Year 3 Blog

We set a challenge this week to use your 'maths eyes' to look around for when things are divided into equal groups and think about how this relates to fractions. Here are some photos of fractions that people have found:

Libby noticed that each egg was 1 sixth of the box and labelled them. She then used one egg to make some gingerbread and had 5 sixths left.

Kate arranged the 10 segments of her orange into 5 fifths.

Arin used boxes of eggs to show 1 third and 12 twelfths. He also explored the fractions on a clock.

Sammy used Minecraft to count in sevenths.

This boy saw fractions in some birthday balloons. He said that 2 eighths of the balloons are yellow and 1 eighth is gold.

Freya made some blueberry muffins and noticed some fractions before she baked them. She said that the green cases were 2 twelfths of the whole tray and that there were 1 sixth of the blueberries in the green cases. There are lots of equal groups in this picture. Can you spot some more fractions?

Ciara has circled two-fifths of her hatchimals. She has also arranged them in an array! Can you use her picture to answer the question: What is 2/5 of 15?

Just before the school closed, we had a trip cancelled due to travel restrictions. Instead, we had a fun day in school which included some activities in the woods and some art.

Y3D/deB did some maths art. Every child in the class made patterns using different sized concentric circles. We intended to cut these into four equal parts to make quarters and then mix up the quarters to make a large piece of art. We did not manage to finish this before the school closed, so Mrs Dutton took all the pieces home and has covered her living room floor in the quarters to arrange into one large picture. They have now been stuck together and it is currently brightening up Mrs Dutton's house. It looks amazing! She will return it to school when it reopens so you can see it but, for now, here is a picture of the finished thing:

The pattern contains the fractions 3/4, 2/4 (equivalent to 1/2) or 1/4 of the circles.

It is also an array of 7 x 16 = 112 pieces.

What fraction of the circles do you think is in one row or column?

This week in Year 3, we have been looking at tables, pictograms and bar charts as ways to organise and present data. For homework this week, look out for a green sheet with some bar charts that have some information missing. We would like you to complete the graphs, then do some research of your own and present it as a bar chart. Perhaps you could ask your family and friends what their favourite ice cream flavour is or what sports they like to play or watch? Remember to limit the choices by giving them a list of options to choose from. Keep it to five choices to make your bar chart manageable.

Please bring your finished bar charts into school by Friday 20th March.

In our maths lessons, we have been working with money. We have worked on counting money, adding and subtracting shopping bills and working out change.

The Y3 team made a decision this year to write amounts of money as, for example, £3 and 52p instead of £3.52. The reason for this is that the children are not introduced to decimal notation until Year 4 and we have often found that they can be confused when recording money. This is particularly true for amounts such as £1.05 as children have often, mistakenly, written £1.5 instead. This is possibly because they read it as "one pound five". Writing it as £1 and 5p stops this added confusion (it makes them say "one pound and five pence" - a small but important difference), and allows us to concentrate on understanding how to calculate with money.

The children will record money as decimal notation from Year 4 onwards when they understand what it means.

Today, we have worked on using number lines to show how we count on to find change. The children have enjoyed pretending to buy items in our Lydgate shops! One way to practise this skill at home could be to set up a pretend shop, label the prices and then invite the family to 'buy' some things.

Here are a few examples of the 'change' number lines:

We are continuing to work with Time in Maths lessons. For homework this week, you have a 'quiz' to complete to show what you remember about different units of time. Please return the sheet to school by Friday 24th January.