Hello,

We hope that you are all well and keeping safe.

This week, we have started our new unit of learning on The Spider Diaries. The children have really enjoyed taking a look at documentaries including Planet Earth and the Deadly 60 (CBBC) in order to find out more about these creepy crawlies! At the start of the week, Year Four designed their very own arachnid and used vocabulary banks in order to use scientific terminology when labelling the parts of the body e.g. muscular, strong pedipalps. As the week progressed, the children then considered a selection of nouns and pronouns that they could use to replace ‘spider’ and ‘web’ for the non chronological report they shall make as their written outcome. We have been amazed by the quality of the language that has been used by the children and are delighted to see lots of pupils accessing challenge tasks e.g. Can you include a verb, adverb, or preposition to add further detail to your expanded noun phrase?

In Maths, we have been focusing on subtraction and how to use expanded column to solve problems. We discussed how to exchange values and use a ‘magic exchanging pen’. Later on, the children then had a go at bar model challenges, discussing where they felt particular numbers should go based upon their place value when interpreting a problem. By Friday, Year Four had successfully interpreted a range of multi step word problems that involved both addition and subtraction. Please make sure that your child logs on to My Maths, as there have been lots of activities set based on Money and Conversions. We look forward to exploring pounds and pence next week! What do you know about money already? How do you calculate change? Be ready to share your ideas with the class on Monday…

A few quick reminders:

• Please ensure your child wears their PE kit to school on Monday for a PE lesson with their class teacher in the afternoon.
• Red home learning books (spelling/vocabulary) and Yellow home reading journals to be handed in on Thursday please.

We hope you all have a great weekend,

Miss Honeywell, Miss Jackson-Nash and Mrs Cairns