Welcome to Meerkats class!

Your class teacher is Miss Canham and the teaching assistants working across year 4 will be Mrs Reinis and Miss Hanson. Miss Munns will also be working across year 4 as a teaching assistant and a student teacher. From October to January, we are very lucky to also have Miss Ghafoor working with us as a student teacher from Bishop Grosseteste University. 

Key Information

Spring 1

We are looking forward to welcoming the children back after the Christmas holidays. Below is the key information you will need:

Meerkats will have Forest school on alternate Mondays. The kit for this includes, a change of footwear (preferably wellies), and a complete change of clothes that fully cover arms and legs. The dates for Forest school are:

13/01/25 – Meerkats

27/01/25 – Meerkats

10/02/25 – Meerkats

Year 4 will have PE on a Tuesday. This half term, Meerkats class will either be in the swimming group or the PE group. You will have received an email before the Christmas holidays telling you which group your child is in. Please speak to Miss Canham if you are unsure. 

Swimming kit should include swimming shorts or swimming costume (no bikinis), a swimming hat, and a towel. If you would like your child to wear goggles, we will need a written permission letter or email.  PE kit should include a white top, black tracksuit and trainers. The children may be inside or outside for PE. 

For PE, swimming and Forest School, earrings must be removed before the school day and hair needs to be tied back. School staff are no longer permitted to remove earrings, and tape cannot be used to cover them. Children will not be able to participate with earrings in.  

*REMINDER*  Please remember to name all jumpers/coats etc, we have a lot of lost property that is not named, so we cannot return it to the correct child. If you are missing any items that were not named, please ask to look in our lost property tub. 

Curriculum update - Spring term

English

We will be focusing on the books 'Our Tower' and 'Amazing Islands'. Our focus skills are to expand noun phrases by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and prepositional phrases, organise paragraphs around a theme (to organise and sequence more extended narrative structures), choose nouns or pronouns appropriately for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition,use commas after fronted adverbials and use speech dialogue. 

Maths

We will begin by learning the written methods for division and multiplication before moving on to fractions, decimals and measurement. We will continue to focus on learning our timestables and becoming fluent in these. 

Science

Our first unit is 'Electricity' where we look at currents, static energy, safety around electricity and conductors/insulators. We then move on to learning about 'Solids, liquids and gases' and the matter that makes up these states. 

History

As historians, we will explore the world of ancient Rome and Roman Britain and the discoveries they made, and how these discoveries impact our modern world. 

Geography

Tectonic plates, Volcanoes and Earthquakes will be the focus of our spring learning in Geography. We will find out about how these naturally occuring diastors impact the world. 

PE

We will be covering orienteering, Roman dance and swimming during our PE slot this term. 

RE

We will be firstly learning about what it is like to live as a Hindu in Britain today and comparing this with our own lives. Following this we will learn about why Christians call the day Jesus died, Good Friday, and the link to Easter celebrations around the Christian Faith. 

Music

For the first half term, Meerkats will be learning how to play the Ukulele with Mrs Bright, before then learning about changes in pitch, tempo and dynamics after half term. 

French

In French, our focus topics are 'At the team room' and 'In the classroom'

Art

The focus in these lessons will be creating effect through painting and mixed media, focusing on light and dark. 

PSHE

We will start our learning by focusing on safety and our changing body, before moving on to learn about citizenship. 

Computing

We will learn about creating codes to create shapes and data logging.

 

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Autumn 2

After October half-term, there will be some exciting changes to the Year 4 timetable- more information on this can be found in the letter sent on Friday 25th October.

From the start of the new half-term, Meerkats will have PE on a Tuesday. Children will need a full PE kit consisting of a white top, black or navy bottoms and trainers. 

Children will also have forest school sessions on Monday afternoons every alternate week for each class. Please see the below dates to see when children in Meerkats will have forest school. 

04/11/24- Meerkats

11/11/24- Wombats

18/11/24- Meerkats

25/11/24- Wombats

02/12/24- Meerkats

09/12/24- Wombats

16/12/24- Meerkats

For both Swimming and PE, earrings must be removed before the school day and hair needs to be tied back. School staff are no longer permitted to remove earrings, and tape cannot be used to cover them. Children will not be able to participate with earrings in.  

 

*REMINDER*  Please remember to name all jumpers/coats etc, we have a lot of lost property that is not named, so we cannot return it to the correct child. If you are missing any items that were not named, please ask to look in our lost property tub. 

Curriculum update - Autumn term

English

We will be focusing on the books 'Gorilla' and 'Greek Myths'. Our focus skills are to expand noun phrases by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and prepositional phrases, organise paragraphs around a theme (to organise and sequence more extended narrative structures), choose nouns or pronouns appropriately for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition and use commas after fronted adverbials.

Maths

We start the year recapping our place value knowledge, before moving on to learning written methods linked to the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). 

Science

Our first unit is 'Animals including humans' where we look at healthy eating, human teeth and food chains. We then move on to learning about 'Sound' and how it travels through different materials through observations and experiments. 

History

As historians, we will explore the world of ancient Greece and the discoveries they made, and how these discoveries impact our modern world. 

Geography

Climate and Weather will be the focus of our autumn learning in Geography. We will find out about different climate zones, extreme weather and how this changes around the world. 

PE

For the first half term, we will be learning the ball skills needed to play netball, followed by a gymnastics unit leading up to Christmas. 

RE

We will be firstly learning about the Holy Trinity, and how this links to our own lives. Following this we will begin to learn about Hinduism, learning about what they believe God is like. 

Music

For the first half term, Wombats will be learning songs and rhythms in class. After half term they will learn to play a tuned percussion instrument with Mrs Bright. 

French

In French, we begin by recapping our french phonetics to support us in our focus topics 'presenting myself' and 'my family'

Art

The focus in these lessons will be creating power prints through different drawing/collage techniques. We will then combine all the skills learnt to create a large group piece together. 

PSHE

We will start our learning by focusing on family and our relationships, before moving on to learn how to look after our wellbeing and physical health as we grow older. 

Computing

We will learn to recognise the internet as a network or networks and begin to understand why we should evaluate online content. 

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Autumn learning:

20.09.24

This week, in our English learning, we have been thinking about how to use adverbials in our writing to add extra detail about when, where, how or why something is happening. Check out some amazing examples below!

 

23.09.24

In French, we have been recapping phonics and practising the sounds we need to know for our Y4 French learning. This week, we focused on ille, ique, i and in. Ask us how to pronounce these sounds! 

02.10.24

We have been enjoying doing gymnastics in PE! 

03.10.24

This week, our maths focus has been on rounding! Ask us about rounding to 10, 100 and 1,000.

04.10.24

In Science, we have been understanding the digestive system. Below are some super examples of how we showcased our learning on Seesaw! 

11.10.24

Poet visit from Mark Grist.

We enjoyed hearing some of Mark's raps and poems and loved our afternoon spent creating our own poem all about what 10 out of 10 feels like to us!

11.10.24

Role play in action! This week, we have been enjoying poetry and developing characterisation. 

12.11.24

In DT, we have been creating frame structures to understand the meaning of the terms strength and stability. 

29.11.24

In PSHE, we have been thinking about what skillsets are required for different kinds of jobs.

02.12.24

Forest School Fun! 

06.12.24- In PSHE, we thought of ways we could influence happiness around us. 

09.12.24- We have been making pavillions in DT. We started off by making the frame structure and next week, we will add cladding. 

18.12.24- This week, we added cladding to our DT projects to complete our pavillions.