Welcome to Year 4!

Teacher: Miss McClellan

Teaching Assistant: Miss Hardern

2020-2021

Our first topic of the year is POTIONS!

Welcome to the amazing magical world of potions and their properties. Now scientists, beware. There are some powerful and deadly potions out there, dangerous, unpredictable or tragic (just ask Romeo and Juliet.) Use what you know about materials and their properties to create incredible potions in Professor Hazard’s Potions class. Feeling sleepy? That orange juice did taste a little strange... Potion: a poison, a mixture, an aromatic brew, a vapour, a liquid or sticky goo. Welcome to the amazing magical world of potions and their properties. Now scientists, beware. There are some powerful and deadly potions out there, dangerous, unpredictable or tragic (just ask Romeo and Juliet.) Use what you know about materials and their properties to create incredible potions in Professor Hazard’s Potions class. Feeling sleepy? That orange juice did taste a little strange...

 

Literacy

In Literacy we will be following ‘Pathways to Write’. Our first text is ‘Counting on Katherine’ by Helaine Becker. We will be focusing on;

• Increasing the range of sentence structures we use in our writing
• Using prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs to express time, place and cause
• Using present and past tenses correctly and consistently including the progressive form and the present perfect form
• Grouping related ideas into paragraphs

 

 

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 Autumn term, in Maths we will be covering:

Place value, number and money

Additional and subtraction

Measurement: Area and Perimeter

Multiplication and division

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).

 

Science

We will be looking at comparing and grouping materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases.

For some fun activities that link to our current topic, follow this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z9r4jxs/articles/zqpv7p3

 

Art and Design

We will be improving our mastery of art and design techniques, including drawing, painting and sculpting with materials (e.g. pencil, charcoal, paint, clay).

Take a look at some of these unusual techniques that you might want to try at home: https://www.artbarblog.com/potions-week-at-art-camp/

 

Physical Education

In PE children will concentrate on developing good basic running, jumping & throwing techniques. They are set challenges for distance and time that involve using different styles & combinations of running, jumping & throwing. As in all athletic activities, children think about how to achieve the greatest speed, height, distance or accuracy.

 

Homework

Homework will be set on a Friday and will need to be completed by Wednesday.

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