We will be continuing to improve our calculation skills in the four operations (+,-,x,÷) and using them to help us solve problems. We are continuing to encourage the children to learn from mistakes they make in maths and to develop their perseverance when solving a tricky problem. We will be learning about co-ordinates and how we use them in everyday life.
Our learning is directly linked to the White Rose scheme of learning. Our first activities help the pupils to understand place value.
The children should be practising their times tables. We will be sending a times table book for them to fill in each week. Please use this to support your child. It is our expectation that by the end of Year 4 children will know their tables up to 12 x 12.
Use the link from our webpage http://www.shirwell.devon.sch.uk/pupils/class-2/ which has some good online resources to help your child learn their tables.
We will be covering a range of writing genres linked to our topic including story writing, poetry and explanation texts. One of our main targets is to develop our vocabulary in our writing, this is supported by reading. Please make sure you are encouraging your child to read at home. To support us on building their vocabulary please discuss unusual and interesting words and phrases you come across when reading.
All children should have an ongoing reading book at home and in school. Encourage them to choose a variety of books to read, it’s great to see the children enthuse about a book they have just read and recommending it to different children in the class. Reading is the most important skill a child can learn. A confident reader is a confident writer. Our class novel, is Stig of the Dump by Clive King.
Our spellings this term will be through Decision Spelling. The pupils will receive a weekly spelling list to learn. Spellings will be handed out on Wednesday and pupils will be tested on Tuesday.
PE will be on Thursday afternoons, however this can change, for example because of the weather. Please make sure your child has their PE kit in school at all times.
This term we will start with some striking and fielding games before moving on to invasion games.
We will be studying Plant Life Cycles, Rocks and Soils and Evolution Much of what we are studying in Science will link to our topic work. We will explore the requirements of plants for life and growth, how they vary from plant to plant and investigate the way in which water is transported within plants. We will be studying rocks and fossils and recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago.
The children will be planning their own scientific investigations and recording and interpreting their results.
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Religious Studies— We will be focussing on Christianity, we will discuss what Christians learn from the Creation story and what it is like to follow God.
Geography— We will be improving our knowledge of maps and locations through Maths using maps and co-ordinates to locate different countries.
ICT— We will start our program of e-safety after half term using the materials from “Internet Legends”
Art/DT— Creating Mini Greenhouses—The children will use their scientific understanding to help them make mini greenhouses for plants. In Art the children will be refining their skills to draw and paint landscapes.
Music— Y3/4 The learning is focused around exploring and developing playing skills through using a tuned instrument Y5/6 will extend this by learning two pieces of music and improvising around them.
French— We will be create a Shape Book and writing a colour poem using our knowledge of; sentence building with nouns, colour and size adjectives and negatives, correspondence of letters to sound and the use of a bi-lingual dictionary.
