Miss Nicholl and P4N

Dear Parent/Carer,

I hope you find the following information useful.  If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Learning in Term 1:

Our class novel The Wild Robot Escapes provided a link between learning in P3 and P4 and the class thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the adventures Roz and Brightbill got up to in this sequel. We used the novel in a number of ways: drawing migrating geese, using ideas and writing techniques in the children’s own story writing and also used the novel to highlight how the writer uses our senses. This led nicely to our next topic, Living Things and Their Habitats where the class developed their online research skills, made fact files on animals and created bird feeder and instructions on how to make them

In numeracy we worked on our understanding of place value and learned how to partition numbers to 10000 as well as how to use this knowledge to round number to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. The class also worked on their recall of multiplication facts and how these can be used to solve word problems.

Learning focus this term:

Through our Weather around the World topic we will be learning about/to:

• Investigate and research different climates around the world
• Observe and record rainfall, temperature and cloud cover
• The difference between climate and weather
• The Water Cycle

Core Literacy:

This term we will be:

• Highlighting information in texts that help us create a picture in our minds
• Using mind maps to understand characters, plots and messages in texts
• Taking notes to create new texts
• Using ambitious adjectives and verbs in our writing
• Using the three sharings approach (puzzles, likes/dislikes, connections) to discuss our class novel
• In writing trying to use our senses to create and describe story settings in detail
• Learning to use paragraphs correctly

Children will continue to be given books and weekly reading homework. Children will keep their group reading book in class and take home a book of their choice from the class or wing libraries. Please ensure your child completes this at home and remember to sign their reading diary. Encourage your child to read widely for enjoyment at home and use the three sharings approach to discuss what they have read.

Core Numeracy:

This term we will be:

• Looking at a range of mental strategies for addition and subtraction
• Looking at written algorithms for addition and subtraction
• Using counting strategies to multiply, using the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 times tables
• I can estimate and measure volume using ml
• I can record the measurement of volume to the nearest standard unit, e.g. ml

We encourage your child to use Sumdog at home to practice their maths skills. Children should all have a copy of their usernames and passwords.

Health and Wellbeing

This term we will be:

• Learning Cool in School strategies to help us resolve conflict and fall outs independently
• Learning when it is necessary to ask for help from an adult
• Learning about Poverty and how we can help reduce the costs of the school day