Welcome to Year 4

Ms Roberts - Heather Class
Mrs Pounder - Heather Class
Mr Standen - Clover Class
Mr Barber - Year 4 Teaching Assistant

A Very Warm Welcome to Year 4

WWelcome back from the Easter Break. We hope that you are all well rested and are ready for an action-packed summer term! We are really excited to jump into teaching and learning with our amazing 'history' led topic:

“How and why did the Ancient Greeks build so many temples?”

This half term the children will be exploring the history of Ancient Greece along with the lives and beliefs of its inhabitants. They will study the mytholgoy of the period, the gods of Mount Olympus and the impact they had on daily life. In Art they will link their learning to this by constructing models of Greek temples. We will be using our class novel and collections of Greek myths to help us to write our own myths and explanation texts for how to look after a mythical beast. 

Our class novel this half term is 'Beast of Olympus: Beast Keeper' by L Coats, the first book in a delightful action-packed series, that brings to life the gods, goddesses and mythical beasts of the ancient Greek pantheon.

A boy is reunited with his long-lost father, the Greek god Pan, only to find himself taken to the kingdom of the gods.

What begins as just another ordinary day for Demon ends up being far from normal . . . because travelling on a rainbow to Mount Olympus is a bit odd for anyone, even if your dad is the Greek god Pan! When he arrives, Demon is in for a shock. The stables are full of mythical beasts like the flatulent Cattle of the Sun and a very grumpy Griffin. All Demon's animal husbandry skills, polished on his mother's farm on Earth, are going to be put to a rather exacting test as he tries to sort out the chaos and deal with the upset and concern of the gods. Can the stableboy help the Nemean lion that Heracles has hurt, and avoid incurring Hera's wrath if he can't heal her pet Hydra . . .

Over the half term, we will also be learning:  

o   MATHS - Decimals, money and time

o   SCIENCE - How sound travels, how it's made and how we hear sounds

o   COMPUTING - Programming and coding algorithms on Logo

o   HISTORY - Studying the Ancient Greeks

o   ART - Construsting model Greek temples

o   SPANISH - Days of the week, months of the year and how to say when our birthdays are  

o   PSHE - Relationships

o   PE - Athletics and swimming

We will continue to ask the children to read three times a week at home and to practise their spelling weekly. These will be given each Wednesday and tested the following Wednesday. 

Key Dates for Spring 2

Monday 2nd May 2022 May Day Bank Holiday	Thursday 5th May 2022 Class Photographs	16th-20th May 2022 Walk to School Week

PE and Swimming

In the Summer term, PE takes place on Wednesday whilst we are going swimming each Thursday afternoon. Please could all children wear their PE kits to school on Wednesday but bring swimming kit on Thursdays. PE kits consist of PLAIN black shorts or jogging bottoms, PLAIN white t-shirt, and trainers. Children should wear their school jumper too. Please see the timetable for this half term below:

Homework in Year 4

Each week, we ask that all children read with somebody at home at least three times a week. This could be any adult or an older sibling or friend. Please sign their diary and add a comment. Every little bit of reading really does help children on the learning journey. We also ask that the children practise their weekly spellings which can be found below. We conduct a spelling quiz each week, and these words form part of our English teaching for the week. A vital aspect of Maths is that the children have a secure recall of times tables so we ask that they spend some time each week on TT Rockstars practising these. We also have half-termly homework challenges to complete with children being rewarded for their efforts of going above and beyond by up-levelling to a bronze, silver or gold card!

Check out our class blogs to see what we've been doing in school!

Clover Class Passport

Heather Class Passport