Dear all,

You may be aware that we were due to be attending the Tandridge Singing Picnic this Friday (9th). We have, regrettably, decided not to, due to the current situation with rising Covid numbers in the local area. Last week's events showed us what an effect the threat of Covid could have on our small school community and we are not comfortable about taking the risk in the current circumstances. At the time we booked this, it looked hopeful that all restrictions would be removed by then, but this is clearly not the case. We will be singing a lot this week and I'm sure some outdoor singing can be arranged this week. I intend to revisit the event next year, hopefully with a choir from all Ks2 classes in tow, so please encourage any children who really wanted to attend to join my choir. 

Have a great week,

Miss Carter

Monday 21st June

What an amazing time we had at Hindleap! I'm having a few technical issues with uploading the pictures but they will hopefully be there by the end of the day (my internet here in Sevenoaks appears to be a little weather-worn!). I was so incredibly proud of the children and all they achieved during their time away- so much bravery, teamwork and so many personal triumphs. And resilience in making it to the end of the week- despite extreme tiredness!

This week, we'll be taking our Year 4 MTC (Multiplication tables test) online. We'll do this in small groups to make it more manageable and friendly. The children have practised the test format and I'm sure will do their very best. I've set a maths shed assignment for all times tables this week to assist with this. The test is non-statutory this year and is nothing to worry about. We just felt it would be helpful information for moving into the Upper Juniors.

So, this week, is 'Fun, Fitness and Food' week. Scheduled events are subject to change (weather!), but currently the plan is to do sports day on Tuesday. It might be Wednesday instead if the weather is bad. Tomorrow, we will organise which individual event (s) each child will participate in, in addition to their team races. On Thursday we have a whole school, socially-distanced brunch, for which we will be making some India-inspired goodies for ourselves and those in our bubble. If anyone could send in either a wooden spoon or a plastic bowl on Thursday for us to use, I'd be super grateful.

Also, during the week we'll be taking part in some circuit training and our daily run. 

We will also be considering some health-related topics, such as 5 a day, sugar in drinks, the importance of sleep. We will also be starting our statutory RSE (relationships and sex education) lessons, which will, over the rest of the term, cover:

1) Celebrating what our bodies can do and considering the differences between male and female body parts.

2) A gentle introduction to human reproduction (will be covered in more detail in upper Key Stage 2)

3) |An introduction to puberty- changes for girls and boys

4) Changing emotions during puberty

5) Changing responsibilities

6) Personal hygiene.

We will begin the lessons by setting some ground rules so that everyone feels safe/comfortable.

Spelling and maths shed assignments have been set and our spelling test will be on Friday as usual. 

So- a very different week!

Regards, Miss C

Monday 7th June

Welcome back everybody. I hope you had a great half term (I've heard some great stories today!). Today, we began our new English topic- persuasive letters. We looked at how a formal letter is set out and the persuasive features a letter may contain.  We are working towards writing a letter to the council of the city in Varjak Paw to ask them to do something about the problem of stray cats. We will also be looking at formal/informal language, apostophes and tenses as part of this work.

In maths, we are looking at comparing and ordering decimals this week. Today, we investigated making numbers using counters and the children learnt how to work systematically to find the correct number of possibilities.

Our India topic will continue in RE this week and we will continue learning about Chembakolli village. OIn science, we have learnt about how food gets to the stomach. We have concluded that it is possible (but not sensible or safe) to eat standing on your head, thanks to the amazing process of PERISTALSIS. The children simulated this today using a funnel (the mouth), water (saliva), a paint brush (the tongue), synthetic sausage skin (the oesophagus) and paper towels (the stomach). Photos below. It was rather gross, but I think we all understood!

On Friday afternoon, I will talk to the children about Hindleap- activities, expectations, equipment needed. We will devise some group rules and set individual targets. (e.g. be  brave and try the climbing wall). 

Have a great week,

Miss C

Tuesday 25th May

It's the final week of this half term. We're a bit tired but we will keep on pushing through with our learning until the end of the week. 

