Year 4 Class News

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break.
It was lovely to see lots of smiling faces when I opened the classroom door on Tuesday.

Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. To help them remember the order of story, the children made story maps. Next week, we’ll be getting creative with our writing. They’ll have a go at making their own versions. To make our learning more exciting, we’re hoping a special delivery comes next week… watch this space!
Maths
This week, we continued to focus on the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. The children revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. While consolidating their understanding of the word pattern embedded within most of our number names, they also had fun hearing and practising the key differences in the number names when counting to 100!

A key focus this week, has been to develop their confidence in counting strategies when counting larger number of objects, including things that cannot be moved. On Wednesday, Gary (our counting puppet) found it really difficult to count the children when they were sat on the carpet – he kept forgetting who he counted! The children came up with some super counting strategies!

LW – Sit down when Gary taps you on the head.
PB – Gary could tap us on the head.
MC – We could stand in a circle.
BI – We could stand in a straight line.

The children had a go at using these strategies when collecting/counting their of objects.
PE
The children started learning how to skip. They had lots of fun using the big rope!

Here are some more highlights from this week…
Home-Link Challenge

This week’s message (Friday 22 April 2022)

With bright sunny days, what a great week to kick off the Summer term! We hope you all had a lovely break.

Attendance

Our whole school attendance is at 93.8% – that’s a drop from 04 March when we last reported.

• Reception: 94.0% – that’s a rise since 04 March, so thank you!
• Year 1: 95.2%
• Year 2: 95.6%
• Year 3: 90.4%
• Year 4: 92.6%- that’s also a rise since 04 March, so well done!
• Year 5: 95.2%
• Year 6: 94.7%

It’s really clear from our assessments that children who attend school regularly are the most successful. Please make sure your child is coming to school as much as possible and getting to school on time.

Please remember that we’re not allowed to authorise term-time absence unless it’s in exceptional circumstances, and if you do need to request term-time absence it should be done in advance using a form you can collect at the office.

Updated NHS Covid symptoms lists

The NHS COVID-19 symptoms in adults and symptoms in children have been updated. Are you aware of all 12 possible symptoms?

The official advice is that adults and children who have symptoms of a respiratory infection, including Covid, should follow the UKHSA guidance. Children and young people who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people, where they can. They can go back to school, college or childcare and resume normal activities when they no longer have a high temperature, and they are well enough to attend.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

22 April 2022

The -t sound is usually spelt as -tch in the spoken word. Words of more than one syllable often have an unstressed syllable in which the vowel sound is unclear. There are some exceptions.

Y1: catch, fetch, kitchen, much, which

Adding -ed and -ing to words of one syllable ending in a single constant letter after a single vowel letter. The last constant letter of the root word is doubled to keep the short vowel sound. Exception: the letter ‘x’ is never doubled

Y2: pat, patted, patting    hum, hummed, humming    drop, dropped, dropping    mix, mixed, mixing

22 April 2022

The spellings this week are based on homophones- words that have the same pronunciation but different meanings or spellings. Please learn them for  a test on Thursday 28th April

• draught
• draft
• dissent
• descent
• decent
• proceed
• precede
• wary
• weary

22 April 2022

Our first Talk Time of this term poses a moral dilemma.

Plants and animals should not have the same rights as humans.

 In a previous Talk Time, you’ve discussed human rights and the responsibilities that go with them. Recapping these could be how you choose to start this week’s conversations.

You might already have strong opinions on the matter but when faced with a statement such as this, it’s always worth exploring both sides of the argument so that you can make an informed decision.

These prompts might help you to consider things in a different way:

• Could plants and animals share all of the same rights as humans?
• If the rights were the same, who would be responsible for ensuring it?
• Are some rights easier to achieve than others?
• What should the consequences be for neglecting those rights?
• Should the level of punishment depend on whether the victim is a plant, animal or human?
• These are some topics you might discuss: deforestation, animal testing, human diet, hunting animals for fun

 Last half term’s oracy focus was turn-taking. This skill will be very important in this task so refer to these R2s:

• If a person is speaking, listen to what they are saying.
• Let that person finish their point without interrupting them.
• When that person has spoken, acknowledge what they’ve said before making your point. Try using some of these phrases:
  • I agree with that because…
  • I also think that…
  • Adding to what you said…
  • I disagree with that because…
  • I hear what you’re saying but…
  • On the other hand, …

22 April 2022 – Year 3

This week, we have been learning about the alternative graphemes that make the /sh/ sound. Here is a list of the words we have covered:

mission

pressure

fraction

mention

position

delicious

optician

special

parachute

brochure

The children will be tested on these words on Friday 29th April 2022.

Welcome back!

It was so lovely to see all the smiling faces when we returned to school on Tuesday. We started off the week by having lots of chats about what the children had been doing over the Easter break and we are glad to hear that everyone had a good holiday.

Our new theme for the next half-term is ‘Minibeasts’ and we’ve already been busy learning about spiders. The children have enjoyed listening to ‘Spider Sandwiches’ by  Claire Freedman and we’ve been discussing the ingredients we may need to make some of the delicious recipes in the book. How about a nice bowl of ‘lice rice’, anyone? The children have been writing recipes to go into our cookbook and they have been taking orders in our rainforest cafe. We’ve been looking at the minibeasts on our investigation table and drawing spiders at the creative table. We’ve also been counting spiders and thinking about the amount of legs they have, too.

The weather has been beautiful so we’ve been outside a lot this week. On Wednesday, the children enjoyed washing our outside vehicles and we’ve also been exercising our gross motor skills by playing games with hoops. Inside, we’ve been doing lots of mark-making and looking at letter formation. A very busy week indeed!

Next week, we’ll be learning about our new focus number (the number 5) and we’ll also be planting out the herbs which we began growing on the window ledge of our classroom. Our beans are already doing really well outside and will shortly need sticks for support! I wonder whose beanstalk will be the tallest?

Things to remember:

As the weather is getting warmer, please bring a hat into school for your child.

Please remember to name your child’s clothes, shoes and water bottles.

Many thanks.

Science: How does your garden grow?

It has been great to see all the children returning to school after the Easter break. They are settled, calm and ready to continue with their learning.

This term is set to be another busy one so keep checking the website to see what we have been up to.

Science

In our science lessons, we are going to be biologists.

The focus of our lessons will be plants. Yesterday, we began by identifying investigating and describing the different parts of flowering plants.

The vocabulary, related with this learning, is listed below. Ask your child if they know any of these words.

Examining, describing and identifying different parts of a flowering plant.

In order to learn more about the different growth stages of plants, we have  placed some beans in a glass jar.  Then, we added cotton wool and some water.

Now, we observe, add water daily and make notes. This experiment will take place over the next two weeks so stay posted to see how our beans grow.

PTA bake sale

Just before the Easter break, the PTA organised a bake sale. With your support, we raised £214.20 which will go towards raising funds for school. Thank you to all involved.

Look out for some more exciting events happening this term!

Our Christian value this half-term is…

…peace.

Peace is about positive harmony and healthy relationships between people. It involves spiritual as well as material security. Peace is a state of true wholeness, a state of wellbeing. This value promotes harmony, stability and security within the school and local community.

 Why was this Christian value chosen?

‘When Jesus was sent down there was peace’

 Home challenge:

The dove carrying an olive branch is a symbol of peace in Christianity. Research why this is a symbol of peace. Is Christianity the only religion to have a symbol of peace?

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.’

(John 14:27)