Class JC
Hello! Welcome to Class JC.
I'm Mrs Cookson. I have been teaching at WJS for many years and I'm really looking forward to working with my new year 3 class. I enjoy teaching all the different subjects although my favourites are maths and P.E. I am also looking forward to singing with the school choir and taking them to the o2 for a concert.
In my spare time, I like to spend time having days out with my two teenage children, in particular going to theme parks and enjoying the rollercoasters! I also enjoy a relaxing evening in front of the TV having cuddles with my cat, Gizmo.
I can’t wait to get to know my new class and get the term started!
Our Class
This year we are lucky to have four wonderful Learning Support Assistants working across both classes in Year 3: Mrs Comley, Mrs Clarke, Mrs Beadle and Mrs Mullen.
Mrs Comley enjoys getting away with her family, cooking and going to the gym.
Mrs Clarke enjoys baking, drawing, spending time with her daughters and riding her motorbike!
Mrs Beadle enjoys going for walks in the countryside with her Pomeranian and spending time working in her garden.
Mrs Mullen loves walking with her labrador, reading, gardening and baking with her children.
On Thursdays we will have music with the talented Mr Sills. He'll teach you how to play the ukulele and lots of other instruments. We look forward to these lessons very much.
Things to remember
P.E. will be on Mondays and Wednesdays. Please make sure you come to school wearing your P.E. kit on these two days. Please ensure long hair is tied back and any jewellery removed, particularly earrings.
Swimming will take place on Friday afternoons in the Summer Term.
Homework will be set on Thursday and will be due in on the following Tuesday.
Spellings will be tested on Mondays.
Try to read every night and record it in your homework diary, which should be brought into school every day.
Make sure you have a pencil case with a pencil, rubber and sharpener. You should also have a glue stick and some colouring pencils too.
Autumn First Half
Let's Grow into Year 3
This topic is all about plants and growing things but also about your start in Writtle Junior School and Year 3.
We will be finding out about the conditions plants need to grow, the plants in the school environment and about some unusual plants too.
In maths, we will be looking carefully at the value of each digit in a number.
In English, we will be reading a beautiful book about an old man who lives near a junkyard and dreams of a better place. With faith and hard work, will he transform it into a wonderland?
Autumn Second Half
Stones and Bones
We will be moving on to looking at some historical lines of enquiry. We will be travelling in our time machines to 1914 and looking at what happened in the trenches on Christmas Eve 1914. We then have an extended period of time in the Stone Age. We will discover how early man lived, worked and hunted. Prepare yourself to create cave paintings, Stone Age tools and even some jewellery. From here we move back nearly 65 million years to collect fossils and discover new dinosaurs created by Year 3.
Our science looks carefully at how fossils are formed and investigates the rock cycle. We discover how soil is formed and what would happen on a journey to the centre of the Earth.
English introduces a new book - Pebble in my Pocket - and sits alongside our science as we discover the history of a very special pebble.
In maths, we will begin to use formal methods for addition and subtraction and begin to discover how we multiply and divide.
Spring First Half
The Greatest Show
Roll up, Roll up! This half term is about the greatest show that we can put on at W.J.S. We will be making our 'circus' themed hats and walking in the ring. This year we still want you to use 'trash' but the show that started as 'Passion for Trashion' that morphed into 'Adventures in Wonderland' is now 'THE GREATEST SHOW'. We want animals, trapeze artists, clowns, strongmen and women. Our new book takes us on a magical and very theatrical journey. We will be recycling, reducing and reusing, finding out about magnets and their properties and yes hat building.
We will have our own catwalk where you (and your willing parents!), can take to the catwalk to show off your fabulous designs. One thing is certain, Year 3 will make it - THE GREATEST SHOW.
In maths, we will look at formal methods of multiplication and division, data handling, bar charts and money. We might even have some time for measuring too.
In R.E. we will be studying places of worship and the Mosque.
Spring Second Half
Lost and Found
We have begun our voyage across the continents and we will concentrate on a great voyage from history, that of the ship Titanic. Map skills will become a focus for us as we move from world maps to UK maps and then to local maps. We will be tracking the journey of the Titanic and finding out more about its fateful voyage.
In English, our text is Lost and Found. We will be studying the video text from 2013 rather than the book. This film explores our understanding of friendship, loneliness and teamwork.
In RE we will be discovering the books within the Bible and in Science we will be finding out all about how we see things and how light travels to our eyes. French will see us learning about different modes of transport and in PE we will be getting outside as much as we can.
Summer first half
Survival of the Fittest
Having understood how rocks are formed earlier in the year and followed the lives of the Stone Age people, we come back to rocks in the form of mountains and volcanoes. We look at how both are created and consider mountain ranges and volcanoes around the world. This topic builds on our knowledge of maps and continents as we will have to locate the mountains on a world map but it also looks at mountain safety, explorers and famous mountaineers.
Our English book - Pugs of the Frozen North - tells the journey of Shen and his 66 Pugs. We aren't giving too much away about this! In Science, we are still covering light but we move to investigate how shadows are formed and how we keep ourselves safe in sunlight. French is linked to weather and we will be producing a short weather forecast. We will continue with Scratch and coding, building up to creating a simple scored game. PSHE is about taking risks and keeping ourselves safe - important for mountains and the mountain rescue teams we will be studying.
Maths will be investigating fractions including fractions of shapes and amounts. We will be adding, subtracting and finding equivalent fractions.
Summer second half
Superheroes
In our final half term, thinking of summer sunshine, sports days and fitness, our new topic is SUPERHEROES. This topic encompasses learning about Ancient Greece, whether it is through Greek Myths, finding about the Spartans or creating a Greek Menu for our own taverna afternoon. We will be creating Greek pots and vases and decorating them with scenes from the Olympics.