Welcome Back / Class celebration / Macbeth screening

 

Welcome back to Spring term 2 everyone, 

Having collected all their class rewards at the end of last term, the class will be having their class celebration on Friday which will be watching their amazing Macbeth performance. The majority of the class voted to dress up and so if your child would like to, please send in change of clothes for your child this Friday. 

This term we will be be writing play scripts linked to the book Tar Beach, whilst reading and examining the book The Poet's Dog. We have been doing some spelling assessments this week and so new spellings will come home next week. 

In maths we will finish off our multiplication and division unit before looking at fractions. Times tables will continue to be an important element in all aspects of maths this term and we will be focusing on the 6 times tables followed by the 7s and 8s. As ever, we strongly encourage you to encourage your child to practice their tables at home. 

In science we will be learning about teeth, digestion and food chains which is often a popular topic. Our humanities topics will see us comparing the human and physical features of the UK, France and Brazil. Whilst learning about the Christian celebration of Easter, whilst exploring the theme of forgiveness. 

Thank you to those of you that have returned your child's PE kit. Children should have PE tops, bottoms and shoes that they can change into for their PE lessons. I do appreciate that children grow quickly and that there is only half a year of POW left, so if your child has outgrown their kit please see a member of the year 4 team or POWSA who may be able to find you second hand uniform for a POWSA donation.    

Upcoming Dates:

Thursday 29th February - POWSA Disco  

Thursday 7th March - World Book Day

Monday 11th March - Wessex Singing (

Monday 18th March - Bikeability sessions

Tuesday 19th March - Class trip (details to follow shortly)

Thursday 28th March - Mary Anning fossil show (in school)

Friday 29th March - School holidays 

Monday 15th April - All children return to school 

Friday 19th April - Springfest

As ever, if you have any questions or comments please talk to a member of the team. 

Kind regards,

The year 4 team. 

English: Adjectives to infer emotions

Today in English we continued our worked linked to 'Tar Beach' by Faith Ringgold.

Before reading the book, we looked at pictures of Harlem in the 1930s as well as pictures of the George Washington Bridge. 

We talked about the  Harlem Renaissance and watched this YouTube video together -

After watching the video, we used this double page spread to infer emotions to record a thought bubble for each character in the first person, using adjectives, present tense and conjunctions -

Well done Year Four - you worked really hard today. I was very impressed.

Mr Spracklen 

Unit 3.1 - Coding - Lesson 4

Today in Computing with Mr Spracklen we used our coding knowledge to create a range of programs. During this lesson, we had to work hard to understand the importance of 'nesting' -

We worked in pairs because 'pair programming' is powerful, as the below slide explains -

Amazing dress rehearsal and checklist for tomorrow

 

Year four performed Macbeth to the children and staff in years 2 and 3 today. The class did a fantastic job and they should be so incredibly proud of everything that they have achieved this term. I hope that they can all have a relaxing evening and a good night's sleep, confident in the knowledge that they are ready to perform on stage tomorrow. 

In preparation for performance day here are the answers to some questions you may have about the day (please also refer to the letter from Mr Spracklen recently emailed).       

• Children should wear school uniform tomorrow. 
• Children should bring a backpack / normal school bag but please keep it as empty as possible except these items: 

                - drink bottle

                - packed lunch (unless they have a hot dinner ordered)

                - am snack (if appropriate)

                - afternoon and evening snacks

• Please could all children arrive at school 15 minutes earlier than stated in the emailed letter. 
• I have told the children that they may bring a book or fiddle toy if they feel that they will need them (possibly needed whilst we wait in dressing rooms). However, I strongly suggest that any items are not precious and are labelled where possible.  
• Doors open at 17:45 and the first performance will start at 18:30. 
• Families will take children home after all performances. This is likely to be around 8.45pm. 
• Children should come home with  school uniforms, performance clothes, lunchboxes, snack boxes and drink bottles and coats. Please ensure that all items are labelled (children will most likely be wearing performance clothes).   

I hope you and your children enjoy tomorrow. They have so much to be proud of and I can't wait for you to see how incredible they are. 

Kind regards,

Ms Browne 

Spellings and getting ready for next week

 

Hello everyone,

There will be no additional home learning tasks this week (beyond reading, spellings and times tables) as the children do their final preparations for Macbeth. 

