Spring Newsletter – Year 4

Happy New Year and welcome back to school. Thank you for your generous presents and cards. I hope you have had a restful and festive Christmas break and looking forward to a busy spring term.

English

In English we will be studying a variety of text types to help further develop your child’s writing skills. We will become familiar with myths and legends, recounts, fairy stories with a twist, non-chronological reports and performance poetry. Areas of grammar will be taught through activities based on these texts include use of apostrophes in possessives, use and punctuate direct speech, understand that writing can be 3^rd or 1^st person, use of powerful verbs and adjectives, use of the present perfect rather than simple past tense and use prepositions to express time or place.

Listening to your child read continues to be very important, as does discussing their understanding of the texts they are reading. There will be daily classroom time for reading, handwriting, grammar and spelling activities.

Maths

This term we will continue to build on their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills as well as developing the children’s times tables knowledge by learning the 12 and 11 times tables and improving their speed and confidence in mental calculation – doubles and halves to 1000+ , mental calculation of 2 and 3 digit sums and division facts. Some of the objectives we will covering this term are unit and non-unit fractions of amounts, equivalent fractions; decimals equivalence: fractions/decimals, Column addition and subtraction:4-digit numbers, angle types; properties of polygons, measure in metres and cm; convert cm to m and vice versa. measure in kg and g, convert g to kg and vice versa, division within tables with remainders and multiplication and division word problems

Topic – Geography/History

Our topic is Mountains and Volcanoes we will locate the highest peaks, identify mountain ranges and volcanoes around the world, and research key facts about these. We will find out about the Kumaon region of India and learn about the life of a Kumaon child. We will study the fascinating Kumaon region and find out about the tallest peaks of the Himalayas. We will compare this region of India, to our own area of Essex.

Science

First half term we will be studying liquids and gases. We will identify misconceptions and classify materials into solids, liquids and gases , investigate the presence of gases, understand the behaviour of particles in the different states and use a thermometer to observe temperature changes of water, investigate evaporation and condensation and understand and explain the water cycle using scientific language.

In the second half of this term we will be studying sound. We will explore sound further and investigate vibrations and how sound travels, investigate pitch and volume by exploring instruments and the different sounds they make, understand how we hear sounds and begin the consider ways to reduce what we can hear.

French

We will continue to focus on building confidence and learning how to describe seasons and the weather.

Computing

We will be starting to learn simple coding using Scratch and the children will be consolidating their word processing and keyboard skills

Art and DT

Both subjects are linked to our topic work and we will be studying landscapes focusing on examples from different artists from around the world including the Japanese artist Hokusai and comparing his work with images of Mount Snowdon. In DT we will be focusing on food technology looking at traditional Indian food. Also, we will be making model volcanoes.

RE and PSHE

In RE we will be finding out about both the Old and the New Testament, including stories about the twelve disciples and Palm Sunday. We will also be finding out about Pesach and the story of Easter. In PHSE we will talk about how to be safe and how to identify and manage risks, including the safe use of medicines.

Music

Year 4 on Thursday mornings will have lessons on brass and woodwind instruments as part of Wider Opportunities.

PE

PE will take place on Thursday and Friday.  Mr Snelling will be working on tag rugby and hockey and on Friday with me, indoor athletics and dance.  Each child will need trainers suitable for use on the field as well as the playground and warm outer layers to be worn over their PE shorts and T-shirts.

Homework

As previously, in addition to hearing your child read whenever possible, the children will be set spellings to learn each week on Friday, ready for a test on the following Friday; please assist them with look, cover, write, check activities to consolidate their learning.  Children who take part in Spell Attack groups will continue to have work set regularly.

Maths, English or Topic homework will continue to be set on Fridays for return the following Wednesday.

Please support your child to ensure that they understand what has been asked of them and to make sure that their work is clearly and neatly completed.

Forest school will be next half term, more information will follow shortly. Our class assembly will also be next half term on Friday 20^th March. I hope you can all make it!

If you have questions or concerns, please make an appointment to speak to me before or after school.

Best wishes for 2020.

Mrs Hall