with

Miss Lillis (4 Craufurd)  Mrs Seker & Mrs Davis (4 Field)

supported by Miss Cooksey 

Due to COVID lockdowns, the current Year 4 children missed out on their Nativity and KS1 plays. Some parents brought this to our attention and asked if this could be remedied. Therefore, Year 4's musical production of 'The Wizard of OCEPS' will take place on Tuesday 21st May. There will be a morning and afternoon performance to parents. Look out for details about times and tickets. 

Auditions have already taken place and rehearsals will be on-going throughout April and May. We can't wait to perform for you! 

PE in the Summer Term will only take place once a week due to Forest School sessions:

PE Day: Monday 

Forest School : Wednesday Class 4C,  Thursday Class 4F

Children are required to wear their PE kits (with trainers) to school on their PE days and clothes suitable for Forest school on their specific day.  Please bring named wellies and any waterproofs in a separate bag if the weather is rainy.  

We strongly encourage children to complete set homework. This can really help them to embed and extend the learning that takes place in school.

Reading for fifteen minutes every day at home can make an impact on all areas of the curriculum. In Year 4, we have a "STARBOOKS"  reading incentive. Children are rewarded for reading five times a week and having their reading diaries signed. They will have their Starbooks loyalty card signed each week and after eight weeks, will get a reward! Each week, everyone who reaches cup five enters our prize draw and two lucky winners get to a enjoy a hot chocolate treat at the Starbooks bar. We have even invested in a pod machine to make it an extra special treat!  

Tips for reading at home: 

1. Try to hear your child read aloud as much as possible. If this is not possible every day, then ask them to summarise for you, what they have read independently.

2. If your child comes across a tricky word which they can't read, try not to tell them the word straight away. Encourage them to sound it out or re-read the sentence to see if they can work out the meaning. 

3. Always check that your child understands what they have read by asking them questions about the book.

4. Check Rising Stars online to see if there is a comprehension to complete for home reading books. (Not every book has one linked online, but many of them do, so please check each one)

5. Aim to change home reading books every 1-2 weeks. Book change day is Friday in Year 4.

6. Read as widely as possible- not just your school book- read your library book, books from your shelf at home, swap books with friends, read on a kindle device, read magazines, newspapers- whatever you enjoy! 

7. Read to your children as much as possible. Hearing stories really helps them to develop attention and listening skills, imagination and vocabulary. It even impacts on writing skills. Plus, it's a lovely way to spend quality time together. 

8. Look out for the books we are reading in school and treat your child to their own copy at home. We often refer to them on Dojo. 

Children now have their Doodle Learning Username and Passwords.  They can access Doodle Learning from the internet or as downloaded apps on phones, i-pads/tablets or PC's.  

https://doodlelearning.com/

There are 4 areas/apps:

Spellings, Maths, Times Tables and English. 

Evidence shows that practising little and often enables learning to be transferred from the short term to the long term memory.  Therefore, we suggest 5 minutes a day on each area.  Children can receive up to 20 Dojo Points a week  if they stay in the 'Green Zone'.

This section of our webpage will be updated every term. Please check back to find out what we will be learning as well as suggestions for enriching learning at home including projects  and competitions!

This term, we will become history detectives, travelling back tens of thousands of years as we explore ancient Britain, beginning with the Stone Age. Where did these early humans live? What tools did they make/use and how did they spend their time? We will be tracking human development through the Iron Age, discovering what life was like as a Celt in Britain between 800BC- 43AD when the Romans invaded. Finally, we will investigate the legacy of Roman Britain, culminating in an exciting trip to the Roman Baths.

Our BIG QUESTION is:

Would you rather be a hunter-gatherer, a Celt or a Roman?

Our art work this term will be inspired by the Celts as we learn about and design a range of Celtic knots. We will use our knots to create foil prints to design shields for Celtic warriors. I wonder which one Queen Boudicca would choose?

Our science topics are electricity and magnets.  The children will mostly be taking part in practical investigations, testing and making their own electrical circuits.  They will end the unit by designing and making an electrical or magnetic game based on our History topic on The stone Age, Iron Age and Romans. 

National Curriculum objectives

• compare how things move on different surfaces
• notice that some forces need contact between 2 objects, but magnetic forces can act at a distance
• observe how magnets attract or repel each other and attract some materials and not others
• compare and group together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of whether they are attracted to a magnet, and identify some magnetic materials
• describe magnets as having 2 poles
• predict whether 2 magnets will attract or repel each other, depending on which poles are facing

• identify common appliances that run on electricity
• construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers
• identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery
• recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and associate this with whether or not a lamp lights in a simple series circuit
• recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors

In English, we will continue to practise fluent, joined writing with our pens. We have done really well so far, but practice makes perfect! Our focus on basic skills of spelling and punctuation will continue to be a priority as we aspire to use all the features of our everyday toolkit.

Our first writing unit of the Summer Term  will be a portal story. We will be linking this to our History work on hunter gatherers and will be hoping to see lots of the following features when we write our own portal stories at the end of the unit:

Punctuation:

-Apostrophes for omission and possession (singular & plural)

-commas to mark clauses

Text Level:

Paragraphs

Build in suspension

Plan openings

Sentence construction:

Start with a simile

Long and short sentences for effect

Compound sentences

Complex sentences with a range of subordinating conjunctions

Word structure:

Prepositional phrases

Proper nouns

Description Toolkit:

-‘Show-not-tell’: describe character’s emotions using senses or a setting to create atmosphere

-Select powerful, precise and well-chosen nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives that really match

-Use personification, metaphors and similes to create atmosphere

-Use alliteration to add to the affect

-Use expanded noun phrases to add intriguing detail

Our next class reader is The Wild Way Home by Sophie Kirtley. Below is the blurb to hook you in, feel free to purchase a copy t bring into school and read along each day.

When Charlie's longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie's world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It's become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins. For Charlie has unwittingly fled into the Stone Age, with no way to help the boy or return to the present day. Or is there?

What follows is a wild, big-hearted adventure as Charlie and the Stone Age boy set out together to find what they have lost - their courage, their hope, their family and their way home.

The children have been learning and practising their times tables all year. The week commencing 3rd June, children will sit the statutory Year 4 Multiplication Check.  Please continue to practise at home.  This can be done through Doodle Learning or the following sites:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/

This half term in Maths, the units will cover decimals followed by money and time.  We will continue to develop our skills and knowledge through concrete (practical resources), pictorial and abstract methods.  Once confident through fluency, the children will be stretched through reasoning and problem solving.  

Examples:

Time - Children will converting between analogue and digital times, using a 24 hour clock.  

The second half term will focus on the units of shape, statistics, position and direction.  

• Angles - acute, obtuse, right-angle
• Triangles
• Quadrilaterals
• Polygons
• Lines of symmetry
• Line Graphs
• Plotting co-ordinates on graphs

In RE, we are looking at a unit of work about The Kingdom of God. We will be considering when Jesus left, what was the impact of Pentecost? Children will make links between ideas about the Kingdom of God explored in the Bible and what people believe about following God in the world today.

Do you want to enrich your learning this term, earn extra dojos and see your work celebrated on Class Dojo? Then why not try one of these activities below:

*Design and make a history-themed board game based on the Stone Age, Iron Age and Romans.

*Visit Chedworth Roman Villa https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/gloucestershire-cotswolds/chedworth-roman-villa and create a slideshow of your day to share with the class.

*Research stone age cave art and decorate a stone or slate.

*Make a model of a Celtic roundhouse.

Please note- any links above will take you away from the Oldswinford CE Primary website- we urge you to check ahead for unsuitable adverts on YouTube