The children have done a great job learning their lines and on Friday we worked hard to project our voices. This weekend, if you are able to sit with your child and listen to them recite their lines, encouraging them to speak them in a louder voice whilst using their bodies and facial expressions that would be really useful. 

If you haven't already seen the letter detailing what is happening on Wednesday, please check your inboxes (and possibly the spam folder) and contact me or Mr Spracklen if you don't have a copy. Children were also sent home with a media consent form on Friday. Please can these be returned to school on Tuesday at the latest. 

Spellings for this week are below. If you have any questions or comments please get in touch. 

Kind regards,

The year 4 team. 

 

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. (Only 5 more days of January - we've got this!). 

 

KAPLA

On Monday the whole school will be involved in a KAPLA construction workshop. This will take place in the school hall. Parents and carers may arrive at 3.15pm to view the creations and take their child home slightly earlier if they wish.

Clothes for Macbeth

If you haven't already, can you send in your child's clothes for Macbeth in a labelled plastic bag,  as soon as possible please. If you have any concerns or questions about costumes, please see me or Mrs Hall ASAP. 

Spellings

Don't worry -  your child hasn't lost their spellings.  They didn't get new ones this week as we are a little behind. To keep up routines, you may want to encourage your child to practice from their own personal spelling lists on spelling shed. 

Home learning 

The children were given the hard copies of their home learning on Wednesday (apologies for the later day), this can be returned by Tuesday please. We have seen an increase in the number of children returning their home learning which is fantastic.   An electronic version of this week's home learning can be found here. 

As ever if you have any questions, comments or concerns please get in touch. 

Kind regards,

The year 4 team. 

Macbeth costume & swords, Home Learning and Spellings and Times tables update

 

Dear Parents and Carers,

I have unfortunately made an error when it comes to the costumes for Macbeth. All children will need dark coloured soft soled shoes and dark bottoms (leggings, trousers or a skirt) although for some characters I think it will look better if they are wearing a white T-shirt not a black one. A list of what costumes will be needed for each character is below. A hard copy has also been sent home. 

T-shirts can be short or long sleeved. 

If you have needed to purchase a black T-shirt please don't worry, we can go with it whatever you have. If you do not have a white T-shirt and need one, please let me know and I will look into sourcing one for your child.  If the list states that we will provide additional costumes for your child the colour of their T-shirt will be of less importance.  Can labelled costumes come into school in labelled bags from Thursday 25th January please.  

This year, we are going to attempt sword fights with toy swords. If you have a toy swords that we could use please can you send them into school from this Thursday onwards. I have discussed with the class that it may not be them that uses their sword as we will need to match the same types of swords (plastic, foam etc). 

Home Learning

I was really happy to see that 20 children returned their home learning this week. This is a great improvement on last week and I hope that each week we will see more and more children getting into good home learning habits. This week's recorded home learning is relatively simple (listing favourite authors) as I would like the children to focus ion learning their Macbeth lines and becoming word perfect by next week. Hard copies of home learning were sent home today (Tuesday) but an electronic copy can be found here. 

As ever, please also encourage your child to read and record reading sessions in their reading journals. 

Spellings

This week's spellings were also sent home today (Tuesday) for a spelling test on Monday 22nd January. 

Times tables

In addition to encouraging your child to read and learn their spellings at home, helping your child to learn their times tables is one of the most important home learning activities that you can do. I strongly encourage you to find time for your child to practice their times tables on a very regular basis. Knowing their times tables in year 4 is useful for June Multiplication check and the multiplication and division units that we are studying now. However, knowing their tables is crucial for your child as they move into upper Key stage 2. 

At middle school, in years 5 and 6 the children will be moving onto much more complicated concepts like multiplying and dividing 4-digit numbers and problem solving using fractions and percentages. To enable your child to have a positive transition to year 5 and 6 maths it is vital that they enter year 5 confident in their times tables.

Using Times Tables Rockstars is my preferred program for your child to practice their tables. TTRS enables me to track how much time their spend practicing and also how their tables fluency is developing. 

You may also want to use other online programs initially whilst your child learns their tables although I would encourage them to return to TTRS as soon as possible. 

If you are unable to access TTRS or other online programs please let me know and I can provide your child with times tables booklets for them to fill in (this would best be done alongside an adult so they can immediately be made aware of any mistakes they may be making). 

If you have any questions about times tables, Macbeth or any other aspect of your child's learning please don't hesitate to get in touch. 

Kind regards,

Ms Browne and the Year 4 team.