30th November

Dear All,

I hope you are beginning to feel festive as the 1^st December approaches. I can already feel that frantic Christmas energy beginning to whirl around the school.

I am sure the children have already told you but Y4 are performing a dance in the Christmas play which we have been working on for the last few weeks.  In order to keep things simple, we are just asking the children to wear black trousers or black skirt and tights along with a sparkly top (if you don’t have any sparkles, then a Christmas jumper.  If the clothes could be brought into school next Friday in a labelled carrier bag.  On the Friday during Carols around the Tree, Y4 and Y6 will be singing ‘A Fairytale of Hillside’, we are practicing this in school but if you could encourage your child to practice at home as well.  The link below takes you to the instrumental version we have been using at school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9FzsWSuLrg

In English, this week we have revised the rules of speech punctuation and practiced writing our own speech sandwiches based on ‘Leon and the Place Between’.  In maths, we have continued with subtraction and this week we have been working on exchanging when there is a 0 in the next column.  We have also continued to work on our seven times tables.

The children are enjoying our coding unit this week and were very successful in getting the sprite to draw various letters of the alphabet.  We have also begun a new art unit, looking at the use of pattern in art and on Monday, we drew our own tessellation patterns.

Enjoy the weekend and those of you putting up Christmas decorations, good luck.

Mrs Boudier

 

 

 

 

23rd November

 

Dear All,

In English, we have continued to work on apostrophes for possession, looking at singular and plural nouns.  We have also looked at the effect of strong verbs in sentences and attempted to write our own description using them.  In Maths, we have begun to work on written subtractions and today we have looked at calculations with one subtraction.  This week our focus has been on or seven timestables and we will continue with these next week as they are new to the children.

In History, we have been looking at why and how we know so much about Ancient Egypt.  We have found out about the importance of the Rosetta stone in understanding hieroglyphics and also the artefacts found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Since December is fast approaching, we have begun to practice our dance for the Christmas play and also learn the words for the songs.  Your children should bring the song words home with them tomorrow, we would like those to come into school each morning and go home each evening.  

You can follow this link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEU7JQPrWRacJ4s2SblN0ZEna9-OxaX2g&si=FaAsSef5gI9JzZX3 to hear the playlist.

Thanks

Jane Boudier

 

16th November

 

Dear All, 

I hope you have all managed to see our lovely remembrance display outside the school, which show off the poppies all the children made.  On Friday, we took part in a beautiful ceremony to remember everyone who has suffered as a result of war.  

In English, this week we have been focusing on the use of conjunctions to add information to sentences and also the use of the possessive apostrophe.  In maths, we have continued to work on the formal written method of addition and what to do when there is more than ten in any column.  We have also been focusing on our six times tables ready for our test on Monday. 

In Computing, we have begun to look at writing our own code to program a sprite to move around the screen.  This builds on the coding done in Y3 when they used Scratch to drag and drop coding blocks.  We discussed the importance of accuracy and working logically when coding, as any small error such as not leaving a space means your code will not work. 

We are now well into our guided reading book ‘The girl who lost a leopard’ and the children are becoming much more confident when discussing inferred information.  We are also thinking about using evidence from the text to explain our answers or definitions. 

I hope you have a lovely weekend 

Jane Boudier

 

 

 

9th November

Dear All,

Another week over, it has been a very wet week but fortunately the children have managed to get out most play times.  This week in English, we have been working on using the correct tense and also making strong verb choices. For example, the children rushed excitedly towards the big top and discussing how and why this paints a better picture than the children walked to the tent. 

In maths, we have begun to use the formal written method of addition.  We have also moved on to our six times tables.  This week, we have also begun our new history topic which is the Ancient Egyptians and next week I will send a key overview map home showing what the children will be learning.

Tomorrow, the children will be doing some work with Mrs Williams on Remembrance and we will also be holding a special Remembrance assembly before the 11am silence.  It would be lovely if your children could be wearing a poppy, I know many children purchased them today but we did not have any pins sent with the box.

