We have reached the end of Mr Penguin and The Lost Treasure and we are happy to report that our hero was successful, the treasure was recovered and the escaped jewel thieves are back in custody. We thoroughly enjoyed reading this book together as a class. We practised reading with expression, looked at how punctuation marks help us when we’re reading as well as developing our recall and prediction skills. Ask your child about punctuation marks when they read to you. We are now moving into group reading sessions now and every morning I share a book with a different group. I am so impressed with the reading progress already in year 3, and thank you so much to those of you who routinely practise reading with your child. Regular reading with an interested adult makes such a difference to children’s reading development. Thank you.

We are really enjoying our work on addition and subtraction and everyone seems much more confident in using “Base 10” (hundred blocks, ten sticks and single ones) to aid their addition calculations. We use symbols to represent these in our maths books and, after a super week of number work, we can now give Carol Vordeman a run for her money. And they loved it. Great work, everyone. If you’d like to have a go, children represent three-digit numbers with “blocks, sticks and bricks” symbols and use these to work out addition problems. They know that when counting up how many they have in each column, if they reach 10, they need to exchange. So, if they have 10 ones, they cross them out and draw another ten stick. If they have ten sticks, they cross them out and draw another hundred block. Have a go at something like 372 + 43. Have a large piece of paper ready and see if they can draw the symbols, move the 43 symbols over to the 372 side. Count up and exchange if we get to 10 in any column, then find the answer. Everyone has grasped this beautifully and I’m sure they will show you how it’s done. We can also use Base 10 for subtraction, too, when necessary, breaking down one hundred into 10 tens or a ten stick into 10 ones. Have a go at home.

I hope you are as impressed as I am with the improvements children are making with their handwriting. They are really coming along well with the presentation of their work. We have a dedicated time in Class 3 every day for exercises which strengthen and develop our coordination, strength and dexterity which in turn supports handwriting development. We do this in different ways but our favourite, by far, is Dough Disco. We love it, transforming the classroom into a 70s style disco bopping along to some groovy tunes while our fingers exercise on the dough dancefloor. Dave the Disco Duck likes to join in too.

This week our science focus has been muscles, how they work and their functions. My friend, Captain America has helped enormously this week and generously allowed us to study his muscles very carefully. Surprisingly, I’ve found myself working on this for a considerable length of time every day this week. In the words of Steve Rogers, “I could do this all day.”