year 3 science – Whizz Pop Bang Blog

Teaching pollination in year 3

Posted on 3rd May 2023 | by Kirsty Williams | Leave a Comment

As part of the unit plants, you will need to teach your pupils how plants reproduce. A key part is the role insects play in pollination. They do not need to understand it in great detail, but should know the term and have a general understanding of how it happens. The lesson pack we have created alongside this month’s issue called ‘Buzzy Bees!’ is a great simple, hands-on activity in which pupils will pretend to pollinate flowers as if they are bees.

The lesson pack contains:

A lesson plan linked to the national curriculum
A PowerPoint presentation
Instructions
Printable resources
Instructions for a whole-class waggle dance!

Great news! You don’t need any specialised equipment, just a paintbrush and two different coloured powders – either powder paints or icing sugar and cocoa powder.

Do you want to sneak more science into your school day?

Our reading comprehensions are a great way of getting more science content into your school day. On the website, all the reading comprehensions can be searched for by topic and year group, allowing you to pick ones which relate to your current science teaching or ones which revisit a previous topic. Each lesson plan has a ‘cross curricular’ box which lists reading comprehensions that link to the learning for that lesson. This month, for year 3 we have an interview with a super scientist who has found a way for bees to help people in poverty.

Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant ways to enhance your school’s science teaching:

We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.
We make cross-curricular links to other subjects, such as English, Maths, History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology and PSHE.

Prices from as little as £197.99 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins.

We’ve also got an individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.

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Teaching rocks year 3

Posted on 11th April 2023 | by Kirsty Williams | Leave a Comment

Do you find teaching about rocks a bit dull?! We have created a fun-filled lesson that will bring this subject to life. Pupils will learn how scientists have used rock strata to define when the K-Pg mass extinction happened.

Where would this lesson fit into my medium-term plan?

This lesson would be suitable after pupils have been taught what fossils are, as it explains how scientists know which fossils are from the dinosaur era. Our knowledge organisers are a good way to support your pupils’ vocabulary and ensure progression through the school.

How is this lesson better than a worksheet?

Most children will remember an active, interesting lesson better than the information they complete on a worksheet. They will create their own rock strata sandwich complete with fossils and a K-Pg boundary using bread, sweets and biscuits!

In our downloadable lesson packs, we include everything you need to teach the lesson, apart from some inexpensive resources. Included in this lesson pack is a PowerPoint presentation that explains rock strata and the K-Pg boundary. The pack also includes a sheet of instructions for making the sandwich and a silly science quiz, where pupils will guess which animals roamed with the dinosaurs and are still living today!

If you are not a subscriber to our school resources, you can subscribe here for your school or take out an individual teacher membership here, which will give you access to all of our downloadable resources.

How can I get more science into my school day?

An easy way to get more science content into your school day is to give your pupils quality science-related text during reading time. We have loads of downloadable reading comprehensions as part of our resources. This month we have added three more for year 3 linking to the unit of rocks.

We also have a bank of spectacular science images that are perfect for promoting discussion. They feature a striking scientific image along with a couple of questions. As you click through the PowerPoint presentation, the answers to the questions will be revealed. Pupils should try to answer the questions as you go. The presentation added this month for the unit ‘Rocks’ is called ‘Asteroid crash!’. It only takes ten minutes, so it can slot into those awkward times in the school day, such as straight after lunch while you are waiting for everyone to come in.

See all our discussion topics available for rocks here.

If you would like some FREE samples, sign up here for a magazine and an example lesson pack for years 2 to 6.

How much does it cost to gain access to all of the Whizz Pop Bang resources?

Prices start from as little as £197.99 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins.

We have an individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.

“Whizz pop Bang has developed a refreshing look at science and its resources bring this subject to life” Class teacher Caroline Burton

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What is a Whizz Pop Bang lesson pack?

Posted on 23rd May 2022 | by Kirsty Williams | Leave a Comment

Included in the Whizz Pop Bang downloadable school resources are lesson packs written by experienced primary school teachers. The packs are complete lessons for specific year groups and linked to the National Curriculum. They contain everything you need to teach the lesson, apart from some inexpensive resources. Each lesson pack contains:

A curriculum linked lesson plan
A PowerPoint presentation to run the lesson
Any other sheets you might need; for example, tables to record results

The Whizz Pop Bang resources are not scheme of work, but our lessons are not one-offs either – they will fit into your medium-term plan. To help you do this, on each lesson plan is a box that states the previous learning your pupils should have done and a box suggesting future learning. This helps you to ensure a clear progression of skill and learning.

