Dear Year 4 and parents,

Welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

English

In our first writing unit this term, we will be learning all about information texts. The children will learn about the features of information texts, which they will then use to write about a pet or their favourite animal. We will also continue to use The Write Stuff as the basis of our teaching of writing for other units. Later in the term, we will be writing poems about a river, linking to our learning in topic. Our class book for this term is the exciting classic Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren. Some children in the class will revisit previous phonics learning and all children will receive direct teaching of spelling and have the opportunity to practise their handwriting.

The children will continue to have the opportunity to take a book from the school library each week and will take part in a variety of different lessons to teach them specific comprehension skills and to promote a love of reading for pleasure, thereby supporting their learning.

Maths/Times Tables

Please support your child with the rapid recall of times table facts, both multiplication and division. We will be practising times tables regularly in school this year, leading up to the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check in the summer term. All the children have access to Times Tables Rockstars and their login details can be found in their Reading Record. One of our maths topics this term is multiplication and division so we will be doing lots of practice in lessons too! Following this, our units will be length and perimeter, fractions and decimals.

Spelling

There will be a weekly spelling homework on the Spelling Shed website. Again, the children have their login details in their Reading Record. Please encourage them to log in and practise. There will be a half-termly test of twenty words taken at random from the previous six weeks’ lists. The children will be encouraged to revise the previous term’s spellings and to focus on high frequency words that are being misspelled.

Other subjects

We are going to be starting an exciting new topic called H2O, where the children will learn all about both coasts and rivers. Our focus for Spring 1 will be on coasts where we will explore what coasts are, common coastal features and how they are formed. Children will also learn about geographical processes such as erosion and deposition, and the effect these have on coastlines and beaches. They will also have the opportunity to research coastal areas and explore the impact of changes in land use on the environment. In Spring 2, we will focus on rivers, where children will learn about the features and course of rivers, as well as their uses.

In Science, we will be studying sound and living things and their habitats. Children will be learning about how sounds are made, how sound travels through vibrations and patterns between vibrations, pitch and volume. They will complete investigations to determine the medium through which sound travels best, and which materials are the best insulators of sound. In Spring 2, we will learn about different habitats, how species have adapted to their habitats, and how we can look after and help endangered species. We will also learn all about characteristics and classification of living things, as well as how to use and create our own classification keys. In RE, we will be learning about Hinduism, specifically the importance of pilgrimage to Hindus. We will learn about what pilgrimage means, why people decide to go on pilgrimage and the effect it has on Hindus.

Reading at Home

The children will continue to be able to change their reading book as necessary. We will check to ensure that the books they are choosing are sufficiently challenging and cover a variety of genres. Please continue to read to your child and to listen to them read as often as possible and complete the Reading Record. We will check reading records every Thursday in school and will be awarding house points to children who are reading at least three times per week. Re-reading passages, discussing the text, highlighting interesting or unknown vocabulary, and talking around the subject are all very worthwhile activities.

Homework

Homework will continue to be set on a weekly basis, usually on a Friday. Please ask your child to explain the homework to you – it will be a Maths and Spelling challenge on Ed Shed or a Learning Log activity. It is important that all children complete the homework. Please email me if your child is experiencing any difficulties with the completion of the homework.

PE

Our PE days this term are Monday and Wednesday (this may change due to weather etc.). Please ensure that PE kit is brought into school on a Monday and it will go home on a Friday. We have PE lessons inside and outside, please make sure children have the correct kit for each session (t-shirt, shorts, joggers, jumper, socks, trainers, gloves and skins) including spare socks for the girls if they are wearing tights.

Please make sure your child has a coat and a water bottle in school every day, particularly as we approach the colder months.

Thank you for your support.

Miss Borchart