Boreal Owls Y4

Hello everyone and Welcome to Year 4!

Year 4 - Boreal Owls

Teacher: Miss Lois MacDonald 

TA: Mrs. Julie Grayshon 

TA: Miss. Beckie Sharples 

TA: Miss. Helen Belcher

Welcome to Summer Term 2

Dear Boreal Owls and Parents, 

I hope you all had a lovely half term and are ready for another packed term full of fun, laughter and exciting new learning opportunities! 

This term, we will be continuing with our topic learning of the Romans but will also be covering the event of Pompeii. Our Science topic this term is Electricity: Circuits and Conductors. I am truly looking forward to exploring both of these exciting topics with Boreal Owls. For more information on what we will be covering this term, please see the curriculum map in important info for Summer Term 2 above. 

Summer Term 2 Important information

• Drop off time is from 8:45- 9:00 am at the blue gate and will be greeted by members of staff. This will be Miss Sharples, alongside other members of staff.  The gate will be shut at 9:00 am. The children will then walk round to the door of the classroom where I will be waiting to greet them inside the classroom. 
• The children will be continuing with their guitar lessons. These will continue to take place on Thursday mornings at 9am. Last term, we had a lot of children forgetting their guitars on a regular basis. I would like to try and avoid this taking place again this term. 
• This term, the children will be having SWIMMING LESSONS on a Wednesday morning. The children will need to come to school on Wednesday mornings with their swimming kits, ready to change into, when we get to the swimming centre. They will need to bring the following:
  • A bag to keep all of their swimming kit in.
  • A towel 
  • Swim hat
  • Swimming costume
    • Trunks 
    • Swimming cozy 
  • Swimming goggles- if they require them when swimming
  • ​​​​​​​Hair brush
• The children will be having  PE on a Thursday afternoon with Mr. Northway. They will be focusing on Athletics and preparing for Sports Day! PE, this term, will be taking place outside but we all know how unpredictable the British weather can be. In light of that, it would be ideal for the children to have extra layers that can be taken on and off, when needed but also the addition of sun cream and a sun hat would be suitable as well. 
• PE kit should consist of:
  • Dark bottoms (navy, black or grey). These can either be shorts, joggers, tracksuit bottoms or a sports skirt.
  • A white top
  • A dark PE jumper or hoodie (navy, black or grey)
  • Hat
• Homework will be handed out on a Friday and will be due back in on a Wednesday. I will go through this with the children but it will not start until the children have settled back into the routine of school. The children will be given their weekly spellings to practice alongside either a piece of English, Maths or Handwriting homework or sometimes a little bit of all three. In addition, there is a creative homework research project that the children will be due in on Friday 8th July! This project is to be completed through out the term, at home, focusing an area of Pompeii that the children are interested in and wish to do further research on.
  • ​​​​​​​For full details on the creative project, look at the creative homework information sheet at the top of the class page, under important Summer 2 info.
• Pick up time is 3:30 pm and will be from the main playground. The children will be brought to the top of the playground and then will be sent down to you. If you have anything that you wish to speak to me about, at the end of the day, I am happy to do so but please wait until I have sent all of the children home before coming to speak to me. 

If you have any questions or wish to discuss anything with me, please let me know. 

Kind regards,

Miss MacDonald, Mrs. Grayshon, Miss Sharples and Miss. Belcher

This week we are learning...

English- this week we will be continuing to explore the story of Escape from Pompeii. This week we will be developing ideas for our own story, along with creating a visual story plan. 

Spelling- adding the suffix -ous (words ending in 'e' drop the 'e' but not 'ge'). 

Maths- 

• We will be looking at identifying 2D and 3D shapes, being able to identify 2D shapes within a 3D shape. In addition, we will look at being able to organize shapes according to their properties. 

Times table focus:

• 2, 5 and 10s
• 3s

Guided Reading- we will be continuing with our class novel of the One and Only Ivan. We will be reading chapters of the book this week but we will also be exploring the following features:

• summarizing key events from previous chapters
• vocabulary choices 
• predicting what will happen next 

Topic- we will be looking at and comparing the different types of houses from Roman Britain. We will also looking at recognizing elements that have survived from Roman buildings.

Science- we will learn about insulators and conductors, then either investigate the conductivity of a range of materials, or create models to show how circuits work (or not, if they have insulators in them).

Art- we will be recreating an illustration from Escape from Pompeii using collage.

PSHE-  we will be looking at the difference between ourselves and others. 

This week the children will also have Transition Day on Thursday, where they will be spending time with their new teacher for next year. In addition to this, they will also be taking part in Sports Day on Friday morning. 

Whole Class Guided Reading

This term, we will be exploring a new story. The story we are going to be exploring as a whole class is...

The One and Only Ivan. Written and illustrated by Katherine Applegate.

If you have any copies of the story at home that you would be happy for your child to bring in and use in class, I would be extremely grateful. Having a copy of their own would be extremely useful to have so if you do not have a copy at home but are willing to buy your child a copy of the story that they can bring into and keep at school, would make a huge difference and be truly appreciated. If you did wish to buy a copy of the book, for your child, I have added a link below.

One and Only Ivan

Any books that come in would need to be labelled with your child's name and they will be kept at the front of the classroom, next to my desk, in our guided reading book shelf. Once we have finished the book, the children will then be able to take their copy home and continue to enjoy this book in the future. 

Please feel free to speak to me about this if you have any questions or wish to discuss further. 

Can you climb the Reading Rainbow?

READING CHALLANGE ALERT! 

A new set of reading rainbows are coming to Boreal Owls, this term. As a result of engagement and enthusiasm showed towards this reading challenge, I have upped the level of challenge of the books that are and will be included in this terms reading rainbow!

Are you up for this exciting new challenge?!

The new reading rainbow books have arrived and we are already flying with our reading challenge. Below I have attached images showing the whole class reading rainbow challenge, as well as the Pomegranate reading rainbow challenge. 

Whole Class Reading Rainbow

Pomegranate Reading Rainbow