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Chestnut Class

Teaching Team: Mrs Barter and Mrs Chavush 

chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

 

Chestnut Class - Spring term 2024

 

Welcome back to school after the Christmas break This is just some information about what we will be covering this term, and always feel free to speak to me if you have any further questions.

 

English

In term 3, we will be creating a dilemma story based on The Great Kapok Tree, a story about deforestation. In term 4 we will be learning about deforestation of the rainforests and using that information to write persuasive letters.  We will also be learning debating skills to help us hone these persuasive techniques.  In addition, in term 4 we will be linking our English work to the Science topic, states of matter by creating an information text on the water cycle. 

Our whole class guided reading will be the book Lob by Linda Newbery.  This whole class approach gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a text and to develop not only reading fluency but also comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference and prediction.

Spelling will focus on the statutory Year 3 & 4 list, adding suffixes, prefixes and looking at unusual spelling patterns.

We will be covering a wide range of the technical aspects of writing in our grammar sessions including apostrophes for possession and contraction, recognising and punctuating direct speech, noun phrases and expanded noun phrases, prepositional phrases and word families.

Maths

We will be completing work on area before moving on to multiplication, division, perimeter and fractions.  We will have dedicated time to work on times tables fluency, but it would be beneficial for children to practise these little and often at home to support this.

RE

We are using the RE curriculum Understanding Christianity again this year and will be examining some key concepts on the themes of Gospel and Salvation

Science

States of matter will be explored in these sessions. This will cover the features of solids, liquids and gases and the water cycle.

Topic

We will be studying geographical terms to describe the world around us.  We will be investigating continents, countries and capitals of the world and then moving onto a study of European countries and capitals with a focus on one European country.  We will be learning terms such as longitude and latitude to help us understand how locations can be exactly pinpointed.

Art and design

Our art and design will link closely to our topic and we will be creating sculptures using materials that would otherwise be discarded.

Music

We will continue to have weekly ukulele lessons with Mr Lawrence.  Instruments are provided by the school.

ICT

Using the National Centre for Computing Education curriculum, we will be studying repetition in shapes which involves coding and will also be completing a unit on data logging.

PE

Our PE sessions will take place on a Monday morning and Thursday afternoon with Mr Luckhurst.  Please ensure your child has a labelled PE kit in school all week. 

Homework and reading

Homework will be issued on a Wednesday and is due back on Monday.  It is not intended to be overwhelming, but gives your child an opportunity to consolidate on the learning they have done during the week.  It will usually consist of English, spelling and Maths activities.  We expect your child to read for a minimum of 10 minutes a day.  We would like them to complete the reading log by making some comments on what they have read each day.  This will be checked on Tuesday and Friday.  In Year 4, we ask that children take responsibility for changing their books themselves if they are reading from the classroom selection.

If you have any concerns relating to your child and their learning, please do get in touch via the class email address chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk .  Alternatively, you can speak to me at release time now that restrictions are more relaxed.  If your query is urgent, please contact the school office in the first instance.

I am really looking forward to another exciting term with the class!

With best wishes,

Mrs Barter and the Chestnut Class Team

 


Free Ancient Rome Clip Art by Phillip Martin

 

Autumn 2023

Welcome back to school!  It is lovely to see the children after the break and we are all ready to get learning again.  This is just some information about what we will be covering this term, and always feel free to speak to me if you have any further questions.

 

English

We will be linking all our English work to our topic theme of ‘What  the Romans did for us ’.  We will be reading stories from other cultures and instruction texts to inspire our own writing. 

Our whole class guided reading will begin with The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl and we will then move on to The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.  This whole class approach gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a text and to develop not only reading fluency but also comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference and prediction.

Spelling will focus on the statutory Year 3 & 4 list, adding suffixes, prefixes and looking at unusual spelling patterns.

We will be covering a wide range of the technical aspects of writing in our grammar sessions including conjunctions, adverbs, propositions, direct speech and tenses.

Maths

We will be refreshing our understanding of place value to begin the year before moving on to addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and length.  We will have dedicated time to work on times tables fluency, but it would be beneficial for children to practise these little and often at home to support this.

RE

We are using the RE curriculum Understanding Christianity again this year and will be examining some key concepts starting with Creation and Incarnation.

Science

Sound and Electricity are our themes for the term and we will be carrying out lots of practical work to help us understand how sound travels and how circuits function.

Time and Place

Our theme is ‘What the Romans did for us’ and we will be learning about life at that time, key historical figures and events.  Our inquiry question is ‘How did the Romans change Britain/” and we will be considering why the Roman invasion was successful, how and why they invaded and the innovations they made.  From a geographical perspective, we will be learning about the major countries and capitals in Europe and the human and physical aspects of Rome’s geography.

Art and design

We will be learning about the work of the artist Giorgio Morandi and using his still life paintings as a platform for developing our understanding of perspective.  We will also be exploring surface patterns and design.

Music

In Year 4, we are fortunate to have weekly ukulele lessons with Mr Lawrence.  Instruments are provided by the school.

ICT

We will be using a new computing scheme to learn  about systems and networks and audio production.

PE

Our PE session will take place on a Monday morning and Thursday afternoon with Mr Luckhurst.  Please ensure your child has a labelled PE kit in school all week.

Homelearning and reading

Home learning will be issued on a Wednesday and is due back on Monday.  It is not intended to be overwhelming, but gives your child an opportunity to consolidate on the learning they have done during the week.  It will usually consist of English, spelling and Maths activities.  There will also be a matrix of activities from the wider curriculum for them to select from.  This will cover the long term up to Christmas.

We expect your child to read for a minimum of 10 minutes a day.  We would like them to complete the reading log by making some comments on what they have read each day.  This will be checked on a Wednesday.  In Year 4, we ask that children take responsibility for changing their books themselves if they are reading from the classroom selection.

If you have any concerns relating to your child and their learning, please do get in touch via the class email address chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk .  Alternatively, you can speak to me at release time now that restrictions are more relaxed.  If your query is urgent, please contact the school office in the first instance.

We are really looking forward to working with you and your children this year!

 

With best wishes,

 

Mrs Barter and the Chestnut Class Team