Broadgate Primary School

During the Autumn Term our Year 3 topic is Ancient Egypt.  By the end of the term the children will certainly be able to imagine how it felt to be an Ancient Egyptian. The children will find Egypt on a map of the World, identify its capital city today and talk about the River Nile. We will go back in time and explore how society was organised in ancient times, become scribes as we write in hieroglyphics and discuss what linked a Pharaoh to the magnificent Pyramids.  After a focus on e-safety the children will use internet search engines reasearch facts about Egypt. We will also be completing Ancient Egyptian art activities such as creating a clay cartouche, along with practising our basic painting techniques and observational drawing skills.  

In English, we will be reading the story of The Magic Faraway tree and creating our own characters and setting. We will be using these to write our own fantasy stories. We will also be using alliteration and rhyming words to write a Halloween and Firework poem. After half term we will be reading and writing instructions before ending the year with a formal letter to Santa!

During the Spring Term our Year 3 topic is Weather around the World. The children will be investigating and identifying weather patterns and climate zones around the world.  They will work in groups to plan and present their own weather forecasts.  The children will identify where all the oceans and seas are in the World in relation to continents and countries. They will investigate the characteristics of the five oceans in terms of temperature, size and depth and discuss how this affects what lives there. 

Our Science topic is Animals including Humans, so we will be studying the human skeleton and learning about how a diet and nutrition affects our muscles and bones. We will also be learning about forces and magnets.

During the Summer Term our Year 3 topic is all about the Vikings.  Our first task will be to place the Viking period onto a British History timeline and define the terms ‘invade’ and ‘settle’. The children will learn about the Viking homeland of Scandinavia, what life was like for a typical Viking farmer and discuss the reasons for travelling to Britain.  They will explore the longboats in which Vikings travelled and enjoy making their own, along with learning how to write using the runic alphabet. The children will find out about the Viking raids on Britain and compare the beliefs of Anglo-Saxon Britain with the very different beliefs of the Vikings. They will also design and make their own traditional Viking shield. 

In Science, we will be learning about plants and what they need in order to grow. The children will be growing their own sunflowers and they will be observing the different parts of a plant life cycle. We will also learn about rocks and we will describe how fossils are formed.