Our climate zone of the week has been the rainforest. We have continued our climate fact file by researching information on the computers about the rainforest. Zack and Ryan found out that the Amazon rainforest is 5.5 million km squared! Through our topic we have also looked at the water cycle and we have remembered some of the new vocabulary – runoff (Elise), precipitation (Robbie), condensation (Ellie) and evaporation (Tyler).

We have been reading more of Kensuke’s Kingdom and for our writing this week we used our five senses to describe a story setting with a waterfall. Some of the stories were fantastic! We have also been developing our VCOP skills – this weeks focus has been on apostrophe’s!

In reading we also used our knowledge of Kensuke’s kingdom to highlight key words that describe 2 different settings in the story and then we illustrated them.

 

We have also been working on our new spelling words in sprint and blind spelling.

It has been Anti-bullying week so today we looked at what bullying looks like, how it can make people feel and what we can do to help.

Maths

We have been looking at different adding strategies e.g. compensation so to add 19 we know we can add 20 and take away 1.

We have been  looking at making up our own word problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division!

We have also been recapping our number bonds to 10, 20 and 100.

 

Happy Children in Need Day! (Ellie)

 

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

This week in P4N, we have started looking at a new climate zone – The Arctic. We used our theme of the Arctic to pretend we were scientists, describing our journey using our 5 senses. We have been using our skills from our ‘sentence battle’ on Monday by uplevelling boring sentences – Zack, Tyler and Jaxon were the battle champions!

We have been reading more of our novel Kensuke’s Kingdom and today we wrote a fantastic piece of writing on what we would see, think and wonder if we were Michael washed up on the island!

In maths we have been continuing to practice our 6 times table. We have also been looking at adding 2 digit numbers bridging 100, using different strategies. For outdoor learning day we did a relay addition race around the trim trail track solving problems and running to the next person. The winning team was Aaron, Lexi, Zack and Evie!

In topic this week we have been keeping track of the weather using our weather observation chart, recording temperature and rainfall.

With Mrs Tavendale we have been looking at animals in French, multiplication and division of 6 times table and poems based on Remembrance Day.

 

Thank you for reading our blog!

Last week in Primary 4 we were very busy!

In maths we were continuing our focus of addition but looking at ‘near doubles,’ where we were looking at how this  strategy can help us when mentally adding 2 digit numbers. We have also been revising our number bonds to 100, making sure that we have a good understanding and quick recall!

In literacy we have started a ‘sentence battle,’ where we take a boring sentence and turn it into a fantastic, exciting one! Everyone has been working really hard on ‘uplevelling’ their sentences and the work is paying off!

We have began our topic ‘Weather around the world’ and we are beginning to think about the different climate zones, the equator and why some countries are hotter/ colder than others.

We had a fantastic time at the Halloween disco, everyone made a fantastic effort with their costumes!

 

 

This week in P4N, we have building on our maths skills by exploring different strategies when adding 2 digit numbers together and when when adding several numbers together at once. We have been looking for easy ways to add numbers together, particularly using our knowledge of number bonds to make the addition easier!

We have recapped our knowledge of number bonds to 20 to help us do this in our whistle speed test, focusing on how quickly we can get them all correct. Aaron came in 1st place, Tyler in 2nd and Ruairi in 3rd!

We have also been looking at the 6x table and practicing together as a class. We are also making sure we remember our 4x table aswell by practicing through the group speed test. The Bouncing Bunnies came first this week with a score of 45 seconds!

In literacy this week we have been looking at new spelling words including ‘le’ sound, e.g. angle, dwindle, grumble. We have also been practicing common words that sometimes trick us e.g. usually, remember, happened etc. We practiced these in our sprint and blind spelling games.

This week we did a piece of free writing, where we chose a picture to help us write an imaginative story. We had some fantastic story ideas, dogs getting lost in the middle of the sea (Alicia), adventure story (Evie), Autumn birds changing colours (Jay).

We have started our new class novel ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ where we have began to think about what it must be like to live on a boat and the pros and cons of sailing around the world.

 

Thank you for reading our blog!

Maths

In maths we have been learning to double numbers and add 2 digit numbers together. We have been also doing this through team problem solving with word problems. Ruby, Layla, Ruairi and Sophie were the winning team! We have been revising ordering 3 and 4 digit numbers in the whistle speed Test where Aaron came first, Jaxon came second and Alicia came third!