This week, we will write our newspaper reports about 'The Vanishings' in English, based on the brilliant book, Varjak Paw. As well as this we will look at some grammatical ideas such as when to use a/an, different forms of the past and present tense. In maths, we will continue our work on Decimals. The class have done so incredibly well with this- I'm very proud of them. We will look at writing decimals and ordering them, as well as decimals that total 1. 

We will be working very hard on our times tables over the coming weeks, as we will be informally taking the year 4 times tables check later this term. (The government have removed the requirement to do this on a national basis this year, but we wanted to celebrate the children's progress in this area, so have decided to do our own.) Please keep using maths shed and times tables rock stars to help with this.

Otherwise, we will be carrying out the egg/liquids experiment into tooth decay, and using our observational skills to describe what has happened. We set the experiment up this morning, thinking about a fair test. 

We will also be continuing our work on our Incredible India topic and finishing the week with some art.

Have a great week and a lovely half term. 

Miss C

Monday 17th May

Another exciting week awaits in Year 4! After a great deal of hard work in week one, we will continue our work on decimals in maths, looking at multiplying and dividing 1 and 2 digit numbers by 10 and 100, involving decimal numbers. We will then introduce the second decimal place, looking at lots of different 'representations' (diagrams and models) to help us. We continue to work hard on our basic number facts and the focus this week in our Number Ninjas sessions will be division of larger numbers.

In English, we will continue our work linked to the brilliant text, Varjak Paw. This has really captured the children's imaginations and we are enjoying sharing our ideas as we read together. We will focus using paragraphs and editing our diary writing, as well as re-introducing the children to newspaper reports. 

In science, we will take a further look at teeth, planning and setting up an experiment into tooth decay. In Computing, we will begin a project using Scratch (Coding program), where the focus is debugging a program so that it works properly. Last week in PE, we played rounders as a class and learnt some of the basic skills needed for the game- this work will continue this week. We will also be continuing our work on 'beat/pulse' in music, learning and performing a 4 part ostinato (repeated pattern) to accompany the song 'building' that we learnt last week. 

Lots to do!

Huge congratulations to everybody last week for the monster effort on Spelling Shed. A Victorious Emerald Class. Rather like Leicester City Football Club! (sorry- had to get it in there somewhere!)

Summer 1 wk 4  10th May

What an amazing day we had in the forest on Friday! Photos will follow.

We had an awesome science week, learning about a range of scientific concepts on the theme of innovation, such as potential/kinetic energy, renewable energy, friction, tension/torsion, sounds and materials, bacteria. Wow!

This week is back to 'normal' timetable-wise. In our maths lessons, an eagerly-awaited introduction to decimals awaits, with a focus on the first decimal place (tenths).  In our 'number ninja' fluency sessions, we'll be revising division. In English, we'll be continuing our work using the awesome book Varjak Paw, looking especially at paragraphing, working towards a longer piece of free writing, split into paragraphs. We will be working hard on our topic learning this week, looking at the natural features of India (making a rather fabulous map!) and introducing the children to the village of Chembakolli, where we will spend a number of lessons learning about different aspects of Indian village life.

We spotted the rounders court being drawn out last week, so PE this week will be an introduction to my favourite team game! 

As we were in the forest on Fri, we have a couple of bits of science to finish, but once done, I will send home the booklets they have kept during the week, for you to see at home.

Miss Carter

PS spellings below- assignments have been set. On maths shed, I've set 2 assignments, which are quiz style rather than the usual fluency activities. This week, it's revising rounding to the nearest ten and hundred. 

Monday 26th April

It's the start of another week of hard work and fun in Emerald Class. First of all- well one to everyone for a monster effort on spelling shed last week. I didn't get a chance to check on Friday, but we are currently (Sunday Eve) only a whisker behind year 6, and five of the top seven players are Emeralds- Rory, Myah, Imogen, Charlotte and Esmee. Proud teacher! This week your spelling and maths assignments are as normal, but I've noticed a feature i hadn't spotted before on maths shed- the 'lessons' tabs. Click on stage4, Spring, fractions, lesson 9 or 10. Both of these would be really useful this week.

