Blue - Year 4
Autumn 2 Newsletter
Maths and English
In English, we will be reading The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry, subtitled ‘A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest’. Through vibrant illustrations and a patterned, poetic story, this book clearly expresses the importance of preserving the rainforests (and the ecosystems within it) for the sake of all who live on this planet. Children will build their knowledge of rainforests before they share their understanding through a non-chronological report. From this, we anticipate that the children will create fantastic pieces of persuasive writing, and it will spur us on to further explore ideas of how to look after our planet.
In Maths, we will continue to apply our number skills to solve a range of problems and will start the term by focusing on area. For the remainder of the term, we will be developing mental and written methods for multiplication and division. We will be developing our understanding of anchor facts, to understand how we can use them to support multiplication questions, while also looking to build fluency. We will continue practising the times tables learnt in Years 2 and 3, but will primarily focus on learning our 6, 7, 9 and 12 times tables.
The Wider Curriculum
| Subject | Unit of work |
|---|---|
| History | Local Study: Industrial Revolution |
| RE | How do people from Religious and Non-Religious Communities celebrate key festivals? |
| Science | Teeth and Eating |
| French | Clothes |
| PE | Swimming |
| PSHE | Celebrating Difference |
| Music | BBC Ten Pieces |
| Computing | Coding |
| Design and Technology | Seasonal Stockings |
Additional Information
This term, we will be starting our School Linking Work with Cheetham Church of England Community Academy, Manchester. We will learn more about our partner class and their school while creating pieces of work to help introduce ourselves. Throughout this unit of work, we will be considering identity in the context of ‘Who am I?’.
Swimming will continue this half-term, so your child will still need a swimming kit every Wednesday. Blue Class also need to arrive at school wearing their P.E kit each Thursday, ready for their weekly P.E lesson.
Just like last half-term, the children have homework to complete each week. Times Tables are a core element of our curriculum and underpin so much of the learning we complete this year. The class have had such a positive start to their engagement with TTRockstars - it has been lovely to see so many children logging on to practice! Please continue encouraging your child to complete at least 20 minutes of TTRockstars in Garage mode each week (Monday to Sunday).
We also expect the children to be reading regularly at home, whether this is done independently or with an adult. Even if your child is reading independently, please ensure that you sign their reading record and return it to school each day. Children may choose to read a book from home, their reading book or a non-fiction text. Each time that we see a child has read at home, their name is written on a raffle ticket for the end-of-term reading raffle (which is now drawn in the final Friday assembly).
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.
We hope you have a lovely half-term!
Miss Maudsley and Mrs Johnson.
Dates for the Diary
Monday 2nd November: School reopens
Monday 9th November – Friday 13th November: Multi-Faith Week
Friday 20th November: Non-Uniform Day (KS2 bring a bottle)
Thursday 26th November: Y4 trip to Quarry Bank Mill
Saturday 5th December: Christmas Fair
Tuesday 8th December: KS1 Nativity performance
Thursday 10th December: Christmas Jumper Day/ Christmas Dinner
Friday 11th December: Christians in Schools Year 4 Christmas workshop
Tuesday 15th December: Christmas Craft Parent Morning
Tuesday 15th December: KS2 Carol Concert performance
Autumn 1 Trip to Reddish Vale Country Park
In Geography this term, our unit is ‘Water World’. We have explored different bodies of water, learnt about the water treatment process and focussed on learning the Water Cycle. The children loved the active, practical nature of these lessons – they had a great time creating dance moves or talking their partner through the processes.
We finished our unit with a trip to Reddish Vale Country Park. The children had a lovely time seeing the different wildlife and making field sketches of key features.
Alongside the pictures below, we’ve also added an album to the gallery. We hope you enjoy seeing what our class has been up to!
Autumn 1 Newsletter
English and Maths
Hello everybody and welcome to Year 4! We hope you’ve had a lovely summer and are as eager to get started as we are.
In English, we will start the term with a beautifully illustrated text. The story revolves around an elderly man that lives in a world of scrap metal. At the start of the term, the title is a closely-guarded secret, to support the children with using character and setting to make predictions about the plot. The children will then have the opportunity to be more creative as they write their own fables, based on the text. Following this, we will be exploring The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and using the events of the story to develop our letter writing skills.
In Maths, Year 4 will be developing their understanding of place value. They will be learning to compare and order numbers up to 10,000, find these numbers on number lines, and round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000. Your child will also be learning formal written methods for adding and subtracting 4-digit numbers.
As the children move through Key Stage 2, times tables fluency is increasingly important and supports the children as they tackle more challenging problems. By the end of Year 4, they are expected to recall times tables facts within six seconds!
We will therefore be placing particular emphasis on learning and practising times tables in class, so that the children can quickly recall key facts. Any opportunities for the children to practice at home will support quicker recall, so please make sure that your child is practising regularly.
To further encourage the children, we run a Times Tables Rockstars Tournament each term. The tournament logs the amount of time the children spend practising their times tables on TT Rockstars, and at the end of term, the top three children will have a choice from our class prize box.
The Wider Curriculum
| Subject | Unit |
|---|---|
| PSHE | Being Me in My World |
| French | Portraits |
| Science | Sound |
| RE | What makes Jesus inspiring to some people? |
| PE | Swimming/ Tennis |
| Geography | Water World |
| Computing | Effective Searching/ Introduction to AI |
| Music | This Little Light of Mine |
| Art | Jewellery Making |
Additional Information
On Wednesday 9th September, the children will resume their swimming lessons at Grand Central. These lessons will continue on a weekly basis, so please ensure that your child comes into school with their swimming kit every Wednesday.
Your child will also need to arrive at school wearing their P.E kit each Thursday, so that they are prepared for their weekly P.E lesson.
We encourage all children to read at home regularly and we will provide children with a reading book to do so. Each Wednesday, we will hold a bookclub so that the children can share a book with the class and make recommendations to their friends.
Children are expected to be reading at home at least 4 x per week. They can read independently or with an adult, and they may choose their reading book, library book or a personal book from home. Some children will prefer to read a book of their choice to a younger sibling (or perhaps even a pet!). However your child chooses to read, please record it in their school reading record and make sure it is signed by an adult. Whenever we see that a child has read at home, their name will be written onto a ticket for the end of term reading raffle.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to approach us.
Best wishes for the new term,
Miss Maudsley and Mrs Johnson
Dates for the Diary
Wednesday 9th September: Swimming starts for Year 4
Thursday 17th September: RE Workshop with Mrs Fullerlove