Talented Turtles (Year 4)

Autumn 1 Newsletter 

It is a great pleasure to welcome you and your children into Y4. I hope you’ve had a fantastic summer and everyone’s raring to go for a new academic year of learning.

We’ve got some brilliant learning planned for the coming half term, that we’re all very excited about:

Our topic is entitled ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’ during which our learning will be linked to the period 15,000 BC to 2500BC.

As you already know, our educational visit this term will be to Creswell Crags on Friday 4^th October. Here we will be visiting the caves which evidence prehistoric human activity, as well as attending workshops focusing on the lives of people living locally around this period of time.

In English, we will be writing instructions for stone aged living, as well as writing setting and character descriptions for a prehistoric world.

Our Maths lessons will focus on place value, addition and subtraction methods, measuring area and multiplication and division methods.

 PE

Our PE days are on Thursdays and Fridays, led by our specialist coaches from Bolsover District Council, as well as by Mr Reardon. Please make sure that your child comes to school in their P.E uniform on these days. At the moment we will all be doing PE outside wherever possible.

Reading

The benefits of reading are almost endless and it is the most important aspect of school: it improves focus, memory, empathy, and communication skills. It can reduce stress and improve your mental health. Not to mention the fact that reading is a fundamental skill for life.

Please remember to keep a record of the number of reads your child is completing, by recording in their reading diary. These will be collected in and counted every Friday.

Olympic medals are available for those children who read regularly at home:

Bronze- 30 reads

Silver- 70 reads

Gold- 130 reads

Platinum- 200 reads. An extra special prize be award for this.

We will read ‘Stig of the Dump’ by Clive King as the class novel in the first few weeks. In this novel we meet Stig, a caveman with long black hair, who has made his home from rubbish dumped by other people. When Barney meets Stig, they become friends and Barney helps Stig to refurbish his home using discarded rubbish. It soon looks more attractive, and Barney spends a lot of time with Stig, enjoying many adventures together.

I will also endeavour to read ‘The Boy With the Butterfly Mind’ by Victoria Williamson. This is a personal favourite of mine and comes highly recommended.

Jamie Lee is a boy living with ADHD. When Jamie and Elin's families blend, the polar opposites of chaotic Jamie and ordered Elin collide. As their lives spiral out of control, Jamie and Elin discover that they're actually more alike than they'd admit. Maybe there's no such thing as normal, or perfect.

Science

In Science we will begin a unit simply entitled ‘Rocks’. With obvious links to our topic, we will learn how rocks and soils are made and be able to identify the three different types of rocks: metaphormic, sedimentary and igneous.

Online Safety

E-safety is a substantive part of the curriculum and all computing lessons will begin with a discussion around it. This half term we will explore the importance of being respectful when contributing online.

Homework

Your child will continue to receive homework every Friday which is to be handed in by the following Wednesday. The first homework will go out on Friday 13^th September in their new CPG books. If they used a book from a younger year group last year, we will try to provide them with the Y3 book this year.

We will continue to have spelling tests every Friday starting Friday 13^th September. Spelling books will go home on Friday night so that you can see how your child has done in the test but these then  must come back to school with your child on a Monday morning.

If you have any questions or if there is anything we can do to help, then please do not hesitate to ask.            

Kind regards,

The Y4 team

Mr Reardon, Mrs Humberstone and Mrs Beach

Curriculum Web Autumn 1

Please take a look at the wonderful things we will be learning about this half term

Knowledge Organiser Autumn 1