Friday 8th, December
As always, it has been a very busy time in year 4. This week we have begun our advent reflections each morning opening a character from the nativity and considering one of their character traits. We have reflected on Mary, the angel Gabriel, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the shepherds so far.
We have spent much of our topic time learning about renewable energy culminating today with the children creating a fact file about a solar or wind farm in the UK. It gave us a chance to revisit the things we found out on our class trip at the start of November.
In English we have created freeze frames about the villagers in the Ice Palace and then written instructions based on popular playground games with a 'Starjik twist'. We completed our R.E unit on incarnation by looking at the trinity and then wrote our own ideas about who or what God is.
Next week we will complete our other units of work and create a piece of non-fiction writing about a place with a cold climate.
Home Learning
In preparation for our Carol Service on Tuesday at 6pm at the church I would really like the children to practice their song, 'Mary's Boy Child' and be really confident about the words in the verses. I will upload a copy of the lyrics below.
Can the children focus again on their times tables this weekend? Play TT Rockstars, sing along to times table songs on YouTube ask them random questions aloud.
Spelling- more prefixes- sub-,inter-,super-,anti-, auto-: submarine, interact, international, supermarket, superstar, antiseptic, anti-clockwise, antisocial, autobiography, autograph
Many thanks for all your support with your children's learning.
Have a lovely weekend.
I hope to see you all on Tuesday evening,
Mrs. Garland
Mary’s Boy Child
Long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say,
Mary's boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a new king born today,
And we may live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Trumpets sound and angels sing; listen to what they say.
That we may live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
While shepherds watch their flock by night,
They see a bright new shining star,
They hear a choir sing, the music seems to come from afar.
Now Joseph and his wife, Mary, come to Bethlehem that night.
He had no place to bear a son, not a single room was in sight
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a new king born today,
And we may live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Trumpets sound and angels sing; listen to what they say.
That we may live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
By and by they found a little nook, in a stable all forlorn,And in a manger cold and dark, Mary's little boy was born.Long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say,
Mary's boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
Hark, now hear the angels sing, a new king born today,
And we may live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Trumpets sound and angels sing; listen to what they say.
Friday, 1st December
We have had an exciting day designing and making the base of our wire-loop games. The class have been able to use their knowledge from Science to explain how they will create a complete circuit for their game. Next week we will complete them and I will upload the pictures of the process and our finished games.
In R. E we had a special visit from the vicar, Gary, who shared his views about Christmas and the incarnation. Next week the children will reflect on their own ideas about Christmas and what it means to them.
In English the children performed their speeches about the dark and whether it should be banned or not and then we began to look at expanded noun phrases to describe a frozen landscape as we introduced our next story- 'Ice Palace' by Robert Swindells. Next week the children will be writing instructions for a game and begin research about a location with a cold climate.
We have been consolidating our knowledge of multiplication this week. Next week we will be learning about measuring length.
Next week we will also begin our advent reflections each morning, lighting our advent candle and opening the next box in our advent calendar.
Home learning
Please continue to read at ,least 5 times this week and sign the reading records.
Spelling- the prefixes: un-, did-, mis: unhappy, undo, unfair, mistaken, mishear, mislead, disagree, distrust, disappear.
Comprehension: Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball p.12-13
Maths: Factor Pairs p. 28
Have a lovely weekend and I hope those of you going to the Christmas fair have a wonderful time.
Mrs. Garland
Friday 24th, November
It was lovely to meet with everyone at parent consultations to celebrate your children's successes. Thank you very much for your time in supporting your children's education.
This week we have begun practicing for our carol service, which will take place at St Marys Church on the twelfth of December at 6p.m. We have now completed our electricity topic by learning about different switches and making one that works using a variety of materials. We will be using our new knowledge and applying it in DT. In maths we have continued looking at different multiples and had a fun introduction to Roman numerals today. We have enjoyed reading 'The king who banned the dark' with a highlight in English being an outdoor lesson exploring different verbs and adverbs.
Next week we are planning on doing our DT project to design and make a wire loop game. If possible could you send in your child with some card (sturdy but cuttable with scissors) by Thursday please?
We will be writing our persuasive speeches in defence of the dark and practice performing them. We will continue to look at the Incarnation in R.E and discuss what Christmas means to Christians.
Home learning
Maths-I've sent the children home with a sheet to complete about multiples. I'll put the link for those who were not in today (or for the ones that didn't make it home :) )
SPAG- p. 6 and 7 Verbs and Adverbs
Spelling- Words from the 3/4 spelling list: believe, breath, breathe, caught, certain, fruit, guard, weight, thought, through.
Read at least 5 times and get your reading records signed.
