Our Topic –
North and South America: which continent would you like to explore further?
In this geography unit the children learn about North and South America and how the continents differ in terms of climate, population density and culture. We will explore which countries make up the continents North and South America and their geographical features. Through our work we will be discussing which continent we would like to explore and why.
Children will be exposed to a variety of maps in order to gain an understanding of the continent’s topography.
During school, we will be continuing to improve our calculation skills in the four operations (+,-,x,÷) and using them to help us solve problems. We use White Rose Maths to help with our planning, details can be found at https://whiteroseeducation.com/
We are continuing to encourage the children to learn from mistakes they make in maths and to develop their perseverance when solving a tricky problem.
The children should be practising their times tables ready for a weekly times tables test with Mrs Eames. It is our expectation that by the end of Year 4 children will know their tables up to 12 x 12. Any other Maths activities you can do at home with your child are always helpful: practising telling the time, playing a board game, measuring ingredients for a recipe or adding the cost of items at the supermarket.
Use the link from our webpage http://www.shirwell.devon.sch.uk/pupils/class-2/ which has some good online resources to help your child learn their tables.
We also like: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button and https://toytheater.com/category/math-games/
We will be making links in Literacy this term with our topic; including writing diary entries as an explorer of a new land.
All children should have an ongoing reading book at home and in school. I expect them to be reading EVERY day. Please download the library app—Libby Getting started with Libby (libbyapp.com) . This is a fantastic resource from the library which offers a wide range of books and audiobooks, by well-known authors, for FREE! This term, our class novel is Bigfoot Mountain by Roderick O’Grady.
Our spellings this term will continue to be through Decision Spelling—we encourage the children to make sensible decisions when spelling unfamiliar words. Spelling lists will be handed out on Wednesday, followed by a spelling test on the following Wednesday. Each child has a login for Spelling Frame where they can practise their weekly spellings.
This will be on Thursdays with Charlie. Charlie will be developing a range of motor skills focusing on catching and throwing as well as special awareness and game play. Mr Allen will continue to teach invasion games focusing on hockey. The day for this will vary so please ensure your child has a PE kit in school so they can take part in these activities.
We will be studying “Materials” this term. We will start by recognising that materials can be grouped in different ways, we will look at the properties of solids, liquids and gases and will investigate how materials change when they are heated or cooled. This will build after half term as we investigate mixing and separating different materials. We will understand that some of these changes are reversible and some are irreversible.
The children will be planning their own investigations and then scientifically recording and interpreting their results.
Religious Studies – We will be learning about Islam through understanding how their festivals show what matters to them. We will then investigate Jewish festivals to be able to compare the two religions.
History – we will be building our chronological understanding, through using pictures related to a particular theme and using our historical knowledge to place them in order.
ICT – Our unit this term is Word Processing, aimed at teaching basic and word processing and text formatting skills. In this unit children will learn about formatting images and organising content into an effective layout.
Art/DT – We will be exploring the work of Sonia Delaunay. Children will find out about the artist’s early life, who and what she was influenced by, and how she developed her own distinctive style of art. In DT we will be developing our culinary skills to design and make delicious burgers.
Music – We will be singing, playing instruments and improvising around The Dragon Song, using our imagination and working as a class.
French – We will be writing a colour poem using our knowledge of; sentence building with nouns, colour and size adjectives and negatives, correspondence of letters to sound and the use of a bi-lingual dictionary.