Saturday 25th January 2020

Thank you to all of the parents who were able to make it on Wednesday morning at such short notice. We discussed the possibility of a visit to Kentwell Hall in the summer for a Tudor day and the associated costs that would come with this visit. I popped a tally chart out on the playground for all Y4 parents to let us know whether or not they would support this visit going ahead (with the costs in mind) and I'm pleased to say there there were 14 votes for 'YES' and 0 votes for 'NO'. 

Based on this, we have let the venue know that we would like to take them up on the £5 per child discount they offered and will look into different ways the children can begin fundraising to help contribute towards the costs. The office will also look into setting up a payment plan so that any parents who would like to chip away in the coming months can do so.

Thank you very much for your support! Kentwell is a fantastic and very memorable visit. More information will be on the way in due course. In the meantime, if you have any super fundraising ideas - please let us know :)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 23rd January

The children are really enjoying our 'Rainforest' topic and are busy writing formal letters to 'Jair Bolsonaro' the Brazillian president to share our concerns on the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. Also to ask him to rethink some of his policies on logging and his plans to build roads and bridges. The children have been busy using persuasive language in their letters such as emotive language, rhetorical questions and persuasive starters.

In Maths the children have been mastering multiplication methods to times a 3 digit number by a one digit number as well as solving reasoning problems using these methods.

In art the children have been busy exploring different pencil techniques and sketching animal feet. 

In dance they have been creating dances to show deforestation using different body shapes and fast and slow repeating movements.

On Monday 27th January we have a Greenpeace speaker coming in the afternoon to speak to the children about the current issues facing the Amazon. Before this lesson it would be great for the children to visit the Greenpeace website and read the information about the Amazon: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-the-amazon-is-burning-whats-the-uk-got-to-do-with-it/ It would be great for the children to have some questions up their sleeve that they would like to ask the Greenpeace speaker.

If you have any 2 litre plastic bottles you could bring in to class please can you bring them in so that the children can make their own little rainforests.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Miss Mills and Miss Howes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 21st January 2020

Dear parents, 

I have an idea I would like to put out to you and get your feedback on. If you are able, could you please come along to a quick catch up with myself at 8:45am on Thursday morning in the hall? 

Many thanks,

Miss Samantha Howes.

 

Tuesday 7th January

We have had a great first day back today. We kicked off our new topic of Rainforests by reading the Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry and taking part in some very exciting bush tucker trials! 

Please find some photos of our school trip and our bush tucker trials!

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 7th January 2020

 

I have now uploaded the Rainforest project document as a word document as I know some of you are having difficulty opening the PDF - hopefully this will help. 

See you all tomorrow. 

Miss Samantha Howes. 

 

Monday 6th January 2020

--- Happy New Year! ---

We hope you had a fantastic break and are well rested ready for the return to school tomorrow - we have lots to look forward to this term :) 

Miss Mills and I wanted to say a big thank you for the lovely Christmas gifts we received! 

I have uploaded homework onto the Homework section of this page. As usual, there are spellings to learn each week, regular reading, timestables and mathletics tasks to be completed. I have also set a little challenge related to our new topic - Rainforests! We will open up our classroom on Wednesday 12th February 2020 at 2:45pm for the children to display their homework projects. We hope they really enjoy working on them at home over the coming weeks and enjoy learning about the Rainforest. 

If you are looking for anything extra you could do with your children to help them learn about the rainforest - 'The Living Rainforest' in Berkshire is a really great, educational afternoon out. 

Miss Howes and Miss Mills. 

 

Thursday 19th December 2019

The children had a great time at their party yesterday afternoon! - thank you very much for all of the party food contributions.. the children had a feast!

I'll pop some photographs in the gallery.

 

Miss Samantha Howes. 

 

Tuesday 17th December 2019

Dear all, 

Just a reminder about some of the festive events coming up this week..

 

1) For the children's class party tomorrow:

- The children in Y4 may bring in a change of party clothes (this is class teacher's discretion so may be different for other classes)

- A sign up list should have been placed on the playground for party food contributions. Please clearly label anything containing egg/nuts. 

