Year 3 Home Learning activitiesDear Parents / Carers,

We hope you and your families are all well and that you are keeping yourselves as safe as you can. As we enter a new half term of home learning, we would like to say how grateful we are for all your hard work in balancing family life, your work and your child’s home learning during these unprecedented times.

We have really enjoyed seeing the fantastic work that they have been busy producing on Google Classroom (GC) and know they have been working hard to complete work in their home learning exercise books too. We are particularly impressed with some of the Adobe Spark IT skills the children are using in GC.

Ongoing Literacy activities

Bug Club on-line books. Books have been allocated to your child and from half term, books will be allocated on a weekly basis if needed. Remember that your child needs to have an understanding of the books that they read and be able to answer questions about them. This is why they need to click on the bugs throughout the book, especially the more challenging red questions. If new books are allocated from the next book band , this will be reviewed on return to school. We are looking into setting additional books for children who have finished the whole range of books within that band. It is important that your child reads out loud to you as often as possible, as they may not acknowledge any mistakes they make if they always read to themselves. This will also ensure that expression and intonation is improving in line with their mechanical reading ability. We are looking into the possibility of children being able to record themselves reading a short story, poem etc. if they would like to, and sharing it with the class on GC. Watch this space!!

Bug Club login reminder. ActiveLearn: Login Google: Active Learn and log into your child’s account: Username: first 4 letters of first name and first 4 letters of their surname.Password: changemeSchool code: qlq7

SpellingsThe 3 No Nonsense spelling groups will be set new words regularly. These will be posted on GC. All spelling strategies can be employed to learn and practice using these new words.Alongside these spellings, we are encouraging children to go through100 / 200 word list: if your child can read all of the 100 words, they can practise how to spell them. When the first 100 words are secure, they can practise reading and then spelling the 200 words. Remember to try out some of the spelling strategies on these words to make this fun! First 100 High frequency wordsSpelling StrategiesFirst 200 High frequency words

Ongoing Numeracy activities Big Maths: Your child can hopefully access their Big Maths tests online. If this is not possible, please let us know and we can upload the test for you to print out or complete in your exercise book. If you are not completing on line, please could you let Mrs Doyle or Miss Stephens know scores so we can put

them into the Big Maths database, in order to monitor their progress. A few parents have commented on questions being marked automatically as wrong but they were sure the answer given had been correct. If this is the case, please get in touch and we can go into Big Maths Admin and see which question was incorrect, and then offer support. There have been some issues with questions being marked wrong, when in fact they are correct. These include the Factors question on CLIC 15. (The system doesn't acknowledge all the factors even though they are correct.) Also, fraction questions have caused a few problems as children were unsure how to type in the answer. We have been informed that if typing in Eg. four and a half, the typed answer needs to be 4 then space then 1 then / then 2. On the Whole School website, Information page, there are Big Maths Parent Information Packs to support your child with their CLIC tests.

Active learn (Abacus) maths activities will be allocated regularly for your child’s maths group. Same login as Bug Club.

Planned weekly activitiesEvery week Literacy, Numeracy and Context for Learning activities are planned. We also include ideas for Wellbeing and Physical Education. It is important that your child has a balance between ‘on-line’ and ‘off-line’ learning and we are mindful of this when we plan. They are suggested activities and please don't feel that they all have to be completed. It is very important that you and your child develop a routine that works for you all.Some of the Twinkl work set may have a ***, **, * rating for difficulty, to cater for all abilities. Challenge activities are also included on the task sheet for maths. Spare time activities may also be added to the task sheet. These additional/challenge activities are an optional extra for those who would like it. Brain breaks are vital too! TimingsRoughly an hour a day for each subject, however you may prefer to split these sessions (eg. 2 x 30 mins), maybe with a fresh air break between. We cannot stress enough that there is no right or wrong way, it has to be what suits your family on each day. We fully appreciate that schoolwork sometimes needs to be completed on days that suit your commitments and some activities may take longer / less time.

Google Classroom CommunicationEvery week we also set a GC fun activity (Eg. joke telling, finding shapes in clouds, scavenger hunt etc.) that is not linked to their school work. This is to encourage the children to interact with staff and their friends on the GC stream. If you still cannot access HWB Classroom, please get in touch by email and we can support you with this. We would ideally love to hear from every child on GC over a week. GC stream is a safe, secure, monitored chat platform, where discussion is encouraged and where work can be shared with the rest of the class and staff. We have loved seeing children’s work on GC and Twitter, especially work using Adobe Spark. There is no expectation to submit any work formally, but if you have any concerns or queries about work your child has completed, please don’t hesitate to contact us by email and we can go through the work.

Wellbeing Remember your child’s emotional wellbeing, as well as your own, is priority. As we journey through these unusual times, we continue to be committed to supporting you emotionally as well as academically. It is important that you all take time out to do the things you enjoy, for example, reading

a book, playing a board game, ‘facetiming’ or ‘zooming’ family and friends. Below is a link to a range of resources to support children who may be struggling with anxiety, worries or stress at this time. Thrive activities : (Our school website / Thrive Activities)

Physical ActivitiesWeekly physical activities are also important to help keep yourselves fit, healthy and happy. Exercising has proven benefits for both physical and mental health. With gyms and many other facilities remaining closed, it can be more challenging for people to stay active at present. As well as the planned activities, this may include going for a walk around your local area or park, a bike or scooter ride. playing in the garden or even engaging in on-line video-based exercise content. There are further ideas on the top of the weekly task sheet and on the Whole School Web Page - Let’s get moving!

WelshMrs Loulou Evans has added some welsh learning opportunities which some children and parents may wish to complete,

Weekly task sheets.Every Friday, the weekly task sheet will be posted on Google Classroom, Twitter and on our school website. Year 3

Don’t forget to follow our Year3 Twitter account: Lakeside Primary Y3 (@LakesidePrmY3)

On the website, there is also a whole school weekly activity, which can be accessed on: Whole School

As The Hub school is now open for the children of Key Workers, our office is available to take your calls, should you need to speak to the school or get a message to your child’s teacher.

Many thanks for your continued hard work and support. We are very proud of our Lakeside Year 3 children. We are really missing being in school with them and cannot wait to see the children again when we are all back in school.

Many thanks, The Year Three Team

pdoyle@lakesideprm.cardiff.sch.uksvanstone@lakesideprm.cardiff.sch.ukestephens@lakesideprm.cardiff.sch.ukfprice@lakesideprm.cardiff.sch.uk