This week, we start our new, top-secret but very exciting book in our English lessons. We'll be writing descriptive poetry, thinking about characters' thoughts and feelings and writing a diary entry. At the same time, we will be continuing our work on sentence structure by looking at how our new author uses this skill. In maths, we will be finishing our learning about fractions this week. Decimals next week! In our topic lesson, we'll be looking at the geography of India and in RE, beginning to look at religions of India. The topic began well last week and there's a great amount of excitement about the learning to come. We will also be continuing our learning about digestion in science, by learning about the first stage of digestion- the mouth, tongue, teeth team!

Have a great week.

Miss C

Monday 19th April

Hello everyone! Welcome back to the Summer term. I hope you've had a great holiday, enjoying the sunshine when it arrived, and probably being as confused as Luna and I when it snowed! 

I'm really excited about this term! I've just been having another think about our topic and adding some more ideas and I think we're ready to go! Our topic this term is a new one for Year 3 and 4: Inside India. We are going to take a look at the amazing country of India, at its geography (getting the atlases out again, which I love) and at life in India. India is the seventh largest country in the world, but has the second largest population: over 1.2 billion people! That's 1200,000,000, I think! It's also a place of incredible food and music, which I'm excited to be able to show you. It's going to be a great term!

This week, we will have a poetry focus in our English lessons, inspired by some amazing photographs of a journey through India. In maths, we will continue our work on fractions, looking at fractions greater than one whole, subtracting fractions and finding fractions of a set of objects. We will also begin our science topic of digestion and in our topic lessons, begin to consider the characteristics of a country. We will also look at e safety on the topic of 'Share with Care'.

Early night tonight please everyone. Remember your PE kits, water bottles, pencil case and- if you can find them- your yellow reading records.

Take care, 

Miss Carter

Thursday 1st April

We have had the most incredible 2 days working on and testing our chariots. The children have been resilient, resourceful, polite, patient, helpful and safe. They once again excelled themselves in helping each other! Today we tested our chariots in a race round our own 'Circus Maximus' around the playground, with the traditional 7 lap race being performed twice- once with a duck passenger and once without (ask your child). It was so much fun. Photos of the whole process below!

Have a wonderful Easter everyone.

Monday 22nd March

Spring has sprung and we've had a wonderful day in Emerald class. Today, we had a computing lesson with the Chromebooks. The children are now all confident about logging on and finding what they need and this week's lesson was so much better than last week. The Chromebooks are amazing and we had a wonderful time learning how to animate a sprite using the coding programme Scratch. 

In maths, this week we continue learning about equivalent fractions using the fraction wall, then we'll be looking at sequences involving fractions (counting in fractions) before dipping our toes into the land of fractions bigger than one. The children have really increased their confidence with fractions over the last week and we are learning that being stuck in the learning pit for a while is not so bad. In Ennglish, we're learning about Viking myths/sagas, starting with the story of Biorn, a warrior who wants to die in battle rather than of old age so that he can reach 'Valhalla'. We will also be looking at Viking Creation stories and using these to improve our sentence structure and use a variety of fronted adverbials.

Otherwise, we'll be continuing with our Roman dance and learning further skills in basketball for PE, continuing our work on designing a Roman chariot in DT and learning about invertebrate classification groups in science. A busy week ahead.

I was so excited to hear that we are off to Hindleap in June. Non-residential but still enormous fun and so good for the children, particularly in terms of teamwork and confidence. Please respond to the letter (emailed) as soon as you can.

Next week, we will be making our chariots . Please send in some cardboard if you have it- cereal box or small Amazon package would be great- on Monday. We will have some spare cardboard in school, but not enough for everyone, so if you can help, please do.

Spellings for the week are below.

Regards, Miss Carter

Monday 15th March

We're back! It has been so wonderful to spend time together over the last week and I've been so impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment to learning the children have displayed. Today was an exciting day because we got to use the brand new Chromebooks that are now in school. Every child had their own Chromebook and, after some teething problems with the whole 'logging in' issue we were up and running. It is my hope that we will use these often- I in fact have them planned for a group to use during guided reading tomorrow. 

