Prep | Year 3 News
Music
The Stand Alone Unit of Inquiry has been focussed around the Christmas Story and preparation for the Prep School Christmas Service. Through the Approaches to Learning of Communication and Social Skills the students have continued to develop their vocal, ensemble skills and their ability to communicate the meaning of a performance to an audience. They have also fully embraced the opportunity to participate in the Band and Sight-reading Programs.
Maths
As we come to the end of the year, Year 3 has finished a few topics and are currently in revision mode. We completed angles, 2D shapes and 3D objects. These topics saw students find angles in their environment, create nets of 3D objects and learn the characteristics of angles, shapes and objects. The final few weeks of school have us looking at addition and subtraction through the use of money. It has been great to already see what knowledge boys bring to this unit. Within classes, students will spend and earn money using class currency. They may earn money for neatly set out work, or be fined for leaving their lunch box out on the playground. This, we hope will show students a little of what life is like when they have their own money. You could also have discussions with your son around the cost of living and even get them to budget for a meal.
English
Year 3 finished writing some great scripts. Boys chose to write an original or substitute some characters in an already known script, for example, Little Red Riding Hood. Students used the conventions for script writing and included: titles, characters, setting, dialogue and, used brackets to show actions, feelings or directions.
Students will now look at newspapers and analyse the style of writing within these, discuss the sections of a newspaper and the target audience. Our goal for the rest of the term is to write our very own Year 3 newspaper and publish it. It would be great for your son to have a look at different sections of the newspaper and have a discussion around it.
UOI
Students have been immersed in different forms of expression. In our first round of UOI lessons, boys have been open-minded when learning about drama, music and fashion. We are currently in our second round of forms of expression, where boys will look at dance, design and cooking. It is important that boys understand that everyone enjoys different things and that they can and should appreciate peoples’ differences. Students have been keeping a journal throughout this unit to show their thinking and feelings. It’s great to have boys constantly reflecting on lessons and to see their progress throughout the weeks.
STEAM
What is a computer scientist? Connecting to their class Unit of Inquiry In STEAM Year 3 have been investigating the history of computer science researching the important people who have impacted the development and improvement of computers and their software. The journey of code starts with Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage over 100 years before the first computer was even invented.
Charles Babbage (1791- 1871) was an English polymath. Babbage is considered by some to be the father of the computer. Babbage died before the complete successful engineering of many of his designs. – Logan
Ada Lovelace was the first computer inventor. She wrote her calculations in a book but didn’t live to build the world’s first computer. She died at the age of 35 because of her health at the time but was still able to show her work to the world. Also, at the time, there was not a measles vaccine so countless people died, she suffered with measles for 3 years. – Ryan N
Steve Jobs had a big impact in the history of coding. He made Apple and the first ever Apple calculator. And he was the first CEO of Apple and software for the first 6 iPhones. He sadly died on the 5th of October 2011 one day after the iPhone 6 was released. He inspires many due to how far he advanced the tech and coding industry. – Zac
James Gosling is known as the father of the Java Programming language. He is a Canadian computer scientist. He is the lead designer of the Java Programming language. He is a famous software developer. – Brendan
The boys then became computer scientists by using apps like Scratch. Minecraft and MakersEmpire to develop their own coded software.
For the remainder of the term Year 3 will use their STEAM lessons to try out for the 2023 VEX and RoboCup co-curricular. At this stage there will be only 10 Year 4 spaces in this co-curricular with 5 boys competing in RoboCup and the other 5 dedicated to VEX. Boys currently in VEX will need to try out again to secure a position for next year.