Literacy

This week we have been looking at adverbs. Examples of adverbs are cautiously (Khloe), carefully (Zack) and quickly (Ruairi). We then each made a recipe for the perfect pupil, including these adverbs in our recipe! We have also added some more ‘WOW words’ from our jotters to our vocabulary wall to help us with our writing.

We also played a game of ‘sprint spelling’ where we played in teams spelling our words with chalk outside. The trickiest words were ‘cruel’ ‘rescue’ and ‘statue’!

RME

This week we finished Buddhism with Mrs Tavendale by making posters about monks and temples.

Poverty Week

As this week has been poverty week, we have been learning about what poverty is and little things we can do to help. Primary 4 had the special job of making posters for our school uniform swap shop! #savetheworld (Jaxon).

 

Wishing you all a lovely holiday! 🙂

This week in Primary 4, we have been very busy!

In maths we have been looking at developing our knowledge in ordering and sequencing 4 digit numbers and understanding place value further. We have been continuing to practice our 3 and 4 times tables each day!

In literacy we have been looking at adverbs, what they are and how to use them in instruction writing. We linked this to our topic where we made bird feeders with our own instructions to go with it. Everyone did a fantastic job of including adverbs in their writing and had lots of fun making their bird feeders!

 

Thanks for reading our blog!

Maths

This week we have looked at the ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ signs ‘<’ and ‘>’ and deciding which numbers are bigger/ smaller than others. We were looking at the different ways we can ‘make 100’ using different combinations of numbers. We also did this in the whistle speed test, for extra practice.

We played a very competitive game of ‘Doubling Scoot’ which we all loved! 1^st place – Lexi and Zack, 2^nd place – Elise and Aaron, 3^rd place – Khloe and Jack S.

We have been practicing our times tables throughout the week too, still focusing on the 3 and 4.

Group Speed test – practicing 5 times table, dancing dogs came first place with a fantastic 21 seconds! Well done!

 

 

 

Topic

We have been learning about the habitats of different animals and the meaning of herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. We have also looked a little at food chains, we will be looking at this further next week.

 

 

Literacy

This week we have been focusing on ‘uplevelling’ our writing using different openers, such as ‘Full of excitement…’ (Zack) or ‘All of a sudden’ (Evie). We then chose an insect to research as part of our topic and we used the information to write ‘A Day in the Life of an Insect.’ We have been trying to include as many ‘WOW words’ as possible – ‘cautiously’ (Layla), ‘spectacular’ (Elise), ‘inspired’ (Jaxon), ‘thoughtfully’ (Alicia).

Our spelling words this week were focusing on the ‘I’ sound, using ie, i-e, y, igh spelling. Everyone took part in our blind spelling game and ‘lightening’ was the trickiest word to spell!

 

Thank you for reading our blog!

This week in P4N, we have been learning about place value and ordering and sequencing 4 digit numbers. We have also been learning to use the ‘less than’ and ‘greater than’ symbols – < and >.

We have been playing the magic number game, which involves us guessing the digits in a number using clues from the rest of the class. We have played girls v boys – the girls are in the lead! “Go girls” says Ruby!

We practiced our 4 times table during the Whistle Speed test – Ruairi, Khloe and Ryan came in first, second and third place! We have continued to practice through the hammer game, whilst doing work on the 3 times table with Mrs Tavendale.

Spelling

We have practiced our spelling words focusing on the ‘ee’ sound using ‘ee’ and ‘ea’ spelling in our blind spelling game.

 Writing

This week we have planned and written fantastic pieces of imaginative writing, pretending to be a rainforest animal, using our five senses. The focus this week was on using exciting adjectives to ‘uplevel’ our sentences and everyone has done a great job!

 

 

RME

We were learning about Buddhist temples.

Topic 

We have started our topic of ‘living things and their habitats’ this week and we were outside looking for different habitats and describing them in detail. Some of the girls during Golden Time have started our wall display painting trees and rivers.

Class Newsletter: Term 1

Dear Parent/Carer

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

General Information:

I hope you all had a lovely summer holidays. Children in P4N have made a great start to the year, and are working hard.

Brand new Red Communication poly pockets have been distributed to every child. We ask you look out for these in your child’s school bag as it will have information about homework be used for other school communication. On Fridays this will include their Golden Time Diary, please ensure you read and sign this every week and return it to the Red Communication poly pocket every Monday for us to see.

