What’s Happening in Grade 3 in Term 1, 2026

English:

• In Term 1, students will be exploring a range of Core Knowledge units, including The Wind in the Willows and World Rivers. They will listen to these texts being read aloud and demonstrate their understanding by answering literal, inferential, and evaluative questions to build their background knowledge. Students will be explicitly taught content-specific vocabulary related to each Knowledge unit, helping them understand and discuss the topics with confidence.
• In Writing, students will be learning more about verbs and sentences to help improve their reading and writing. They will learn to recognise different types of verbs, including action verbs, occurrence verbs, and state verbs. Students will practise using the correct verb to match the subject and tense in a sentence. They will also learn to use apostrophes in contractions, for example, should not → shouldn’t. They will be identifying the subject and verb in a sentence and turning sentence fragments into complete sentences. Students will also explore the four types of sentences and practise writing their own sentences based on an image or topic. Student will engage in genre writing, exploring the text structure and features of a persuasive and narrative text.
• In Phonics and Spelling, students will continue developing their phonics and spelling skills. They will be explicitly taught spelling patterns, including words with the ‘ors’ sound, the ‘I’ sound at the end of words, the 111 rule, and strategies for choosing the correct homophone. Using their letter-sound knowledge, students will blend sounds to read words and sentences confidently.
• Students will participate in daily formal handwriting sessions learning how to form letters correctly and how to correctly hold a pencil.

Mathematics:

This term in Mathematics, Grade 3 students will build their understanding of number, time, addition and subtraction, and measurement through hands-on activities and problem solving. Students will work with numbers up to six digits, exploring place value, odd and even numbers, and comparing and ordering numbers. They will develop confidence in addition and subtraction by using fact families, number lines and place value strategies to solve problems, including NAPLAN-style questions. Students will also learn to read and use time, estimate the duration of events, and plan activities using time. In measurement, students will measure, estimate and compare length using metric units and scaled instruments.

In Inquiry students will be:

In Inquiry this term, students will engage in lessons about cyber safety and cyberbullying. They will learn about how to stay safe online and how to recognise unsafe behaviours on online platforms. They will also investigate a geography unit ‘World Rivers’ where students will describe the natural characteristics of rivers and explain how they vary from their source to their mouth. They will investigate how rivers shape places and influence where people live and the activities they undertake. Students compare rivers in Australia and other parts of the world to identify similarities and differences in environmental and human characteristics of places.

Wellbeing:

We will be using the Respectful Relationships program to focus on emotional literacy.

Students will engage in lessons looking at:

• understanding, expressing and managing emotions.
• learning about their personal strengths, including participating in cooperative games and setting goals.
• looking at positive coping strategies and learning about understanding strong emotions.

There will be a continued focus on our SWPBS Expectations as outlined in our whole school matrix.