Newsletter - 18.10.13

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We have had such a super week in LKS2 and we were really impressed with everyone’s attitudes towards their assessment. Don’t forget today is celebration Friday, so feel free to come into the class and look at your child’s wonderful learning from across the half term.

Home Learning

As part of the children’s home learning in 3/4, we ask that your child is reading every day of the week. We expect all children to hand in their signed reading record on a Monday morning so we can reward them for each day they have read. If a child reads every day they will be rewarded with a sticker. 

Your child will continue to receive numeracy home learning on a weekly basis, which we ask all children to engage with. The home learning will be handed out in their blue home learning books every Friday, and your child will have until the following Friday to hand their home learning back to their teacher. As mentioned above, we are so impressed with the engagement in their home learning so far! Your child will also be receiving a booklet of mental maths questions, which we urge you to practice at home at your own pace.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been showing off all of the skills they have learnt so far over this half term. We were really impressed with the children’s attitudes towards their assessments. Every child tried their best, even when finding some sections a little bit tricky. We will be allowing children to look back at their assessment papers to see if, with a partner, they can correct any errors and make even more progress with their numeracy learning. In year 3/4, the mental maths section of the paper is extremely important and can have a big effect on the level given at the end of the test. It would be great to practice mental maths at home with your child by working through the booklets we will be sending out at the end of the term.

Literacy

This week in literacy, the children have written a diary entry as though they were a Viking for a day! We were blown away with the wonderful ideas each child had and were happy to see all of the children using a range of engaging features throughout their diary entries. We were particularly impressed with the children’s use of adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions within their writing and were even more impressed with some of the complex sentences we read! We are looking forward to giving your child a level and sharing these with you in parent consultations next week.

Spellings
These Spellings will be tested on Monday 21^st October.

Group One	Group Two
Pie	Accident
Flies	Complete
Tie	Experiment
Five	Recognise
Slide	Equipment
Smile	Separate
Bike	Comparison
Prize	Suppose
Sky	Surprise
Spy	Whose

Reminders

·        Please can all Year 4 children remember to bring their swimming kit and goggles if needed every Friday. They may also bring a snack to eat on the coach on the way back to school. This can be a biscuit or a piece of fruit.

·        Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

·        Now that the weather is wet and windy, we ask that your child must bring a coat to school every day. Unfortunately, we are still seeing children coming into school dripping wet and cold. We insist that the children should wear their coat to school daily, as well as every break and lunch time.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Team 3/4

Newsletter 4/10/13

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

Well, it’s been another busy week in Year 3/4. We have seen lots of wonderful learning taking place and have been really impressed with the enthusiasm the children have shown towards each and every lesson - even when things have a got a little bit tricky!

Thank you to all parents and carers who attended this week’s meeting about the Year 4 residential in May 2014. We shared details of the trip, dates, times, kit lists and itineraries. If you would like your child to take part in the exciting trip, please can we ask that a non-refundable deposit of £50 is returned to school by half term?

There have been a few questions about changing books and whether there are set days for children to do this. The children can get a new book to take home whenever and as often as they like. There is no set day and we encourage the children to take responsibility for changing their own books whenever they have finished one, as well as recording their daily reading in their reading records. Reading at home will be rewarded in school with stickers and, as we have all seen, the competition for team point champions this half term has been extremely tight. It could be your sticker that wins it for your team!

Our Achiever this week is Lucas in 3/4B. Lucas has approached every lesson with enthusiasm this week and has applied every target given to him. His Star Write was jam-packed full of adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions too – there’s no stopping him! Well done Lucas. 

Numeracy

This week we have been looking at how to add using column addition. We have applied these skills in many ways including solving some pretty tricky word problems.  Next week we will be moving onto looking at column subtraction.  Home learning: your child will have received a selection of questions and problems from this week’s learning as a means of embedding and securing the learning that has taken place. Please also continue to support your child with their learning of their times tables and basic number bonds to 10 and 100. These basic number facts underpin almost everything that we cover during numeracy lessons. Thank you. Next week’s times table focus will be the 5 X tables…get practising!

Literacy

This week, we have been writing in the style of a diary, documenting the life of a Viking child. We have been focussing our attentions on the use of adverbs to describe the many actions as well as writing in the past tense and first person. Next week we will be continuing to look at how diaries are written and will be finding out more information about what life was like for Viking thralls (slaves).

Spellings

These spellings will be tested on Monday 14^th October. Please support your child in practicing their spellings every day to help them achieve 10/10 in their spelling test every week.

Group One	Group Two
bravely	candle
clearly	ankle
cheerfully	rectangle
carefully	symbol
madly	single
neatly	difficult
nearly	signal
really	athletics
weekly	animal
weakly	Christmas

Other areas of the curriculum:

In PE we have once again taken inspiration from Olympic gymnast video footage and have been continuing our gymnastics by practising our rolls and balances and putting them into sequences in larger groups.

In Topic we have been very busy with our weaving of wool on hessian. These will form the backdrops for our moving mechanisms that will be started next week.

In music, 3/4B have begun composing their own musical masterpieces using the instruments available on the iads. 3/4T have been refining their recorder skills when learning to play a new song and 3/4S have continued with their percussion sessions using a variety of instruments.

In Science we have developed our graphing skills by presenting our collected data neatly and accurately in a bar chart.

In ICT we have continued to create our own information documentary about Vikings, complete with sounds, using the Kar2ouche software.

Reminders

 

·    Please can all Year 4 children remember to bring their swimming kit and goggles if needed every Friday in a bag large enough to fit their entire uniforms and shoes in – we don’t want to lose any belongings. Children may also bring a snack to eat on the coach on the way back to school. This can be a cereal bar or a piece of fruit – no crisps.