Keep practicing your times tables. There was a lot of improvement in this weeks written tests. (Well done!)
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Garland
Friday, 17th November
This Anti-Bullying week has been extremely busy with time spent in house and family groups. This has been a lot of fun as we've been able to be with children from other year groups and get to know them better. The theme this year has been 'One kind word' and Year 4 have been exploring how one person can make a difference by treating others with kindness and respect.
Our collaboration with other classes has not ended there. Today year four shared their Biscuit Bear stories with year one and listened to their stories based on 'Stanley's Stick'. This was great fun and a delight to see them caring for those younger than them.
We have been working hard on our times tables in Maths and most children have made significant improvement in their times table test today as well, which is wonderful.
Next week we will be completing our Science and Computing units on electricity and image editing respectively. After that our focus in the afternoons will shift to Geography and D.T. We will be continuing with finding multiplication and division facts in Maths and beginning to look at our new story, 'The kind who banned the dark' which we will use to plan a speech.
I'm looking forward to seeing you next week to discuss how your children are getting on in year 4.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Garland
Home Learning
Comprehension: An interview with Jacqueline Wilson p.10-11
Maths: This week can the childrten focus on the time table that they are currently working on.
Spelling: Words ending -cian
magician, musician, electrician, politician, mathematician, beautician, optician
(Please make sure your child knows what each of these professions are)
Friday, 10th November
I'll begin with a huge thank you to Mr Nolepa for coming in and working with half the class demonstrating electrical circuits. The children were so engaged and the other half of the class cannot wait to try the activities with you next week. Thanks again.
This week has been as busy as ever. The children have been learning how to use commas in a list to improve the fluency of their writing, we have begun to investigate the 3s, 6s and 9 times tables in maths. See if your child can remember the method to check whether any number is divisible by 9. In R.E we wrote a new verse for a Christmas carol based on Jon chapter 1.
Next week the children will be writing their very own children's story based on biscuit bear. We will continue to look at multiples of 3,6,9 before moving on to 7s, 11s and 12s. We will continue to look at complete and incomplete circuits in Science and look at what Christmas means to Christians in R.E.
Home Learning
Please continue to read at least 5 x a week and sign the reading records. We have 16 children already with their Bronze awards, which is a fabulous achievement.
Children are to practice the times table that they are working on. Recite them aloud, sing times table songs, practice writing them in order and in a random order too!
SPAG- p.42-43 (Commas for writing lists)
Maths p.26 Using Times Tables
Spelling- words ending -sion or -ssion
occasion, possession, division, invasion, confusion, decision, collision, television, expression, confusion.
Check your child knows what these words mean and see if they can orally put them into a sentence.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Garland.
Saturday, 4th November
Welcome back to another half term. We had a wonderful visit to Farmer Gows and Westmill Wind and Solar farm on Wednesday where we got to get up close and touch a 49 meter high wind turbine and feel the vibrations from within and see first hand the enormous space that the solar panels take up. We learnt about the benefits to the local wildlife and how these renewable sources of energy are transformed and taken to the National Grid. The children were amazing, as when we made our visit to Westmill the rain was coming down hard and the wind was up, they all listened incredibly well. In the afternoon, we were able to play with some models to demonstrate how wind power generates electricity before a fun game of lotto where the children burnt off some of their energy searching for cards hidden in a stack of hay bales. The children were all excellent representatives of the school. This was a great start to our topic on electricity.
Also this week, we read Biscuit Bear and wrote diary entries based on the story and introduced the idea of area in Maths. We began our computing topic about editing images, looked at the first fourteen verses of John chapter 1 and compared it to the nativity story that we are more familiar with from the other gospels in R.E, and discussed how negotiation and compromise are great skills to help us get along with others.
We returned to Merchant Taylors on Thursday and the children really enjoyed getting back into the water and choosing their lunches. Just a quick reminder- please make sure swim caps get taken out of the swimming bags between swims so they get a chance to dry out.
Home learning
This week we did our first paper times table test based on where they were at the end of year 3. The children know which times table they need to be working on. Please encourage them to focus their practice on these, in addition to practice on TT Rockstars. There are lots of times table songs on YouTube that may help some.
Maths- p. 54-55
Comprehension- The Panda and the Pangolin p.8-9
Spelling- words ending in -tion
invention, injection, action, hesitation, completion, mention, position, question, location, decoration
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward to seeing many of you at the Fireworks on Sunday.
Mrs. Garland
Friday 20th September
First, I would like to say a big thank you for a wonderful start to year 4. The children have all done you all so proud with their hard work and settling in.
This week we completed our Science topic looking at the water cycle and how that links with the changing of state of water particles. We solved lots of subtraction problems with exchanges in maths and have written poems about nature. They also did some beautiful landscape pictures in art with Mrs. Collett.
