Welcome back, Oulton! It has been great to see that you have returned to school with positive attitudes and shown that you are ready to learn. Keep up the great work!
Our class book this term is ‘The Stolen Spear’, Saviour Pirotta. This is a book written by an author who we had the pleasure of inviting into our school a couple of years ago. It is based around our topic of Stone Ages: Wolf has always been an outsider to his community, with his strange dreams and stargazing. When he is saved by a secretive stranger called Crow, he brings her into his village. Some time later, someone breaks into the sacred burial mound and steals a precious spear belonging to a dead healer. Convinced that Crow stole the spear, Wolf is banished by his village to find it. But the world outside the village is harsh and new… will Wolf find the strength he needs to find the spear?
Maths:
We are always working on our mental maths skills and strategies in Year 3 and 4. This half term is no different as we will continue to discuss and practise the best mental strategies for solving problems, alongside continuing to learn our times tables.
In addition to this, we will be learning about Place Value, including reading and writing numbers up to 1000 in Y3, and numbers up to 10000 in Y4. Pupils will be comparing, sequencing and calculating with numbers, using bar models to help them. Following this, Year 4 will progress onto rounding and estimating to conclude this topic.
English:
We have read ‘Stone Age Boy’ this week in classes and the children have been very inquisitive about life during the Stone Ages. We are delighted to feel the enthusiasm for this topic brewing as they will be learning lots of information during their History lessons, alongside their English ones.
In English, we will be focusing on various aspects of grammar to support the pieces of writing we have planned. The children have already made a great start of their character descriptions and we know they’re setting descriptions will follow on with as much effort. There are going to be lots of writing opportunities and we are looking forward to seeing what the children’s outcomes will be.
RE/PSHE:
Children in both year groups have already started exploring ‘What do the creation stories tell us?’. They have made a brilliant start with this and have worked hard to understand some difficult concepts relating to religion. We hope that the children will continue to show respect and understand the world around them in greater depth.
Children in Year 3 and 4 will be accessing some PSHE lessons focusing on RSE this half term with their class teachers. Parents/carers should have received an information letter which gives more details about these sessions. Please ask staff in the LKS2 team if you think you may have missed this.
PE:
Our PE focus for this half term are handball and health related exercises. All classes will be accessing two hours of PE every week. Please ensure your child wears their PE kit on their PE days – you can find this information out from your child’s class teacher.
Please see below which sports your class will be learning:
Stingrays: Handball and Health Related Exercises
Pufferfish: Handball and Health Related Exercises
Blue Tangs: Handball and Health Related Exercises
Science:
Our next Science week is w/c 25/09/2023 and both year groups will be learning about Animals including humans. Children will be working within their own year groups during this week.
Spanish:
During this half term’s topic of ‘Time to Eat’, children will learn and repeat key vocabulary. They will learn to make statements about food that they like and dislike as well as making polite requests and identifying quantities. Further into the topic, children will be drawing on their prior knowledge of adjectives in Spanish to describe food and drinks items. We are hoping that by the end of this unit, children will be able to have a short conversation about food, in Spanish.
Music:
During music lessons this half term, children in Y3 and 4 will be learning songs, beats and even some dance moves in our ‘Human Body’ topic. We have planned for children to use percussion instruments to accompany songs. They are looking forward to the challenge of being able to multitask with playing, singing and dancing! Alongside lessons in class, each class will get the opportunity to work with our outreach Djembe teacher – Autumn term: Blue Tangs.
History:
In History, we will be learning about the Stone Age, the Iron Age and the Bronze Age and just how long ago these periods were! We will learn about people’s way of life during this time and how this changed over the time period. As we don’t have any written records about prehistoric times, we will find out how archaeologists have discovered what life was like then.