2) For the Christingle service on Friday all children will be making their own Christingle on Thursday - please provide your child with an orange for this. 

3) Children may bring in a selection of Christmas DVDs on Thursday - we will perhaps watch one Thursday afternoon - after English and Maths in the morning - whilst I work with groups to create the Christingles. Please make sure they are either a U or a suitable PG. 

 

Many thanks - have a wonderful Christmas break if I do not get to speak to you personally before Friday!

Miss Samantha Howes. 

 

Tuesday 26th November 2019

We have had a busy few days learning and revising our 9x tables. We have been looking at how to use the 10x table to help us to work out the 9x tables as well as finding fact families. In English we have been reading a book called Stone Age boy and today the children were learning to empathise with the main character. In the lesson the children explored the main character's feelings and then wrote great Agony Aunt letters giving him some advice. The children showed a high level of empathy towards the situation the character was facing in the story. 

We are going to be starting a Design Technology project on Monday in which the children will be making their own money container. As part of these lessons the children will need to explore different wallets and purses to get some ideas for their own designs. Please could you bring in some empty wallets or purses if you have any old ones floating around the house so that the children could explore them. It would be great to have a good wide selection to look at. As well as that if you have any spare fastenings, zips that you could donate that would be helpful.

The children are looking forward to performing in the music concert tomorrow- I managed to have a sneak preview this afternoon!! 

Thank you for your continued support.

Miss Mills

 

Friday 22nd November 2019

We have provided the children with many pencils, rulers and whiteboard pens throughout the Autumn Term so far and I'm sorry to say that despite trying different strategies to help the children to look after these many (not all!) of the children have gone on to lose or break the supplies we have given them. May I please politely ask that you consider providing your children with a pencil case as I have noticed that many of the children do not bring one into school. I am hoping that if the children have a pencil case of their own it will 1) help the children to recognise the importance of looking after their supplies and 2) help to prevent disruption to our learning as the children will have everything they need in one place... Perhaps a stocking-filler idea?

Many thanks for your support with this matter, if you have any questions - please do ask. 

Miss Samantha Howes.

 

Friday 15th November 2019

Homework has now been uploaded under the homework section of this page. It is very similar to the Autumn Term 1 homework. I have assigned 10 activities on Mathletics for the children to complete before 20.12.19 and uploaded a list of spellings to be tested weekly. 

Many thanks for your support,

Miss Samantha Howes. 

 

Wednesday 13th November

Welcome back! We hope the children had a great week back last week. As I'm sure the children will have told you, our topic this term is 'Stones and Bones'. We will be learning about the Stone Age and touching on the Iron and Bronze age too. We would love to see anything you do at home to support your children's  learning. We will be uploading homework by the end of this week and I'll post a message once it is up on the 'Homework' section. 

I look forward to seeing those of you on Thursday afternoon whose parent consultations were postponed before half-term due to my absence. 

Miss Samantha Howes.

 

Thursday 17th October 

We have had a great week creating our own Aztec masks using some messy paper mache! The children have really enjoyed designing and building their own designs using cardboard. I am looking forward to seeing the finished products on Monday when I am back in to school.

This week in English the children have been learning about Newspaper reports and have written some good reports about Charlie winning the fifth golden ticket. We are going to be publishing them for display outside the Year 3 classroom. We hope to send a copy home too so you can see their amazing handwriting!

In Maths the children have been working really hard on subtraction and using more than one exchange in a calculation. The children have worked hard practically with equipment to explain  how you solve these calculations. 

We are hoping to improve our book area after half term it would be good if over half term the children could complete a book review on the book they are currently reading or have just read at home to put up in the book area. I've attached a book review template below for the children to use. As well as this the children could take a photo of themselves reading this book in strange or different places when they are on half term break and bring them in! The photos could be emailed to the school office and can be printed at school if printing is not available at home. If the children are feeling particularly creative they could produce a painted front cover of the book as well. It would be lovely to see these on display in the book area.

Me and Miss Howes thank you for your continued support.