Today we worked on our display, that you will be invited to come and see next half term, about Josephine Baker- our Black History Month hero. The children have written poems about her and created a little artwork for you to see.
I'm very sorry that you didn't get much notice about our upcoming school trip on the 1st November. However, I'm very excited to be starting our topic on Electricity by visiting Farmer Gows and Westmill Wind and Solar Farm.
In P. E we will be continuing with Swimming on Thursdays.
Home Learning
Please encourage your children to continue with their reading over the break and if they get a chance to play on TT Rockstars that will be fab. Next half-term we will be having weekly written times table tests.
I hope you all have a restful, fun break. I look forward to seeing all the lovely children at the end of the month.
Warm regards,
Mrs. Garland
Friday 13th October
The penultimate week of this half term has been full and busy, with lots of learning in year 4. We have enjoyed reading, analysing and writing poetry about nature. The children are extremely creative with their ideas for similes; thunder, does indeed, sound like a herd of elephants! The class have been busily solving addition problems using the column method and they were challenged today to find the missing numbers. In Geography the children did an amazing job of researching a past volcanic eruption or earthquake and produced some great information leaflets about what they had learned. On Wednesday afternoon Watford Schools Trust came in to introduce us to what ExploRE will look like next week. We will be exploring the space they create next week. You are welcome to come and explore for yourself on Wednesday after school. Finally, today we said goodbye for now, and all the best to Mrs. Bennett as she begins her maternity leave.
Next week we will be completing our Science unit by looking at the Water Cycle and writing a story as if we are a droplet of water. We will be looking at what we can do when we feel under pressure by others in PSHE. In maths we will move onto subtraction and in English we will be researching an animal and writing our own poems about them. We will also be thinking about Black History month and learning about Josephine Baker.
There will be no swimming next week as Merchant Taylors will be on their half term. We will continue to go next half term. Children are to come in their P.E kit on Thursday and I will take them for a P.E session.
Home Learning
Continue to read 5 x a week and sign it in the reading record.
SPAG- p. 36-37 Capital letters and full stops.
Maths- p. 22-23
Spellings- (suffixes ful/less/ness) beautiful, wishful, peaceful, respectful, hopeful, tasteless, blameless, homeless, kindness, thickness
Please encourage your children to practice their times tables using TTRockstars. 5-10 minutes everyday can make a lot of difference. We have been monitoring the children's use in and out of school and have noticed that for many of them they are not focussing and taking a long time over answering questions we know they know the answer to. This means that the game is not generating harder questions and they're are not progressing the way we'd hoped they would.
Many thanks for all your support.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs. Garland
Friday 6th October
Another busy week has been had in year 4. We have written and edited our adventure stories based on the book, 'Arthur and the Golden Rope'. The children have impressed me so much with their amazing choices of adjectives and verbs creating vivid images in their reader's minds. In maths, we have continued with our mental addition and subtraction strategies. We did an experiment in Science investigating the effect of salt on melting ice. We learned about earthquakes in Geography.
Next week, we will begin a unit on poetry in English. We will be using formal written methods for addition and subtraction. We will be researching a volcanic eruption or an earthquake and in Science we will be learning about the Water Cycle.
Home Learning
Continue to read and sign 5 x a week (Please bring them in on Thursday to be stamped)
English Comprehension- p. 4-5 Aesop's Fables
Maths- p. 6 and p. 9
Spellings- (adding suffixes er and est)
grander, grandest, spicy, spicier, spiciest, wet, wetter, wettest, smelly, smellier, smelliest, thin, thinner, thinnest
Next Week
Next Friday (13th October) will be a non-uniform day to raise money for our exciting ExploRE week in the last week of the half term. (See the newsletter for details)
Have a lovely, restful weekend.
Mrs. Garland
Friday 29th September
It's been another fabulous week in year 4. The children are coming in focused and ready to learn.
This week we have begun looking at our new text ‘Arthur and the Golden Rope.’ We have used the book to inspire the drawing of own imaginative maps and the creation of some of the creatures that may live there. Our writing focus has been on using coordinating conjunctions and making careful verb choices when describing how our characters might move through our imaginary worlds.
In maths we have been using different mental strategies to solve addition questions. We have learned about the benefits of making an estimate to get an idea of what the answer may be, used the think 10, think 100 method which requires partitioning and finally how to use the equal sum where we can use a sum we know, e.g 38+ 16 and use the answer to solve similar questions such as 58+16 or 138 +16. We will be continuing to work on mental strategies next week. In Geography we continued to find out about volcanoes and where they are in the world, what the difference is between an active, dormant and extinct volcano and the reasons why people choose and benefit from living near volcanoes. In Science we have investigated how solids change from a solid into a liquid.