We are continuing with the topic begun in lockdown: Conquerors and Warriors. We are moving on to the realm of the Vikings to finish the topic. On Thursday, we'll take this topic into our English lessons, looking at Viking myths and legends. In maths, we have begun the previously postponed topic of fractions and I believe we are already seeing that they are not a difficult as we thought they were! 

Today, I handed out spelling slips to every child but if they've already managed to lose them, the documents are below. 

PE is back to 'normal'- Tues indoors and Thursday outdoors.

Have a great week,

Miss C

Tuesday 5th January

Good morning! I can't quite believe what has happened in the last 24 hours and I really hope you are all managing to find some peace in the midst of chaos. I send you all my thoughts and I am already missing my gorgeous Emeralds terribly.

As communicated last night, remote learning will begin in earnest tomorrow. This will be in a different form from last time and will involve a mixture of resources. Please bear with us as we start this new way of working. We really are trying to do the best we can for the children, but there may be some initial teething problems. (Very steep technology learning curve for me- I'm feeling a little old!).

Today: 1 white rose maths activity. We were due to be starting a new unit this term on multiplication and division- so this begins online today. It is important to do the lessons so that you do not become confused later on. Plus 1 English task.

MATHS 

Multiplying by 10.

Video link and worksheet below.

ENGLISH

I'd like to start a new unit on writing newspaper articles. (posh words=Journalistic Writing)

To help us with this, we're going to use an awesome animation, called 'The Lighthouse'. Link is below.

Today, watch the whole video (perhaps more than once) and make a story board of the story of the lighthouse animation. I've added a picture below to remind you of how to do this. If you finish, write some speech bubbles about what the Lighthouse Keeper might tell us about this incident. 

Keep these safe as you will need them in the rest of our lessons over the next few days.

Remember to use spelling shed and times table rock stars- I will set new spelling activities next week, but this is a good chance to revise last term's spelling patterns.

Have a great day, Miss Carter

Well-wow! The final week of term, the final school week of the strange year that 2020 has been. I'd like to take this opportunity to say what an enormous delight it has been teaching Emerald Class this term. They have been fun, enthusiastic, resilient, entertaining, hardworking, thoughtful and kind. On Friday I had the crazy idea to make origami Christmas trees. (See link below) They are not easy, despite what the website says, and as we worked, I began to get that sinking feeling 'Uh Oh- bitten off more than you can chew here, Carter'. BUT what happened next shows exactly what this class are like. As soon as children understood the concept, they were keen to help each other and TOGETHER we did it! Fabulous.

This week will of course be rather different. Tuesday is the most 'Christmas-tastic' day, with the Christmas Carol Celebration on the playground in the morning (weather permitting!) and the class parties in the afternoon. (I can't tell you what a joy it was to hear the children singing together as we rehearsed in the drizzle for a short while on Friday- made me a little teary!). Tuesday is also Christmas jumper day. The children can also bring in a Christmassy hat to wear outside for the carolling- as long as it isn't the kind of hat that spontaneously bursts into song! The party food is already in quarantine in the school building- the children do not need to bring anything in. THE CHILDREN MAY BRING IN A CHANGE OF CLOTHES IN A LABELLED PLASTIC BAG. OR THEY CAN JUST BRING IN A CHANGE OF TROUSERS/SKIRT TO WEAR WITH THEIR CHRISTMAS JUMPER.

There will be a few bits and pieces coming home on the last day, including pencil cases, so that they can be checked/replenished over the holidays. Please send in a plastic/foldable/cloth (basically anything that can scrunch up) bag for this purpose on the last day. I will send PE kits home tomorrow. 

It will be a different Christmas this year, but i wish you all nuggets of joy in the little things.  I will probably be spending Christmas day shouting at the oven, waiting as I always have to for the roast spuds!!!! 

