Beech Class – Year 3/4
Welcome to Beech Class! We are Year 3 and 4 children.
Welcome back to Term 3! We are hitting the new year running and throwing ourselves back into learning!
Our learning this term…
Please note our Homework/Home Learning expectations have been updated. See below for more details.
We will begin this term by exploring non-fiction texts in our English lessons. Our History topic of The Ancient Greeks will heavily influence a lot of our writing this term. Initially we will focus on the story of Pandora’s Box. We are aiming to produce a new reports, a set of instructions and then end the term by creating a playscript – all based on this story.
In Maths we will start the term by consolidating our understanding of multiplication and division. We will finish learning about the formal methods of solving these calculations before moving onto our new topic of fractions. This is one of Miss Mills’ favourite Maths topics to teach, so it is sure to be fun!
Unfortunately last term we were unable to complete much of our Science topic on Electricity due to a shortage of resources. Therefore before we start our new topic on Sound, we will complete this one using lots of brand-new resources. In Art and D.T. we will be exploring Ancient Greek pottery with the aim to recreate vases using a variety of materials, including clay and papier-mâché.
Year 3 ONLY – Swimming begins on Tuesday 11th January. Please ensure that your child has a swimming costume, goggles, a swim hat, a towel and a mask for the coach journey.
Year 4 ONLY – While Year 3 are swimming, we will have our music lesson. For this lesson we will use recorders. If you have your own recorder or would like to purchase one that would be excellent, however we will be purchasing some for the school for communal use that will be cleaned thoroughly between uses. We will need our recorders from Tuesday 18th January.
Additionally final payments for our residential trip to Skern Lodge are due on Monday 17th January, Monday 21st February and Monday 21st March with the trip being from Friday 1st April 2022 to Monday 4th April 2022. More information about our trip will be sent to you as soon as we receive it – trips are still going ahead with COVID safety precautions in place.
Please note:
- PE lessons will be on Wednesdays. Please send your child to school wearing their PE kit.
- We will continue to ventilate our classrooms, so children may like to bring in additional school-appropriate layers.
- Please have in school every day a spare pair of shoes or wellies for our Adventure Play and Paddock area.
- It is important that children always have a coat in school as we will be outside as much as possible in all weathers.
Weekly Home Learning Tasks
Home Learning tasks will be set and stuck into Home Learning books on a Monday and the work and Home Learning book will be due back in school on Friday. Your child’s reading record and scheme reading book needs to come into school every day.
Please ensure your child is:
- Reading every day and note this in their reading record
- Completing at least 10 minutes of times table practise every day (for updated details see below) – children will be asked to complete other Maths activities for homework when their times table recall is both fluent and accurate.
- Revisiting and revising the spelling pattern(s) from the previous week (find the term’s spellings on the right hand side of this page. )
- Completing their weekly home learning task details of which can be found in their Home Learning Book.
Reading, Spellings and Times tables
Your child will have two reading books that they use at school. One will be a levelled scheme reading book that will go home and be brought into school every day. The other will be a book that they keep at school to read for pleasure. Your child will be assessed on their book level by the class teacher and teaching assistants at regular intervals throughout the term. We will listen to your child read individually or within a small group every week.
Spellings will be stuck into your child’s reading record on Mondays and our weekly Spelling test will happen every Friday morning. The test will sometimes take the form of a traditional spelling test, but could also be in the form of a dictation exercise. Where possible, this will be noted in your child’s reading record with either a comment or a stamp.
Times table practise will be checked and monitored every week. Children will be tested on their times tables alongside their Maths lessons so will not have a regularly scheduled times table test. We have moved away from using the Maths Club tests and we are encouraging children to use Times Table Rockstars for their daily practise – specifically the Garage and Gig modes. Within these modes the game assesses your child’s speed, accuracy and fluency, and adjusts their difficulty level accordingly. If a child has 100% accuracy but takes too long to answer the questions, they will not progress. Both elements are important when learning times tables. We are currently setting up the times tables section of Doodle Maths and this will also be available for children to use to practise their times tables. We highly recommend that children practise their times tables using an online resource several times a week, this is because at the end of Year 4 children have to complete a statutory times table test using a Chromebook at school. The test gives the children 6 seconds to read, answer and type their response to a times table question before moving on to the next question.
Login information for any online resources has been stuck into the inside cover of your child’s reading record.
Letters
Year 4 Residential Trip to Skern Lodge – Skern Letter (Year 4 2021)
Class Teachers:
Miss Mills
Ms. Cornish – Mornings in Beech Leaves
Teaching Assistants
Mrs Lake, Mrs Hillier (Mon-Wed), Mrs Appleyard (Thur & Fri) and occasionally Mr Smalley.
If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact Miss Mills or Ms. Cornish on Class Dojo.
This year we have read…
Mr Penguin and the Lost Treasure by Alex Smith
The Dragon in the Library by Louie Stowell
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