Primary school teachers are expected to remember a huge amount of information for every area of the curriculum. To help, on each lesson plan we explain the science behind the lesson – just look for our robot, Y!

Our PowerPoint presentations give information around the subject area in an engaging, child-friendly way, using illustrations from the magazine.

All the files in a lesson pack are stored in one handy zip file, making them quick and easy to download from our website. We know how precious a teacher’s time is!

Reading links

Each lesson plan includes links to reading comprehensions that are also part of our downloadable resources. Often, lessons link to other areas of the curriculum too, such as maths and computing.

Why did we produce lesson packs?

Our aim is to help teachers inspire future scientists and to reduce your workload! Our lessons are practical: they are experiments, investigations, games and makes. If you are looking for hundreds of worksheets and lots of marking, our resources are not for you!

“Engaging colourful resources designed to capture the children’s attention and encourage enquiry and questioning.” Rachael Howard Hatherop, C of E Primary School

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Teaching shadows in year 3

Posted on 17th November 2021 | by Kirsty Williams | Leave a Comment

Teaching the unit ‘light’ in year 3 builds the foundations for children’s understanding of Earth and Space in year 5. Pupils are aware of their own shadows from an early age, but do they understand why shadows get bigger and smaller or change shape? Here at Whizz Pop Bang, our experienced primary teacher has written a lesson pack containing a shadow investigation. Pupils will work in small groups and observe, measure, and record the length and width of a shadow.

“The children had great fun taking part in the shadows lesson. They were immersed in the activity not only developing their scientific knowledge but using mathematical skills and working co-operatively in a group” Natalie Walters – Year 3 teacher

The lesson pack contains:

A lesson plan linked to the national curriculum
A PowerPoint presentation
Instructions
Differentiated results table

Great news! You don’t need any specialised equipment, apart from torches (these should be in your science cupboard already!)

Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant ways to enhance your school’s science teaching:

We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.
We make cross-curricular links to other subjects, such as English, Maths, History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology and PSHE.

Prices from as little as £190 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins

subscribe for your school

We’ve also just launched a new individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.

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Teaching plants in year 3

Posted on 4th October 2021 | by Kirsty Williams | Leave a Comment

Often, in KS1 teachers will focus on the most obvious plants, such as flowers and vegetables. In year 1, pupils will have been taught to name some trees and identify which ones are deciduous and which are evergreen. Trees are talked about as a living thing and will also be covered when teaching seasons. It is good practice to revisit learning, so as part of our lesson pack we have included a pocket tree guide. It will help pupils identify the common trees they might find on a walk in their local area. (For more trees, the free app called SEEK is brilliant.)

The pocket tree guide included in the lesson pack

Once pupils have identified different types of trees and recapped their learning from year 1, they should then start to learn about seed formation and dispersal. It’s important that pupils understand that all trees flower before they produce seeds. As part of the lesson pack, the PowerPoint presentation includes photographs of common tress, showing what their flowers look like and the seeds they produce.

Investigate seeds with wings

The lesson gets pupils to investigate why some tree seeds have wings. They will take real seeds and test how far they go with and without wings. This will lead to a discussion about why trees need their seeds to travel away from the tree to grow. Your next lesson could be looking at different types of seeds and comparing them. You could ask the question ‘does the biggest seed produce the biggest plant?’ You could even dissect a seed!

How to make your science teaching cross curricular

Every month, alongside the magazine we add reading comprehensions for different year groups to our downloadable resources. This allows you to sneak some extra science content into your reading sessions. This month, for year 3 we have a non-chronological report on some super tree dwellers – orangutans.

A non-chronological report on orangutans

We have added 4 more reading comprehensions for other year groups, as it’s good for them to revisit previous learning.

Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant for enhancing your school’s science teaching:

We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.
We make cross-curricular links to other subjects, such as English, Maths, History, Geography, Art, Design and Technology and PSHE.

We’ve also just launched a new individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year.

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