Miss C

Monday 30th November

My goodness! December this week.... Thoughts turning to Christmas but still lots of fantastic learning to do.

The children did brilliantly during art week- photos to follow. We spent a while working on portraits, using sketching pencils and the children then created some half and half art where one half was their 'normal' self in black and white and the other their superhero alter ego! These were tricky but the class did brilliantly. Thursday was a crazy day of glitter and paint but the art around the school is truly amazing. The class worked so hard together and helping each other. A special mention to my amazing helper for the day and the two washer-upperers! Brilliant job.

This week is a little more normal, although we do get to watch a zoom dress rehearsal of nativity performances, which I'm sure will be brilliant, as long as the famous Dormansland internet holds it together. Otherwise, we have started working on persuasive writing, particularly adverts and will this week learn an advert off by heart, before planning our own written advert for a mountain location (to link with our topic). In maths, we continue our work on measures by learning about perimeter in various ways. In science, we will be discussing why we can hear sounds more clearly through solids, than through liquids and gases, before starting our new science topic: solids, liquids and gases. In computing, we will look at the coding programme Scratch and learn about its basic functions. If the weather holds, we'll turn our lacrosse skills upside down and try our hand at hockey.

Spellings will be given out tomorrow.

Your child will be able to tell you whether they are working on the 3x table or divide by 3 table.

A busy week with lots of new things. Looking forward to it! Miss C

Monday 23rd November

Hello everyone. I hope you've had a good weekend in the beautiful autumn weather. Speaking of which, that is the weather I've booked for Friday's trip to the Forest! If you are yet to let Mrs Hardisty know how your child is getting to the forest, then please let us know.

This week is art week! On Thursday we'll be having our annual friendship day, when the corridors get turned into a Christmassy Wonderland for us to enjoy. This year, we cannot mix the classes as we normally would, but will have fun nontheless.

Through the week, the theme is 'Heroes' and we'll be looking at a range of art work, from pop art comic book heroes, to real-life NHS heroes. We'll be using a range of art materials. IF POSSIBLE, PLEASE SEND IN AN APRON/ART SHIRT OR SIMILAR.

We will also be continuing with maths/english this week, finishing off our stories in English and reviewing 'Leon and the Place Between' as well as continuing our work on measuring length in maths. 

Have a great week everyone. Miss C

PS The star of the week below has been a complete star waiting for her picture to end up on here and on the board in the classroom. Sorry E and thank you for your patience!

Monday 16th November

As I write, I've just dug out some odd socks for tomorrow, my Leicester City scarf in celebration of my home town team's current triumph and found some Christmas hats as I start to think about recording singing videos for the children for our Christmas celebration. 

This week we have a special focus on the RSE curriculum, which became statutory this year. We recognise that during lockdown, the children did not have access to this important curriculum area, so we are devoting the week to looking at some of the most important ideas from the Summer term last year. In year 4, we'll be learning about physical and mental wellbeing, including healthy choices (with a particular focus on healthy eating) and the importance of expressing feelings in a healthy way. We'll also be looking at self-esteem and, linked to anti-bullying week, the theme of being an individual. 

In English this week, we will continue to edit and refine our circus/magician adverts/descriptions, writing the 'best bits' on a circus ticket- photos to follow. We will then begin to look at the concept of telling a story from an alternative viewpoint- the viewpoint of the rabbit in the story. Through this, we will complete our learning about fronted adverbials and sentence structure.

In maths, we will round off our learning about addition and subtraction by looking at checking strategies, especially the idea of using the inverse.We will then move on to a couple of weeks looking at measurement. We will start by looking at various metric measures of length- cm, mm, m, km.

I'm also determined to get a lacrosse match in! We'll see what the weather has in mind.

