Class 4 Newsletter – Autumn Term
Class 4 Autumn Newsletter
Dear Parents
Welcome back, I’d like to begin by thanking you for the lovely cards and gifts I received at the end of last term-they were greatly appreciated. I hope you have all had lovely summers and are ready for the new term!
It is lovely to see Class 4 back together again after so long away from school and the children are adjusting well to the new routines in place.
We have a busy term ahead and although the school curriculum will be followed, there will be a greater focus on English, Maths, Science some topic work, and wellbeing strategies and promotion of good mental health.
Outlined below are the curriculum areas to be covered this term as well as ways you can help to support your child’s learning in Year 4, particularly after the time away from school last term.
Thank you.
Topic- Romans (History/Geography)-
In our topic work we will be learning about the period when the Romans were powerful in the world. We will learn about the why the Romans invade and who was living here at the time of their invasion. We will also learn about life in Britain after the Romans had invaded and the Celtic Queen Boudicca and her uprising against the Romans. We will explore gods and goddesses and the impact of the Roman Empire on life today.
English– as usual we will be studying a variety of text types to help develop your child’s writing skills. We have started the year looking at Fables and exploring the morals within the stories. To link with our Roman history topic, we will also look at Roman Myths. We will be writing newspaper reports centred around the book “Tuesday” by David Wiesner and exploring character descriptions and explanation texts using “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl as our stimulus. There will also be a unit based around ‘The Present’ a short animation created by Jacob Frey where we will look at information texts and some narrative elements of writing.
Grammar includes: punctuating speech; conjunctions for time and cause; using grammatical terminology using fronted adverbials appropriately, using conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions to express time and cause, using the present form of verbs in contrast to the past tense, using adverbs to express time and cause and revising word classes.
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. Children must bring their reading records and books to class every day.
Maths – This term we will be building on knowledge of place value of 3- and 4-digit numbers including partitioning, rounding, ordering, and comparing. We will then be moving on to addition and subtraction including exchanges. We will begin strategies to check our answers. We will learn about area and perimeter and units of measure for length before moving onto multiplication and division by 10 and 100. In the weeks leading up to Christmas we will be focusing on the 6, 7, and 9 times tables. It would therefore be very beneficial to learn and consolidate the 2, 5, 10, 3, 4, and 8 times tables in the first half of this term and the weeks leading up to this.
At home it would be helpful if you practiced telling the time both analogue and digital and continued practicing times tables and related division facts using Times Table Rockstar (5-10 minutes as often as possible).
Science – First half term we are studying electricity including learning about conductors and insulators, creating circuits and electrical safety. We will then learn about digestion, food chains, predators, and prey.
French – We will begin learning about food in a topic entitled le café where we will learn to order food in a café. We will also begin to learn vocabulary for animals and talk about the pets we own.
Computing – The children will be developing their knowledge on Esafety and word processing software (Microsoft office).
Art and DT – In art the children will be focusing on Roman mosaics-looking at examples of ancient mosaic before designing and creating their own.
RE- Our focus will be on early Jewish history including Moses and the plagues upon Egypt and Abrahams’ journey to the Promise Land
PSHE – We will be focused on wellbeing mindfulness whilst also learning about families and relationships.
Music – Our focus will be to listen and appraise different pieces of music.
PE- Children will need to wear PE kits to school on Mondays and Thursdays for this term. On Mondays they will take part in Sports Hall Athletics (conducted outside) which includes shuttle runs, long jump, high jump, speed bounce and chest push. On Thursday’s they will take part in football with Mr Snellling. Please make sure they are in full school PE kit and as the weather turns-wear plenty of layers.
Homework – It is greatly beneficial to your child’s learning for you to hear them read whenever possible, the children will be set spellings to learn each Monday ready for a test on Fridays. The spellings will be recorded in their home spelling book in order for them to practice these at home- I will also post these on Teams.
Maths, English, Science or Topic homework will be set via Teams on Fridays for return the following Wednesday tasks are set in order to support and consolidate the learning taking place in class. 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. If there is ever any confusion, or your child is having trouble with the homework, please let me know (preferably before the Wednesday) so I am able to help them.
Water/Snacks
Children are actively encouraged to bring in water and a snack for break time each day. It is often a long time between breakfast and lunch and a snack is important to keep us all going. We ask that these are healthy, in line with our Healthy Schools ethos (fruit or vegetables).
Please be assured that we will be working to identify and address any gaps or areas for consolidation in your children’s learning since they were last in school in March but if you have any particular questions or concerns, please contact the office to make a phone appointment with me before or after school.
Best wishes
Miss Turner