We also had a visit from Simon (from St Peters) on Tuesday and interviewed him about being a vicar.
Next Week we will be planning and writing our own stories in English, continuing mental strategies in Maths, finding out about earthquakes in Geography and investigating water in its three different states in Science.
Home Learning
Continue to read 5 x and sign it
Spelling- (adding ing and ed) melt, melted, melting, copy, copied, copying, answer, answered, answering, cry, cried, crying
Maths P2-5 Year 3 Objectives Test
SPAG-p. 22-23
Have a lovely weekend.
See you next week,
Mrs. Garland
Friday 22nd September
Thank you to all those who came to the 'Meet the Teacher' session this morning. It was lovely to see you all and have the opportunity to talk to some of you whom I hadn't met before. The slides from this morning will be uploaded below shortly.
It has been another great and busy week in year 4. We had our first swimming session. It was a big success; the children did great in the pool and all were in agreement that lunch was delicious. In English we planned, wrote, edited and finally published our newspaper recounts about the destruction of Pompeii in 79AD. In maths we have been estimating where numbers are on a number line and rounded numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. In Geography we learned about how volcanoes have formed, about tectonic plates and how they move and we had lots of fun modelling how a volcano erupts. In Science we conducted a fair test to try and find out which is the fizziest drink after learning that it is the carbon dioxide in the drink that gives it the fizziness.
Next week we will begin to explore our new book, ' Arthur and the Golden Rope.' We will be designing our own imaginary worlds and developing our descriptive language in order to make our writing more vivid. In maths we will be using our knowledge of place value to help us with addition and subtraction. On Tuesday we will be interviewing Simon to find out what it is like to be a vicar as part of our R.E topic.
Home Learning
Continue to read at least 5 times
Maths - p. 12-13 Rounding
English Comprehension- p.2-3 The Invention of the Camera
Spellings: Words with the phoneme 'air': therefore, February, library, ordinary, various, there, their, where, beware, repair
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs. Garland
Friday 15th September
Year 4 have been fabulous completing their first full week back. We have welcomed two new students and they have become a wonderful addition to our class. Today in Collective Worship we had the potential head boy and head girls make their speeches. The children were so respectful listening intently and supporting those who had put themselves forward.
We have a made a start on our new topics this week. We learnt about the three states of matter, the different layers of the earth and in R.E we looked at how Jesus called his disciples. In English we have enjoyed reading the book 'Escape from Pompeii' and next week we will be using the facts we have found out to write a newspaper recount. We completed looking at place value and next week our focus will be on rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.
Homework
Please continue to read 5 times and sign the reading record please. (Bring Reading Records on Thursdays to get a stamp!)
Spellings: purpose, certain, perhaps, learn, early, earth, first, third, work, Thursday
(The spelling test will take place on Thursday)
Please excuse me for not handing out the CGP books. I will hand them out on Monday. Usually I would like them in on Wednesday but as I made this mistake the children have until Friday to complete the work.
For your reference the pages I would like them to do are:-
SPAG pg. 20-21
Maths pg. 10-11
Swimming
Swimming begins on Thursday. Please remember swimming kits are to be worn under P.E kit for the start of the day. And remember to bring a towel, swimming cap, and googles.
The Meet the Teacher meeting will be held on Friday at 9am in the school hall. All information shared will be made available on this page after the meeting.
Welcome back to school
We have had a fabulous start to the new school year. Each and every one of the children has come in ready to learn and have been so welcoming to me, to the other staff in our classroom- Miss Morris and Mrs Thomas, as well as our new student.
During this shorter week we have focused on settling into our new classroom and learning a few of our new routines. We have begun to look at our new school rules, 'Respectful', 'Ready' and 'Reflective.' and have created our class prayer.
We have also participated in an art activity showing how we are all wonderful, unique individuals and how we all have things in common and we all belong. This will be displayed in our classroom. This afternoon we have also been working in our family groups thinking about 'Shining a light'.
Over the past couple of days I have listened to each of your children read and have sent their first book home with them. We also went to the library and had a lovely relaxed time reading the books we have chosen.
Next week we will begin our curriculum; looking at place value in maths, the earth's layers in geography, states of matter in science and exploring our new text in English, 'Escape from Pompeii'.
Home Learning
Please read with your child 5 times and sign their Reading Record.
Next week I will be sending out spellings and pages from the CGP books.
Our P.E days are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Next week I will be taking the P.E lesson on Thursday but as the e-mail from the other day stated, from the 21st September the children will be going swimming.
Thank you. I wish you all a lovely weekend.
Mrs Garland