Have a great week. Miss C

Monday 9th November

We had a great Enterprise week in Year 4 last week with some great learning about money in our maths lessons, as well as looking at bank accounts, budgeting and foreign Currency (which I call 'funny money') in our afternoon lessons. There was also amazing progress with times tables and lots of good spelling scores. We began our work on 'Leon and the Place Between' and the classroom has now been turned into the book, with huge thanks to Mrs Bennett whose creative energy has been amazing. This week, we continue to look at sentence structure (this week, in the words of one pupil, we learnt that 'a sentence isn't just a sentence') and use this to write a description of a new act for the circus and an advert for the magic show described in the book. Yay- exciting!

In maths, we'll continue to work on our subtraction skills, looking at calculations with one, 2 or even 3 exchanges, as well as different methods for efficient subtraction. We'll continue to look at the 7x tables. Those who've already reached 'Grand Master' status will look at their 'divide by 7' table- I'll let them know who this is tomorrow. The maths shed assignment will reflect this for everyone.

In our science this week, we'll learn about how sound travels through solids and gases, and make predictions about through liquids. We'll be continuing our internet safety lessons and this week will be our final lacrosse lesson- we will attempt to have small/large sided matches. They've done so well with this tricky sport and the shrieks of joy that go up when they catch a ball (including me!) are brilliant!

Busy week!

Take care everyone, 

Miss Carter

Monday 2nd November

Welcome back! I hope there have been some 'nuggets of joy' in your half terms. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody tomorrow and to getting back to learning together. This week, we'll start a new book in our English lessons (whilst continuing to read the BFG for fun)- Leon and the Place Between. It's an incredibly beautiful picture book full of amazing language. This week we'll look at descriptive language and begin to think about sentence structure. In maths this week, we'll move from addition to formal subtraction. As this week is Money/Enterprise week, we'll also use some of our maths lessons to focus on money. Learning about money will also be a feature of many of our afternoon lessons. PE will be as normal, looking at creating sequences in gymnastics using key shapes. In outdoor PE, we will continue looking at lacrosse, learning about specific skills in attack and defence in prep for a full game.

Under this message, you'll find your spellings for this week. These have been set as an assignment on spelling shed.

In response to feedback at parents evening, I'm going to introduce a new 'level' in our times tables tests. If the gruesome grid is completed before the time runs out, then you will have achieved 'expert' status, if it is completed in under 1min 30 s, then 'grand master' status will be achieved. The long term aim is to become a grand master in as many tables as possible, but I'm hoping this will give us all a chance to achieve success at this early stage in the year. This week (and next) we'll be working on the dastardly 7x table. I'll set an assignment on maths shed in line with this.

Have a great week, Miss C

Harvest Time!

I just wanted to say how awesome the children were for our Harvest Celebration this morning. They sang their socks off, signed beautifully to the new song 'Let's Harvest' and performed our class song, Alphabet Harvest, with enthusiasm. Below are a couple of pictures- I'm sorry there's not more, but my camera hates me! (Sorry I can't upload any pictures because the internet in the classroom is so poor this evening. Will try at home.)

 Monday 19th October

We are nearly there!  An eight week, marathon first half term is almost over! On Wednesday, we will be having our Harvest Celebration via zoom.The children have prepared 2 songs to sing with the rest of the school and one that's just ours- called 'Alphabet Harvest'. I will endeavour to take some photos on the day itself so that you can all share in the fun. 

This week, I will not be setting any spellings or times tables to learn as we only have 4 days. I've set a couple of assignments on spelling/maths shed- maths, one that summarises some times tables work we've done, and Spelling- some general vocabulary spelling work.

In our English lessons this week, we will be completing our BFG giant reports, which the class have been very excited about. I've just finished marking the first half of them and they've managed to scare me!! In maths this week, we'll be working on formal addition, with one or more column exchanges. We'll also be continuing our work on internet safety and finishing off some learning about sound for science. Hopefully, there will also be some time to complete some mountain-related art that we began on Friday.  

Have a great week. I look forward to catching up with parents and carers on zoom during the week and am really hoping the technology will be on our side! Happy new week. 

Miss Carter

Monday 12th October

What an amazing day we had in the forest on Friday! It was lovely to see them being reunited with the concept of forest school and we were so lucky with the weather. Photos below! 