Next week, PE will be back to Tuesday as normal.  Please could you remind your children to complete their two reading comments if they have not done them and also that  TTrockstars needs to be completed by Monday.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thanks

Jane Boudier

 

3rd November 2023

 

Dear All,

 

Welcome back to our second half term, only 52 days till Christmas Day.  Don’t worry, I won’t say that to the children.  This week, we have begun to read ‘Leon and the Place Between’ which is the book we will be using during our English lesson.  We enjoyed watching some short circus clips to help us think of the things we would see, hear, smell and taste if we were members of the audience.  We then used these and the book to create expanded noun phrases with prepositional phrases.

In Maths, we have begun working on addition and over the next few weeks we will be learning the formal written method for addition and subtraction.  Please could you remind your children to complete their reading comments over the weekend if they have not used the time available in class to do them.  Also, TTrockstars has reset and should be completed before Tuesday, we are still working on the eight times tables as there are a number of children who are not confident on this. 

Please note next week, the children will need their PE kits on Monday as Mrs Moore will be attending a tournament with Year 3 on Tuesday.  A big well done to our Footballers today, Mrs Moore said they were super ambassadors for the school in terms of both their skill and sportsmanship.

 

Have a lovely weekend, enjoy bonfire night safety and see you all on Monday.

 

Mrs Boudier

 

 

 

19th October 2023

 

Dear All,

It’s hard to believe that the first half term is over already, thank you for all your support so far this year.  I think the children are now well established in the routines of Year Four, including remembering to complete TTRockstars for Monday, bringing PE kits in on Tuesdays and completing their reading comments for Tuesday as well.  I have tried this half term to encourage the children to do their reading comments in the first ten minutes of the day while the class is registering and completing the lunch menu and we will continue to do this next half term. 

This week in English, we have completed our end of unit write and the children have written some lovely stories using the structure of Anthony Browne’s Gorilla.  We have also edited and improved our work to make sure it includes fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases.  In Maths, we have finished place value and completed our end of unit assessment.

Our final geography lesson this week was to choose a city on Route 66 and make notes on it, after half term we will be using these to write a report on that city.  If there is some time over the holidays they might like to make some more note as this will make writing their report much easier for them.  The areas we were making notes on where:  The state your city is in, your city, information about tourist attractions.

In Art, we spent the afternoon using our understanding of illustration to finish our poem.  We have also looked at who owns information on the web and who has the right to add/alter information.

I hope you all have a lovely half term whether you are staying at home or going away.

Thanks

Mrs Boudier

 

12th October 2023

Dear All,

A quieter week this week, with Harvest and Poetry week over.  This week, we have been working on numberlines to 10,000 and looking at how to estimates.  We have also been practicing our ten times tables (please remind your children that TTrockstars needs to be completed by Monday, they can see if they any to do as there will be red headphones when they log in).  In English, we have been working on using fronted adverbials in our own writing and we have also planned our own story ready for next week.  There have been a few occasions this week where children have had the opportunity to begin their reading comments, so hopefully most of them won’t have to much to do over the weekend.  I will collect reading records in on Tuesday.

In Geography this week, the children were put into pairs and they researched about a city in North America finding out about the landscape, the attractions and the population.  This week, we have also started to illustrate a poem using our own drawings.  The children were given four poems to choose from and a range of art resources including pastels, watercolours and pencils, we will continue with this next week.

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Emily who works at HSBC and she spent an hour with the children talking to them about having shopping sense.  They considered when it was best to buy just one item and when a multipack might be best.  She also discussed the idea of ethical shopping with them.

Have a lovely weekend.

Jane Boudier

 

Weekly Round Up

5th October 2023

 

Dear All,

Where has September gone, it seems only five minutes until we were enjoying the light evenings and sunshine.  We are now well established in the routines of Year Four and each week now, a new set of TTrockstars sessions will begin on Tuesday morning and they must be completed by the following Monday morning.  We have so far revisited the 2,3,4 and this week we have been focusing on our 5’s, before the half term we will also look at our 8’s and 10’s as these are the ones the children should be confident with when beginning Y4.

