Year 4 2020 - 2021

Welcome to Year 4!

Teacher: Miss McClellan

Teaching Assistant: Miss Hardern

2020-2021

Our topic this term is 'Road trip USA'

Buckle up, sunglasses on. We’re going on a road trip across the good old US of A. Flying from London Gatwick, and landing at JFK airport New York, it’s time to explore the sights and sounds of the Big Apple. Use your map skills to navigate your way around some of its most famous landmarks and send a postcard home to ask the question ‘Do you wish you were here?’ Learn how to send an email to book a day trip or reserve a room. Make sure you ask the important questions ‘Does your hotel have a pool? Is there 24-hour room service?’ Meet the Iroquois tribe; Native Americans with amazing customs and traditions. Then plan a bespoke road trip for Mr Smith and his family of four. They want to spend three weeks in the sunshine. It’s going to be a long ride. Put the roof down and let the wind blow through your hair. We’re off.

Literacy

In Literacy we will be following ‘Pathways to Write’. Our text this term is ‘Escape to Pompeii’ by Christina Balit.

We will be focusing on;

• Organising write into themes using paragraphs
• Extend the range of sentences with more than one clause using conjunctions.
• Inverted commas
• Build a varied and rich vocabulary.

Reading

As of September, from Y2-Y6 we will be following ‘Pathways to Read’. It is a brand-new programme designed to equip pupils from Year 2 onwards with key skills to move them through the reading process towards becoming competent and fluent readers.

Pathways to Read follows a mastery approach to learning with three categories of skills developed each half term:

• Ongoing skills - linked to text choices and achieved through selection of teaching activities
• Core skills - prediction, vocabulary development and retrieval
• Mastery skills - 2-3 objectives are focused on for pupils to master over the course of the half-term

We highly recommend reading with your child every day, even if it is just for five minutes. It is the perfect opportunity to share your children’s learning and bond together while encouraging reading for pleasure!

There are no right or wrong ways to enjoy a story together, however if you would like any further guidance you can find some useful tips here:

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/reading-tips/

Maths

Across the Spring term, in Maths we will be covering:

Measurement: Area and Perimeter

Multiplication and division

Fractions 

Decimals

As you may be aware, at the end of Y4, children are required to take the ‘Multiplication Tables Check’ (MTC). A good way to prepare is start early and build a daily routine practising the times tables. With regular practise children will learn all the questions and gain confidence. Research suggests that practising for 10 to 15 minutes a day will provide optimal results.

We will be doing lots of practice in school, however, if you would like your child to have extra practice at home they will have their ‘Times Tables Rockstars’ username and password readily available to use on - https://play.ttrockstars.com/

(We will be setting challenges for the children to complete as homework on here later in the term).

Homework

Homework will be set on a Thursday and will need to be completed by Tuesday.

Children will also be given weekly spellings via

https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb

Topic homework will be available to view every term on this webpage