Term 1 Week 2 – overview

Welcome to a brand-new school year!  The children have made a fantastic start in year 4, and we all have much to look forward to.

Beginning on Monday 22^nd, we will have ukulele lessons with Mr Lawrence.  Ukuleles are provided by the school.

Spelling and grammar – we will be learning and practising a set of homophones and near homophones.  We will also be working on using pronouns to avoid the repetition of nouns in our writing.

To begin the year, we are basing our English work on The Boy Who Loved Maps.  We have already explored the text and illustrations.  This week, we will be making heart maps of things that are important to us, creating a route to good friendship, writing about what a map of our heart would contain and using these ideas to begin some poetry writing.

In Maths, we will be working on place value for the next few weeks.  We will be partitioning numbers to 1,000, using number lines to 1,000, working with thousands and representing numbers to 10,000.  We will also be spending time practising and revising times tables.  In the summer of year 4, all pupils take the national times tables assessment online.  Fluency in times tables underpins calculations in many different areas of Maths.  While we do practise them in school, regular short burst repetition at home is recommended.

This term we will be studying a unit on Creation in RE.  We have already discussed the Biq Question ‘what do Christians learn from the creation story?’ and this week will focus on things in the natural world that fill us with awe and wonder.

In terms 1 and 2, we will be studying Roman Britain.  Our area of enquiry is based on the question: ‘What did the Romans do for us?’  We will begin by placing the Roman Empire in an historical context, linking it with learning from prior years.  We will then look at key events during the lifetime of the Roman Empire.

In Science, we will be investigating sound over the next few weeks.  We will begin with a brainstorm on what we know about sound, before carrying out some practical activities to investigate how sound is made.

In Computing, pupils will be exploring what the internet and World Wide Web are.  This will also involve discussion on how to be safe online.

PE lessons are on Tuesday morning with Mrs Barter and Thursday afternoon with Mrs Tompsett.  This term we will be developing ball skills and invasion techniques in football and basketball.  

Reading records will be sent home, with free-reading children choosing a book from the selection in class or bringing one from the reading scheme.  All children have an additional book in their tray for reading sessions in class.  Please could we have reading records in school to be checked on Tuesday and Friday mornings.  

Homework is issued on Wednesday and is due the following Monday morning.  It will usually consist of a Maths activity and an English activity based on what we have been learning in class.  One of these will be online, using the Purple Mash platform.  Pupils have new usernames and passwords this year, which have been stuck in the front of their homework books.

Please contact me if you have any queries using the class email address:

chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Have a lovely week!

Best wishes,

Mrs Barter