active ands to give our brains a break. In addition to keeping our bodies healthy, it is important to keep our minds healthy too. We have lots of circle times and discussions during the week where we talk about friendships, our feelings and what to do if something is wrong. In Year 3 we notice how we are feeling and talk to someone we trust about it – especially if it doesn’t feel right.