      ·    Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

·    As the weather begins to turn that little bit cooler and wetter, please ensure your child has a suitable outdoor coat/jacket.

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Newsletter - 13.09.13

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

Well, what another exciting week we have had. We have continued to be impressed by EVEN MORE Viking home learning consisting of longships, swords, shields, posters and helmets. Well done and thank you to everyone for their efforts, we have been well and truly blown away by the fabulous quality.

This week Year 3/4 visited the Danelaw Viking village in York where they spent the day living and working as a real Viking. They helped their Viking ‘family’ to farm the land, make clay oil lamps, grind wheat to make bread and even train as a warrior to help defend the village against Saxon intruders. The day was truly wonderful and the children were thoroughly immersed in all of the activities. The staff at the centre were so impressed with each and every single person and commented that Robin Hood were “a fabulous group to start off the new school year.” Well done Year 3/4 - you really did us proud!

Our Achiever this week is all of Year 4 for their impeccable behaviour and enthusiastic approach to our Danelaw visit on Monday. You really threw yourselves into the whole experience and played the role of a Viking extremely well. Congratulations Year 4.

Home Learning

As part of the children’s home learning in 3/4, we ask that the children read as often as they can across the week. All of the children should by now have a reading record book and a reading book from their book band colour. Please continue to encourage your child to read on a regular basis and fill in the reading record. We ask that your child hands their record in on a Monday so we can reward them for each day they have read. If a child reads every day they will be rewarded with a sticker.

All children will also be receiving a blue Home Learning book where they will complete the weekly home learning task. The home learning will be given out every Friday and will be collected in the following Friday morning for marking. However, if your child completes the task sooner, they are more than welcome to bring it into school to be marked before the hand in date.

Numeracy

This week we have been learning all about ordering and comparing numbers (including decimals) and have used the correct symbols ( < = >). We have also applied our skills to recognising the different values of coins and solving problems involving money. Next week we will be looking at number sequences and how to spot the patterns within them. Home learning: your child will have received a selection of questions and problems from this week’s learning as a means of embedding and securing the learning that has taken place. Please also continue to support your child with their learning of their times tables and basic number bonds to 10 and 100. These basic number facts underpin almost everything that we cover during numeracy lessons. Thank you. Next week’s times table focus will be the 2 X tables…get practising!

Literacy

This week, we have been focussing our attention on the use of conjunctions (but, so, and, which, however, because)  to join simple sentences to form compound sentences. We have been applying these skills to shared and independent writes about school and family life in the style of a non-chronological report. Next week we will be continuing to apply these skills to begin writing a non-chronological report about the Vicious Vikings.

Spellings

These Spellings will be tested on Monday 16^th September. Please support your child in practicing their spellings every day to help them achieve 10/10 in their spelling test every week.

Group One	Group Two
rain	pretty
jail	listen
tail	large
snail	college
daisy	rigid
maid	family
train	conduct
paint	river
brain	nothing
rainbow	column

Reminders

·         Please can all Year 4 children remember to bring their swimming kit and goggles if needed every Friday. They may also bring a snack to eat on the coach on the way back to school. This can be a biscuit or a piece of fruit.

·         Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

·         As the weather begins to turn that little bit cooler and wetter, please ensure your child has a suitable outdoor coat/jacket.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Team 3/4

LKS2 newsletter - 6.9.13

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We have had an amazing and exciting start to the new year in year 3/4 and we are extremely proud of all of the children for their sensible and mature attitudes towards their learning.  We are very excited for the year ahead and would like to welcome the fabulous Mrs Brook, Miss Bailey and Mrs Henshall to the happy 3/4 team.

We have been blown away by the amount of holiday home learning we have received so far. The children have worked super hard to research an aspect of Viking life which they have presented in many different ways such as: pictures, ICT presentations, fact files, models and lots more. There is still time for your child to bring in some home learning around our new topic Vikings that we can display in our classroom.

Home Learning

As part of the children’s home learning in 3/4, we ask that the children read as often as they can across the week. All of the children have now picked a new reading book and have received a brand new reading record. This is where they can evidence all of the amazing reading they are doing at home. Please continue to encourage your child to read on a regular basis and fill in the reading record. We ask that your child hands their record in on a Monday so we can reward them for each day they have read. If a child reads every day they will be rewarded with a sticker. We will also be giving spellings out every Monday that will be written in their reading records.

Literacy

During our literacy sessions, this half term, we will be learning how to write an non chronological report, diary entries and letters, The children will be developing their ideas into both compound and complex sentences using a range of powerful adjectives that they will have banked in their new Magpie books to make their writing more interesting.

Numeracy

This half term your child will be looking and Counting, Numbers and the Number System. They will learn to develop their independence around choosing appropriate strategies for solving mental maths questions, as well as develop their confidence in their times tables. 

Trip to Danelaw Viking Village

On Monday 9^th September Year 4 children will be visiting Danelaw Viking village and on Friday 13^th September Year 3 children will be going. We will leave school at 9:00 am and return at approximately 3:45 pm.

As we have our year 4 trip on Monday these Spellings will be tested on Tuesday 10^th September. Please support your child in practicing their spellings every day to help them achieve 10/10 in their spelling test every week.

Group One	Group Two
face	plant
ace	month
cake	bulb
case	length
gate	strength
wave	insect
grapes	hundred
flame	village
whale	success
snake	present

Reminders

·         Year 4 swimming will start next Friday 13^th September. Pleasecann all children remember to bring their swimming kit and goggles if needed. They may also bring a snack to eat on the coach on the way back to school. This can be a biscuit or a piece of fruit.

·         Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

Have a lovely weekend!

Team 3/4