Term 2, 2019
Absolutely Astounding Ancient Egypt & Polar Express
Welcome back after a hopefully relaxing half-term! It’s all change this term and we appreciate your support in this time of transition for Willow Class. Mrs Seymour will be teaching the class on Fridays from Week 2 onwards before taking over full-time at the beginning of December. The interim period will be covered by Miss Richards (Week 1, 2 and 5), who was teaching Willow Class on Fridays.
This term will bring lots of exciting learning opportunities starting with the exploration of Ancient Egypt and all the weird and wonderful historic knowledge that entails. Mrs Seymour will then take the class on a literary trip to snowy regions with the wonderful ‘Polar Express’ by Chris Van Allsburg.
Curriculum
During registration (8.45-9.00), is time for Early Work: this focuses on skills that need frequent practice to support all areas of the curriculum. We will be learning spellings, grammar and practising times tables and Maths calculations.
ENGLISH: With Miss Richards, the children will explore varying forms of poetry, including performance poetry and the necessary skills involved to make an effective impression on our audience. We will take inspiration from poets such as Michael Rosen and Brian Moses.
Willow Class will research, draft and create informative non-chronological reports on the River Nile.
Our Literacy unit in December (Mrs Seymour) will take children on an exhilarating journey. Within our unit, the children will focus on starting sentences in a range of interesting ways, including fronted adverbials and co-ordinating and sub-ordinating conjunctions. They will also learn to identify figurative language and apply their learning to their own writing outcomes, creating effective story endings.
We will follow the Headstart programme, for Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation and practise reading through Guided Reading sessions 4 times a week.
MATHEMATICS: We will continue to follow the Year 4 program of study; this term focuses on addition and subtraction methods especially. We will explore strategies to mentally add and subtract 10, 100 and 1000, as well as learn different formal written methods to calculate more complex equations, e.g. number line and column methods.
We will be using problem solving and reasoning to practise and consolidate our learning.
All Times tables and division facts need to be mastered by the end of this year and will be practised weekly. The class are making good progress with these and we encourage you to continue supporting this learning at home.
SCIENCE: Our Science theme for this term is Living Things (i.e. life cycles, habitats) and will be delivered by Mrs Seymour on a Friday as usual.
RE: We will be following the Understanding Christianity scheme of work learning.
ART: The children will undertake a range of Curriculum Art linked to Ancient Egypt, exploring a range of materials and media.
TOPIC: Our new topic Absolutely Astounding Ancient Egypt will focus on skills from our history curriculum including ordering timelines, understanding how archaeologists glean information of the past from artefacts and different belief systems.
PE: This term PE will be on Tuesdays (Judo) and Thursday afternoons (Tag Rugby).
All children are expected to take part every week and must have their PE kit in school at all times. We will do outdoor PE on the field unless the weather makes this impossible, so please ensure children have footwear suitable for wet and muddy conditions.
If your child does any school sports clubs can we suggest that they have a separate kit for those so that their PE kit can remain in school for PE lessons. If your child is not able to take part in PE due to injury, please ensure you send a note stating this to the office.
DAILY REQUIREMENTS
Fully stocked pencil case Please could you make sure that your child always has a small pencil case containing a pencil, blue ink pen, a rubber, a glue stick and coloured pencils.
All children should have their high viz jacket in school. Please check that your child has one in their bag and find or replace if not. Many thanks for your help in this matter. Children are encouraged to take responsibility for organising resources in order to do their best work and to learn most effectively. Gadgets and toys rarely lead to improved work and we therefore respectfully request that these remain at home unless a project specifically calls for them.
HOMEWORK
Reading – 20mins x 5 days weekly, at least 2 sessions on Bug Club.
Buster Book Club reading to be noted on a Wednesday and handed to the class teacher every Thursday.
Maths Times tables – Children will be tested on times tables weekly and should be learning/practising these at home on an ongoing basis. Why not try: Times Table Rock Stars or the games on the Woodlands website (see link below).
Spelling Journals are the required method for learning weekly spellings and will come home on a Thursday, they all should be in school on MONDAY. Please ensure your child has got their spelling journal in school on a Monday, so that they are able to practise the correct spellings in class.
Website
logins Bug Club reading - www.activelearnprimary.co.uk school code - 6jqa.
Weblinks to support your child at home:
http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk
http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/ General homework help
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/mental
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns; we will be happy to help.
Vanessa Richards & Joanne Seymour