Also each week on a Tuesday, I will collect in reading records and I would like to see two reading summaries from the previous week.  There are details about these reading summaries in the front of the children’s reading record, if you could please encourage your child to include the date, title and page number at the start of each summary.  As today is National Poetry day, our shared reading time this week has been spent learning the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough and in assembly tomorrow the school will celebrate National Poetry day together.

In English, we have completed our Gorilla report in best and we have also spent some time identifying and matching fronted adverbials.  In Maths, we have been focusing on partitioning numbers up to 10,000 using both place value and then flexible partitioning.  We have also looked at how adding/subtracting 1,10,100 and 1000 effects a number.

Our Geography, this week involved visiting lots of tourist attractions in North and South America using Google Earth and then using the 2D and 3D features to take screen shots and compile our own records in book creator.  In Computing, we have been discussing how the World Wide Web is only one small part of the internet and also how to identify in which country a website is created. Our art lesson this week has continued to focus on using illustrations to set the scene and the children have been encouraged to select from a range of materials, including pencils, watercolours and pastels.

According to the weather forecast we should be getting one last warm weekend so I hope you managed to get out and make the most of it.

Have a nice weekend

Jane Boudier

 

 

Weekly Round Up

28^th September

 

A very Harvest lead week this week, with our Harvest Breakfast on Wednesday which the children thoroughly enjoyed.  Thanks you all for your contributions, every year I am amazed by how much Nutella they can spread on their croissants.  Friday is our Harvest Service at the church and the class have been practicing very hard to learn the words and the actions for the song.

In Maths, we have been working on our four times tables and we will have a twenty-question test on Monday.  We have continued with place value and have been working on different representations of numbers up to 10,000.  In English, we have been working on using notes to write paragraphs.  We have written four paragraphs about Gorillas including what Gorilla eat and where they live.  Today, we have begun compiling and presenting these into a report on Gorillas.

As part of our RE, we have watched the ‘Prince of Egypt’ to give the children background information on why the Passover is celebrated and today we have looked at the Seder plate and the symbolism of the foods.  Next week, the book fair will be open after school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  The books have arrived today and there is a great selection.

I have put some photographs from our Harvest Breakfast on the class page.

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Jane Boudier

 

Enjoying our Harvest Breakfast on Wednesday.

Weekly Round Up

21^st September

Another busy week in Y4, we have begun our shared reading book now and we are enjoying finding out about Selvi and Lokka.  The children have written their own reading summary based on chapter 1 and today we have done a quick quiz to assess their understanding of the story so far.  In Maths, we continue to work on place value and this week we have looked at the different ways to represent thousands and begun to work on numberlines.  This week, we are focusing on our 3 times tables and TTrockstars sessions have been set which need to be completed for Monday.  We will also have a 3 times table test on Monday.

In English, we have been focusing on expanded noun phrases and we begin each lesson by discussing what nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives are.  You could ask your child to explain these four types of words to you. Today, we have begun to write our own reports on gorillas, thinking about where they live and how they spend their time.  We also had a special visitor in one of our lesson this week!

 

In Geography, we have spent some time looking for countries in South America and the children have become much more confident at transferring the information from google maps to an actual map. Our art this week, has been focused around the Lewis Carroll poem ‘The Jabberwocky’ and we have enjoyed using water colours and pens to illustrate our images. 

Please can you remind your children to bring in their reading records and reading books each day, at the moment I have four or five children each day who do not have them with them.  Also, PE is on Tuesday so they need to come in school uniform but have their kit in school to change into.

On the week beginning 2^nd October we will having the book fair in school after school and the children can purchase some lovely new books to read.  We are also having a little completion which will be explained in assembly tomorrow.  The children have been asked to design a poster about their favourite book, there will be a voucher for each of KS1 and KS2 plus two other worthy runners up.

Your child should have brought home a harvest letter today with what they have agreed to bring in for the Harvest Breakfast next Wednesday (27^th September). There will also be some information on the school newsletter about donations for the local foodbank should you wish to bring anything in.

Enjoy the weekend

Jane Boudier