This week, we'll  be completing our work on place value in maths  (mnmnmnmmmmmmmmmmm - this part of the webpage was written by Luna!) by learning about negative numbers. We'll then move on to addition and subtraction.

In English, we are working towards writing our own information text about giants. We will be learning about effective headings/subheadings, tenses and a few other important features before making our own notes from a combination of information from the BFG and our own wonderful imaginations. Last we learnt to use mind maps to organise notes so we will use this technique when planning.

Our science work will continue this week, look at how wind instruments work and how they change pitch. I have some surprising musical instruments to show them!

In PE we are putting together our own can can dances which I hope to video quite soon so that you can see them. It has been great fun.

We also need to learn our contribution to the Harvest assembly (a song of course- it is me!). Busy week.

A reminder that last week's spelling/tables tests are Monday and then we'll do this week's on Friday as normal. 

I won't be testing spellings and tables in the last week of term.

have a great week, Miss Carter

Monday 5th October

I hope none of you have been washed away during the weekend! I have been battling with a grumpy cat for most of the weekend- she's not happy about the indoor life!

This week is exciting, because we have our first trip to the Forest on Friday. If you haven't been in contact with Mrs Hardisty re. transport, please do so as soon as possible. Thank you in advance to all those helping in this way- we couldn't have these amazing days without your help. I think, given the rain, wellies will be required. We have some on the 'welly wall' in school if you are lacking- no promises on correct sizes but we'll try.

Due to our forest trip, this week's spelling and gruesome grid times tables test will be moved to the following Monday, 12th October. Spelling are found below this message. The focus times table this week is the 8x table (Mrs Bennett's group 4x and 8x- we will test you on the 4x). This week, we continue our work on place value in maths, looking at comparing and ordering 4 digit numbers, followed by rounding to the nearest thousand and counting in steps of 25.

In English, we continue using the BFG as inspiration but this time, moving on to non-fiction, information texts. I will use an amazing scrapbook/information book called 'The Gloriumptious World of Roald Dahl' to help us. We'll be identifying the features of info texts, comparing texts and learning how to mindmap. We'll finish on Thurs by learning a text about mysterious creature called the 'sneaglegator' off by heart.

In addition, we'll carry on our work on physical maps in our topic work and begin looking at internet safety in computing. We will continue creating our own cancan dances in PE. There will be no outdoor PE on Thurs, as we will be walking miles in the forest on Friday!

Assignments have been set for for the week to appear tomorrow on spelling shed/maths shed.

Have a great week.

Miss C

What an awesome week we've had. To top it off, we've won the spelling shed league this week! Woo hoo!

A few pupils are having trouble getting on to maths shed. If you are using apple/kindle/anroid devices, there's a separate app for maths shed that I think is free (I checked just now). If you are having problems finding it or getting on to maths shed, let me know. You could always send me a picture/screen shot of the issue so that I can ask the helpdesk at Edshed for help. 

Their BFG stories written over the last 2 days are amazing!

Miss Carter

Monday 28th September

Wow- week 5 of the term! The class have worked hard over the last week. It was great to 'see' so many of you at the coffee morning. If you have any further questions, please do ask. A reminder that the LGFL virtual classroom is not being used day to day work/homework etc. It is being set up in the unlikely event that we go into a class/bubble/local/national lockdown. We've sent passwords now so that we can ensure it works in good time and so that we can test it- watch out for a test document coming soon.

This week, we'll be continuing our work on the BFG, with some important grammar learning on fronted adverbials. We'll be writing our own stories about the BFG's visit to Dormansland (didn't you hear about it?) . In maths, we will be continuing our work on 4 digit numbers, looking at partitioning and number lines, followed by counting in steps of 10, 100 and 1000. This week's focus times table in the 6x table. In science, we'll be continuing to work on sound- with an initial lesson on pitch- and in topic we will study physical maps and what they show us about Europe. 

I have set assignments on both spelling shed and maths shed. Maths shed- I've focused on the 6x table, as they will be tested on this on Friday.

Spellings for this week are below.

