Dear Parent/Carer,

We hope you all had a wonderful summer break. We are delighted to welcome the children back and are looking forward to a busy, fun filled year of learning.

Here is a brief overview of the learning that will be taking place within Primary 4 this term.

Literacy

The children will continue to follow North Lanarkshire’s Active Literacy programme for reading, writing, spelling, talking and listening. This programme will enable children to further develop their literacy skills through exploration of a range of skills and strategies.

Spelling
The focus phonemes for this term will be ‘ae’ and ‘ee’ and children will explore different written representations for each phoneme. Furthermore, they will employ spelling strategies and rules whilst learning a range of common and tricky words.

Reading
The children will take part in a whole class novel study of ‘The Best Dog in the World’ to introduce them to the Active Literacy reading strategies. The text will be read in class alongside the children and each of the comprehension strategies will be modelled. The children will then employ the taught strategies whilst exploring a second novel later in the term.

Writing
This term we will focus on the genres of narrative and instructions. Children will use a variety of stimulus to write interesting narrative stories focusing on descriptive vocabulary and sentence structure. We will take inspiration from our IDL topic for our instruction writing.

Numeracy

In numeracy, children will extend their knowledge of place value and estimation and rounding through a range of active and written tasks. The children will develop their mental agility through Number Talks and will be given opportunities to work collaboratively. They will explore time through days, months and seasons and will develop their understanding of measure (length and area).

R.M.E.

Religious Education will be taught through the ‘This is Our Faith’ programme. This term we will be reflecting on some Bible stories and how God speaks to us through these stories. We will research the lives of some Saints and consider ways in which they inspire us. Furthermore we will extend our understanding of the story of Creation.

As you will be aware, Primary 4 is a very special year for the children and we look forward to preparing the children to receive the Sacrament of First Holy Communion later in the year.
Health & Wellbeing

This term we will explore what it means to have a Growth Mindset. This will allow the pupils the opportunity to think about how they view their learning and how they should tackle any barriers or difficulties in order to succeed to the best of their ability.

During P.E lessons we will develop our ball skills and improve our general fitness through participation in fun fitness circuits.

Our P.E. days this year are Mondays and Fridays. We would appreciate if children could bring their full P.E. kit into school and refrain from wearing jewellery on these days.

Science

This term we will be looking at sources of energy and learning about how different plants and animals get their energy, linking to the food chain. We will also discover how important energy is in our daily lives and how we need energy to survive.

Social Studies

Our interdisciplinary learning this term will focus on the importance of growth mindset in achieving success. The children will research a number of individuals who have achieved success and overcome barriers by adopting a growth mindset. They will also work collaboratively to complete a growth mindset STEM challenge.

Please do not hesitate to communicate any comments or concerns using the homework diary and keep up to date with our learning through twitter.

Many thanks,

Mrs Bridge & Mrs Colton