Welcome back to the Summer Term! I trust you had a restful Easter break and are looking forward to all of the excitement of the Summer Term.
Reading
I hope you enjoyed sharing the final chapter of The Wolf Wilder. It was quite an emotional rollercoaster with some very nerve-racking points but hopefully the children enjoyed seeing that friendship, courage and being true to yourself can lead to great achievement and happiness.
We will be voting for our next class novel this week. The current shortlist is:
- A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll (recommended by Aria)
- The Last Bear by Hannah Gold (recommended by Arthur)
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (recommended by Jack)
There may be some late additions if anyone has found any other great books this holiday – I will let you know the outcome!
Following feedback, I will continue to send a chapter of our class novel home for you to share together – any further feedback on whether this is something you enjoy (or not) would be very welcome.
Writing
The first skill we will be working on this half term will be how to write direct speech.
The children will learn the rules needed to write direct speech:
When you are reading together, it would be great if you could occasionally pause and discuss the direct speech. Has it followed all of the rules? Below is an example from the first page of A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll, note how this example doesn’t have a reporting clause – you could ask your child why they think the writer has not included a reporting clause for this direct speech.
Handwriting
I am really proud of how hard the children are working in class to ensure that their handwriting is joined and legible. If your child does any handwriting practice at home, please do encourage them to bring it in to show me so we can celebrate (and reward!) this effort.
Spellings
| Test Date | 27th April | 5th May | 11th May | 18th May |
| position
mention possession pressure special should delicious machine mission brochure |
chemistry
scheme architect chaos mechanic character technology choir echo school |
misinterpret
reconsider readdress misguided reposition misremember regroup misunderstood misheard reappeared |
submarine
substitute submerge automatic autobiography television telephone teleport telescope telepathic |
Maths
We will be completing our unit on multiplication and division this half term including learning what happens to numbers when you multiply or divide them by 10 or 100. If your child would like some fun extra practice at home, they could play this game: Multiply by 10 and 100 game
In the next couple of weeks, we will have looked at all of the times tables facts up to 12 x 12. If your child has some facts that they are not yet secure with (this will have been communicated with their Learning Updates at the end of last term) it would be great if you could continue to practise these. As always, please do let me know about any consistent effort from your child or increases in confidence in recalling times tables facts so that we can celebrate and reward this in school. Just a quick reminder that the national Times Tables Check will be held during the first two weeks of June.
Science
This half term we will revisit our enquiry to find out how the animals in Forest School change over the year. We will then move on to learn about the difference between urban and rural habitats and how humans can impact habitats.
When I have taught this unit of work previously, lots of children have wanted to know more and to know how they can help. If your child is feeling inspired, this would be a good place to learn more: The Regenerators (BBC)
Geography – Explorers
This half term we will begin by thinking about the concept of location and scale. We will learn about imaginary lines used to split the world into parts. We will then recap the difference between a city, a country and a continent.
We will then think about the concepts of place and interdependence. Over a series of lessons, we will use York and Venice as case studies to think about the impact of tourism and the challenges that water can bring.
Call for help to bring our curriculum to life: If you have visited York or Venice as a tourist and would be happy to host a short question and answer session with the class, I would love to hear from you!
PE
There will no swimming in the first week of term but we can’t wait to get back to the pool on Tuesday 28th April! Please send children in their PE kit on Tuesday 21st April as we will do an extra PE lesson in school.
Our in school PE lessons this half term are through the sport of Basketball. Over the half-term we will be learning to pass and catch accurately (using ‘throw and point’ and ‘ready position’ that we have used in other sports), to dribble, shoot and intercept the ball.
Living and Learning
This half term we will think about how we keep ourselves physically healthy and fit and how we keep ourselves safe. See the school calendar and weekly homework for further details.
Feelings First
The feelings we will think about this half term are:
- relieved
- horrified
- concerned
- overloaded
- furious
We will also be thinking about how our capacity to function well (represented by the green part of the battery) can be impacted by lots of things such as feeling tired or hungry or by other things that are happening in our lives. This can explain why something might not have an impact on how we feel one day, but could have a significant impact on another day.
As always, please do catch me on the door at pick up, send me an email or give me a call if you have any questions or I can be of help at all.