Home learning poppy design project

 

Dear parents and carers,

For the half term home learning we would like your child to design and create their own single poppy for remembrance day. Each individual poppy will be made into a whole school remembrance day wreath. which will be placed on the town war memorial. For details of the the design challenge, look at the photo below or click here to see a larger version of the details.

In addition to the poppy challenge, any reading or times tables practice your child might like to do over half term is always a good use of time, although primarily I hope you and your child have a happy, fun and relaxing half term.

Kind regards,

The Year 4 team.  

Home learning and times tables talk

 

Thank you to everyone that was able to come to this week's consultations. It was great getting the chance to meet with you and talk about your wonderful children. If you didn't manage to find a timeslot that worked for you, please get in touch and I will try to find a time when I could meet with you before half term.

We have had a lovely week in year 4 and we have been so impressed by all the children's incredible writing in our WW2 inspired big write. They should all be very proud of themselves. On Thursday, the children looked at different sources of evidence and information and I was very impressed by their thoughtful observations and reflections. Next week, we will be looking at the significance of the Battle of Britain and how the second world war ended.

Home Learning

The children's home learning for this week was to continue working on their World War 2 creations. This home learning was intended to give the children the opportunity to get creative with their learning and was not intended to be something to worry about. The best home learning is that which has been created primarily by the child with support and guidance from parents and carers as needed. Previous home learning creative pieces for our WW2 project have been posters, drawings, cartoon strips, playdough or lego creations. If for example, your child wanted to recreate the evacuation of Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain using their toys and then you emailed me a photo of their creation that would be wonderful. Ideally, if your child's creation could be in school by Wednesday then we have an opportunity to display and celebrate their learning in the school. 

Feedback from parents and carers about times tables

Having spoken to many of you this week there were a few common questions and comments about Times Tables. 

Your child will be assessed in the times tables in June. Whilst we do cover multiplication in class, helping your child to learn their times tables at home is incredibly beneficial in helping this learning stick. 

- If your child doesn't know their tables confidently then Hit the Button may be an option, as the correct answer is among many for your child to choose from. 

- Purple mash also has a number of multiplication games your child may enjoy. 

- On https://www.timestables.co.uk/ there are a range of different games to choose from as well as a multiplication check which is similar to the actual check in June. Please only look at this if your child is VERY confident with their times tables.

-  Some parents may want to consider making or buying times tables flash cards for opportunities when being on a device isn't suitable. As well as asking your child questions it may also be very motivating for them to ask you or an older sibling. Having them ask the questions will still expose them to the correct answers without the pressure being on them to work out the answer.      

- Some families reported that their child find Times Tables Rockstars overly busy and distracting. I have emailed the makers of TTRS and they have given me instructions as to how you can adjust the settings:

1) Once logged in, go to settings:

2) Once in settings, you can select declutter mode (which makes the page less busy) as well as remove timers and change sound settings. 

Hopefully these options will give your child an opportunity to learn their times tables in a format that works for them. Last year, I also provided times tables booklets for those children that wanted one. If you would like a paper booklet for your child, please let me know.

Kind regards, 

Ms Browne 

Home Learning Activities

 

Hello everyone,

Firstly a big thank you to everyone that donated food to our harvest festival or came to the harvest celebration. The children enjoyed a wonderful week of food, faith and farming with an evacuee experience to boot. Your support is greatly appreciated with all these events, especially last week when I think they needed three different outfits. 

Literacy

Next week the children will be doing their Big Write about the experiences of a child evacuee during the Second World War. They will plan their writing on Tuesday before doing the actual writing on Wednesday. If you are able to talk to them about what they plan to write on the Tuesday evening this may help them develop their ideas and benefit their writing the following day. 

Maths

In maths we will be continuing with our addition and subtraction unit. We will be looking at formal methods to do this but if you are able to help and support your child in developing speedy and secure recall of adding and subtracting within 20 this will be a huge help in giving your child confidence in the topic. As discussed in our parent information session, little and often practice is really helpful here so if your child is receptive giving them verbal additions and subtractions would be great or alternatively online games such as hit the button would be useful. Once in hit the button, select number bonds and then the options: Addition within 10, Missing numbers; Addition within 20 and subtraction within 20 will be helpful for our current maths unit. 

   

     

Spellings

Your child should either have spellings to learn each week or a spelling activity. In addition to these your child also has a spelling shed login. These are stuck in the front of your child's home learning books, although I will also hand these out to you during our consultations this week. 

If you visit the https://play.edshed.com/en-gb page your child will need to enter their username and password and then they can click on Spelling Shed (for those children needing more phonics practice they are also welcome to click on Phonic shed). 

In Spelling shed, most children will have an assignment set which has their spellings for the fortnight / week to learn. There are a choice of spelling games which help the children learn their spellings in a fun and engaging way. 

Most children also have a personalised list of spellings to learn. These are based on spelling tests that we carried out at the beginning of the year and will be changed once children have mastered their current set. Children can also find games of all years 3&4 or years 1&2 spellings to practice. 

This week's home learning 

For this week's home learning the children have been given a maths worksheet (which should have come home on Friday) to complete for next week. They have also been set a longer project to create a diorama or display piece based on the Second World War which is to complete by the 19th October please.     

 

I have copied some designs from last year to give you some ideas, should this be useful.

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you this week for our consultations but as ever please contact a member of the team at any point should you have any questions, comments or concerns. 

Kind regards,

Ms Browne, Mr MacBean and the Year 4 team.

 

     

Year Four Evacuees at Maiden Castle Farm - Thank you Hazel!

Year Four - Great Day at the Watercress Farm - "Love Watercress"

Year Four - Bring Wellies on Wednesday for Watercress Farm Visit

Year Four - Please try to bring Wellies on Wednesday for Watercress Farm Visit.

This week

 

Hello everyone and welcome to our second week of our food, faith and farming fortnight.

Last week the children enjoyed an interesting and informative presentation from Sherene about Islam. This week, we have a number of different activities for year 4, which I have summarised below for ease of reference:

Tuesday 4th October: 
AM     - Humanism workshop
PM      - Christian Workshop

Wednesday 5th October:         

Watercress farm trip. Please give your permission via Pay360 if you haven't already.                                     

                 

Thursday 6th October:             

WW2 Evacuee experience farm trip. Please send your child to school dressed as a WW2 evacuee.            

                                               

Friday 7th October:                 

Dress as a farmer day
9.15am -  Multifaith and no faith harvest celebration Year 3 & 4   

14:30 - Local food links taster fayre  

This week the children will start a new unit in maths, Addition and subtraction:

In science they will be learning about how the ear enables us to hear:

and finally, they will be enjoying some cross curricular studies about all things watercress related. 

As ever, if you have any questions comments or concerns please email myself (Ms Browne) or Mr MacBean or talk to a member of the team before or after school. 

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you next week for our teacher consultation sessions and for some Autumn celebrations at Autumn fest.

Kind regards,

Ms Browne, Mr MacBean and the year 4 team