You will be able to follow what we have been doing in class each week by looking at our class blog.

Homework will be issued on a Monday and should be completed by Friday. There will a selection of Numeracy and Literacy (spelling and reading) activities and occasionally topic related tasks.

Please ensure your child has an appropriate snack kept separately from their lunch.   Your child should also have a clearly labelled water bottle everyday which is filled prior to arriving at school.  Please ensure your child has a labelled weather appropriate jacket as there will be outdoor learning opportunities.

Class Dojo

To promote positive behaviour Primary 4 are using Class Dojo. Please note we cannot access the messaging aspect of Class Dojo. Should you need to contact us please do so by telephone or in writing.

PE days

P4N have PE on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Please ensure that your child has a full gym kit, to include a t-shirt, shorts and gym shoes, which will be left in school. Where appropriate, please remove or tape over earrings.

Learning focus this term:

Through our Living Things and their Habitats topic we will be learning about/to:

• Investigate and research different habitats
• Observe how different animals and plants are suited to their environments
• How we can help our environment
• Food chains and understand the importance of how animals and plants depend on each other for food.
• Compare generations of families of human, plants and animals to understand how characteristics are inherited.

If you have any experience in this area, please let us know. We would love to have some ‘experts’ come in to share in our learning journey.

Core Literacy:

Our targets this term for reading will be:

• Using a dictionary to check spelling and find the meaning
• Continuing to develop our comprehension skills
• Writing book reviews

For writing, we will be working on:

• Varying sentence openers
• Using punctuation marks correctly
• Improving presentation of handwriting including joining up

For listening and talking, we will be focusing on:

• Listening and focus on hearing specific information that has been identified prior to the task.
• Asking and respond to different types of questions with confidence, to show understanding of the main ideas of a spoken text.

Core Numeracy:

Our main areas of focus for maths this term will include:

• Place Value
• Adding and subtracting up to 1000
• Sequencing and ordering numbers
• Mental addition and subtraction up to 100

We will also be learning about Buddhism and Internet Safety.

Health and Wellbeing:

As a Health Promoting school we actively encourage and teach our children to make healthy choices, to enable then to become healthy, active and emotionally resilient young people of the future.

We are delighted to be able to continue to deliver 2 hours of PE a week as well as opportunities for children to be active in our fabulous new grounds.

We would appreciate your support in promoting a healthy and balanced diet, both in your child’s morning snack and in their packed lunch. We would discourage any type of fizzy juice in school or energy drinks.  Children are encouraged to bring in a water bottle, which they can use during class time.  There are water fountains situated throughout the school for daily use.

Please encourage your child to participate in the Active Sports Clubs that are on offer at lunchtimes and after school, as well as any school based clubs that take place throughout the year. Keep looking in school bags for further information.

A reminder that all children who cycle or scooter to school must wear a safety helmet and ‘walk’ their bikes whilst in the playground. There are bike racks available.

Class Birthdays

We always celebrate if a member of the class has a birthday however we would request that birthday cakes are not brought into school to share with the class. In school, we have children with allergies who may be at risk from some ingredients. The cutting up and distributing of birthday cake also cuts into valuable learning time.

Playground toys:

We have a playground equipment for children to play with during lunchtime. Please do not bring in your own toys – except for Golden Time on a Friday – so that we can be sure that all toys in the playground belong to the school.  Many thanks for your support.

Golden Time toys:

Children can bring a ‘toy’ to school on a Friday to play with during Golden Time. Please remember that the school cannot take responsibility for the safety of these toys and therefore we request that your child does not bring in expensive/electronic items without your consent. We appreciate your support with this matter.

Green Wing Book and a Blether:

Please help us to promote reading by joining us for Book and a Blether. Come along to the Green Wing and spend some time reading with your child.  These will take place on the following date:

Friday 20^th September

Wednesday 25^th September

Thursday 3^rd October

Friday 11^th October

Wednesday 23^rd October

Thursday 31^st October

Friday 8^th November

Wednesday 13^th November

Thursday 21^st November

Friday 6^th December

Wednesday 18^th December

If you require further information, please ask a member of staff.

I look forward to working in partnership with you this session.

Kind regards

Miss Nicholl