Miss Mills

Friday 4th October

We are going to be having Sculpture week in the week beginning 14th October. As part of this we are going to be making Aztec masks to link with our chocolate topic. It would be great if you could send the children in with some thick cardboard if you have any lying around! E.g. cereal boxes or shoe boxes. If you could also send in some newspapers in as well that would be great.

In English the children enjoyed writing Fantasy stories and learnt the key features of what makes a great fantasy story. I'm sure you will look forward to reading them at parents evening. All the children are working really hard on improving their handwriting- this has been great to see. In English next week we are starting to learn about the key features of a newspaper report and then writing their own newspaper reports based on Charlie finding the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It would be great if you could look at some newspaper reports with your children and discuss the features of them. You could also encourage your child to bring in a favourite or interesting example to share with the class. 

In Maths we are learning about addition and subtraction and have been learning how to add numbers crossing the tens boundary. We have been using equipment to help us understand the calculations practically as well as looking at the links with subtraction. This week we will be moving towards column subtraction. The children are becoming much more confident in explaining their answers using correct mathematically vocabulary. As well as this we are continuing to learn our times tables in class. We have moved onto our 7s and 9s. It would be great if you could encourage your child to do a multiplication flower (Template is below), a wheel or a poster for our Maths display. Check out the ideas below for some inspiration. Feel free to be as creative as you like. If your child is already confident with their times tables they could be challenged to write the division calculations or times the number using 2/3 digit numbers past 12. 

 

I look forward to seeing the children's work. 

Hope you are all have a good weekend.

Miss Mills and Miss Howes

 

Tuesday 1st October 

Just a quick note to parents re. homework. Some of the children were surprised when I held a spelling test on Friday and state that they were unaware that they had spellings to learn. The children's homework has been outlined on the 'Homework' section of this page and was uploaded at the beginning of term in addition to paper copies being available in the 'going home tray' in class. - The children have a list of spellings to learn each week in addition to regular reading, Mathletics and multiplication revision. (The children have been told this in class a couple of times now but I just wanted to clarify so that we're all on the same page) If you have any questions please feel free to contact one of us after school. Many thanks for your support,

Miss Samantha Howes and Miss Tara Mills. 

 

Friday 20th September

Just a quick message to remind the children that they will have PE on Mondays. Please can the children keep their PE kits in school all week due to the fact that they might need their kit on other days as well. As the weather changes towards Winter please ensure your children have suitable outdoor clothing.

We have been busy learning our 6x tables if at any point the children could make a multiplication flower for our Maths display that would be great! Please find the template for this attached below. If your child has time it would be good to do the 3x tables as well and make links between the 3x and 6x tables and how this knowledge can help them in learning their 6x tables.

We have a visit to the local church on Monday morning in which the children will be learning about the features of a church and asking questions to the local vicar.

The children have settled in to school really well! We look forward to working with you over the course of the year.

Thank you for your continued support.

Hope you are enjoying the sunshine with your children.

Miss Tara Mills

13th September 2019

Just a quick note to apologise for being late back from swimming today. We were well on track to be back at school for 3:10pm however, unfortunately, took a slight detour via. Harlowbury School. The coach driver was ever so apologetic. On another note, the children were fantastic and really impressed us during their swimming assessment. They have all now been placed into their groups and are ready to start their swimming lessons next week.

Have a great weekend! 

Miss Samantha Howes. 

 

12th September 2019

Thank you to all who could make it to the parent meeting this morning! It was great to see you and I'm starting to match your faces to the children's :). 

I have uploaded my notes below for any who couldn't come along this time. 

Homework is now up too - please ask if you have any questions.

Many thanks, 

Miss Samantha Howes.

 

10th September 2019

Welcome back!

Miss Mills and I have both really enjoyed settling the children in over the past week and getting to know them more. We will do our best to upload as much information on here as we can throughout the year to keep you up-to-date with all that we are up to in class. 

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at our 'Meet the Teacher' session on Thursday 12th September at 8:45am in the hall (I will upload notes onto here afterwards for anyone who isn't able to make it).

P.S. Please don't forget we have our first swimming session on Friday afternoon. The children will need a full swim kit in school. We will be back at school for collection at the regular time of 3:15pm.

Miss Samantha Howes.