I cannot believe how quickly the year is going and that the Summer Term is here already. We had a wonderful and exciting Spring Term which ended on a complete high with our “Pirates vs Mermaids” production. Once again, I just want to say how proud I am of all the children for their enthusiasm and energy – they were all total superstars!
Now, we have a busy Summer Term full of new learning opportunities, topics and fun! I am really looking forward to beginning our final term of Year 4.
In PSHE, we will continue to follow our “Jigsaw” scheme of work. In the first half term, we will be discussing “Relationships”, including families and friends, and then move to “Changing Me” in the second half term where we will look at how we deal with changes in our lives. This final unit involves transition and will support the children in their transition into Year 5.
Our History topic this half term is going to be shared between myself and Mrs Gordon as we teach Romans and Stone Age to Iron Age in two different groups, depending on last year’s learning. The children will use the skills of chronology, enquiry, interpretation and communication to study their History topic. We have a couple of very exciting ‘WOW’ days to look forward to and I know the children will enjoy travelling back in time and becoming historians.
In the second half term, we will continue with History and our ‘British Heroes’ unit where we will study the life and work of Elizabeth Browning, a celebrated Victorian poet.
In Science, the children will finish off our topic on ‘Animals Including Humans’ and start our new topic on ‘Electricity’. They will learn all about electrical appliances, circuits and conductors. They will learn how to build a simple circuit and use their skills to create an electronic game in DT.
In English, we will start the first half term by studying our second Year 4 poet of the year – Alan Ahlberg. The children will love reading and studying his humorous poetry and will have the opportunity to write and display their own poems.
Later in the term, we will be using a video stimulus called “Taking Flight” to inspire the children to write a narrative linked to our PSHE unit ‘Relationships’. The video focuses on the relationship between a Grandad and Grandson who go on an imaginary adventure together on a go-cart they have built together. The children will use narrative techniques like descriptive writing and dialogue with action to plan and write their own story. I know how much the children enjoy writing stories so I am really excited about seeing their final stories.
Once we have completed our stories, we will be writing instruction texts linked to DT and Science where we will be making and building our own electronic games. In the final part of the term, we will learn how to write formal letters.
We will continue working our way through comprehension, grammar and spelling with our weekly lessons and spelling tests each week. It is really important for the children to complete practise their spellings at home as often as they can.
In Maths, we will be finishing our fractions unit and moving onto decimals. As the term goes on we will be learning about money, time, statistics and shape. As the weather is starting to look up, we will be taking our learning outside as much as possible. We will continue to practise our times tables daily through Times Table Rockstars, activities and songs. We want to encourage everyone to continue practising these at home every day to improve their fluency and recall ready for the Multiplication Tables Check in July. Information will be sent to all parents/carers nearer the time, but if you do have any questions about this or would like advice on games and activities, please do not hesitate to ask. The children also continue to complete weekly arithmetic tests and we will also be introducing reasoning tests throughout this term to help them with problem solving and reasoning questions.
The children will also be enjoying a 10-week unit of swimming lessons at Chard Leisure Centre. This is a very exciting opportunity and I know that they children will love the sessions and are already excited about getting started.
In RE, children will continue their learning into Christianity. They will be learning about sins and forgiveness through a variety of religious stories.
In Computing, we will be learning about computer programming, using the programme ‘Scratch’. Children will learn to write code, create loops and debug a sequence in a computer programme.
In Art this term, we will be studying the techniques of printing using the work of Frank Stella as our inspiration. The children will discuss their opinions of his art work, looking in depth at the colours he has used and his style of artwork. They will learn to use collagraph printing blocks to create their own design. Later in the term, we will take advantage of the warmer weather by having a Forest School day where the children will learn to weave using natural materials.
Music, PE and French, will continue as usual in weekly lesson developing their skills.
As always, the emotional, mental health and wellbeing of the children will be a priority and they will continue to have the opportunity to complete mindfulness sessions as well as Forest School sessions with Mrs Duffield.
I am really excited about the upcoming term and I looking forward to sharing more smiles, giggles and fun with our learning.
This year has gone far too quickly but I have enjoyed every single second. I am so proud of how well all of King-Smith Class have embraced and demonstrated the values of the Junior School for another year.
As always, if you have any question or would like to chat about anything, you can either catch me at the end of the day on the playground or message me on Class Dojo.
Miss Dunn
Class Teacher
