Year 4

Welcome to Year 4:
Penguin Class & Puffin Class

Mr Viola is teaching Penguin Class this year and Mr Peart is the class teacher in Puffin Class.

Welcome

Welcome to year 4! We hope you find the information below useful as your child starts the year with us. This information will help you support your child at home with the organization of their week and their learning at home.

Key Times

Homework	Homework will be set every half term. Your child will be asked to work on a number of projects, designed to enrich the learning taking place in school. This approach to homework has been designed to enable you and your child to work together in a creative way and to develop a love of learning. Please see the homework document for Autumn.
PE	In year 4, the PE day is Thursday. Please ensure that your child has their PE kit and swimming kit on this day.
Trips	In Autumn term we will be visiting the cinema in Croydon. We would welcome parent helpers who hold Kent House DBS checks, so please contact the class teacher about this.
Stay and Read	The year 5 guided reading open morning will be taking place in Spring 1 – Please check here for further details.
Key Times	The school gates open at 8:30 in the morning. In KS2, children will be dismissed at the end of the day at 3:25.

Homework

Read it

Research it

Make it

Our book in English is ‘Ice Palace’ which has lots of wonderful setting descriptions.

Read a selection of fiction books and make notes of the setting descriptions used e.g. what the buildings, trees, landscape look like; what is the weather like. Consider the language used, what words and phrases are used to set the mood and tone for the story and setting.

Find out about a particular aspect of local history that interests you about Penge and Beckenham e.g. early history, famous people, important events, railways, canals, the Crystal Palace etc.

Prepare your information as an eye-catching poster so you can present your findings to the class.

Make a model of a famous London landmark e.g. The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, The London Eye, The Shard, Canary Wharf, the Gherkin, the Cutty Sark etc.

Be creative and imaginative!

Attention should be paid to materials and colours. Make it as detailed as possible.

Practise it

Write it

Design it

Practise telling the time! And …

Practise your timetables, especially 6 and 9.

Experiment with different ways to learn them e.g. write them, sing them, loud and silently, test yourself or get someone to test you.

Challenge … can you say them backwards!?

You are entering a writing competition in which you have to persuade your readers (audience) that Penge is the best town in the world to live in!

What are your favourite places in Penge? Think of: buildings, parks, libraries, shops, the school, people (family and friends), food and drink etc.

Design a logo for Penge that will best represent the town.

Think of what designs, images and objects would be effective.

What kind of background could you use? e.g. shield with a motto (a short, snappy catchphrase).What colours would best represent Penge?

A note to parents, over the course of this half term please work with your child to complete the above. Each of the activities has been designed to support, enhance and enrich an aspect of the curriculum. We are looking forward to seeing the results of your work together.

The homework will be due in on the second-to-last week of half term, which begins 10.12.18

What are we learning?

In literacy we will begin by reading “Ice Palace”. This is an exciting story about a young boy who goes on a quest to save his kidnapped brother. Through this, children will examine the role of empathy, understand character’s motivations, and think about right and wrong. In Maths, we will be focusing on multiplication and division, then moving on to shape and geometry before Christmas. We focus on these for a term so that children have a good foundation of number skills before moving on to other areas of mathematics. Our topic learning will be based around communities; our local community, our national community, and then looking across the globe at communities around the world.

How can I help at home?

One of the key ways every parent can help is to ensure that your child is at school every day and on time. Other than this, the main way you can help is by ensuring that your child reads every day, for at least 20 minutes – this can be with you, or on their own, but it is the most effective way of ensuring that your child progresses and learns outside of school. Children have a mathletics login – please encourage them to use this frequently, as it will really help with their quick recall of mathematical facts. They are also given a login to “word mania,” which can be used regular to help develop spelling and fluency.

If you have any questions, please talk to Mr Peart or Mr Viola, or you can arrange a meeting at the office.

Thanks,

Mr Viola and Mr Peart