Miss Carter

 21st September

Another week begins! The children in Emerald class are settling in to Year 4 really well.

Today, I have introduced them to their first set of spellings for the year. These will always be handed out on a Monday and tested on Friday, except on Forest weeks. Below is a document containing the spellings, and I have given them a spelling slip to bring home. These spellings have also been set as an assignment on Spelling Shed. Hopefully the new logins work- please let me know if not.

We will also be having a times tables 'quiz' every Friday, based for now on a specific table we've been working on in class. After a while, we will move to the children choosing their own times table to work on. This week, we are looking at the 4x table. This will be tested via a Gruesome Grid every Friday. 

This week, we will be taking a look at Roman Numerals up to 100 in maths, before revisiting rounding to 10/100 in a problem solving context and beginning to look at 4 digit numbers. In English, we will continue using the BFG to learn about writing accurate and interesting direct speech. In science, we will continue our practical investigations into sound and discover what happens when a sound is made. In PE, we will continue our work on lacrosse, looking at how to catch a ball. We will also begin to learn about European dance in PE. We will also have our first music lesson on the year, listening and responding to a piece of music that has quite a lot to do with this term's topic. 

Phew- busy week! Take care. 

Miss Carter

Monday 14th September

SPELLINGS

Just a note to say that I will begin sending spellings home to be learnt from next week, once the Spelling Shed passwords have been reset. This week we will work on spelling rules in class. 
 

Additionally, please could parents/carers sign reading diaries once a week where indicated? Many thanks.

Friday 11th September

Afternoon everybody! It has been a fantastic week in Emerald class and I have really enjoyed getting to know the class and seeing them getting on enthusiastically with their learning. They've also shown me what good friends they all are and their personalities are shining through. We had a fire drill today and their behaviour was absolutely exemplary. Well done!

We have been working on a wonderful book this week, alongside the whole school, called 'Once Upon an Ordinary School Day'. They've done some drama, learnt some of the book off by heart, examined characters' feelings and so much more. Today we rounded off the week by writing a diary entry which was done very well. We've been spending the week in maths thinking about some of the 'big ideas' that will help us in maths, such as : everyone can learn maths to a high level, Mistakes are powerful, depth is more important than speed. We have worked on some puzzles and investigations using both numbers and shapes. We've also started to learn how to play lacrosse in PE and begun to think about our topic: location, Location, Location. We've also done a little bit of music, inspired by the Ordinary School day book.

Next week we start a new book for English: The BFG. We'll begin by looking at how to write speech and how to add detail to description. In maths, we will look at place value  in larger numbers. We will continue to work on our Location, Location, Location topic, with an introduction to European Countries, as well as finishing some art we began related to mountains.

It's going to be a great week! 

Miss Carter

PS Below is something I wrote this PM when we were talking about what the children were proud of this week. 

Well how much fun was day one back at school? If the children in Emerald Class are feeling anything like their teacher this evening, they may be a bit sleepy. I'm trying to be very gentle but it was a huge (and fun!) shock to the system today! It was so lovely to see all their smiling faces and to watch them playing happily with their friends. It's great to be back!

We spent some time today talking about how to keep everyone safe and the children have been brilliant at following the guidance. I think we've already used industrial quantities of hand sanitiser. Tomorrow, we will talk about our class charter (I prefer that to 'rules'), where we'll think about our rights and responsibilities in school. I will put a photo of the agreed charter on here as soon as I can. 

Over the next few days, you will receive you Welcome letter for the term, with details of topics, home learning expectations, PE days etc. 

I'm going to send reading books home by the end of the week, based on Year 3 assessment information. If the book is too hard for your child, please let me know and we'll change it. I will be carrying out informal reading assessments next week which will help me to get the level right. Bare with me.

I look forward to meeting you all either in person or virtually soon.

Don'f forget that if you need to contact me, you can do so on info@dormansland.surrey.sch.uk or telephone the school and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Regards, Miss Carter

PS Picture below is of my trusty sidekick, Patch the bear, who has been working with me for 20 years this year!