It was lovely to meet all the children properly and I want to wish a big welcome to year 4 for all the parents too! To begin life in Owls class we wrote some descriptive poetry about owls using the style of William Blake. They look brilliant up on the walls of our classroom. In maths we are going over our knowledge of place value and we will be exploring numbers in the thousands next week. Our topic this term is "I Am Warrior!" and we will be learning all about the Romans. So far we have been learning key facts and some Latin names for things. Ask your child what a “pugio” or a “gladius” is to see if they can remember.
I have been checking Google passwords for all the children and I am creating new passwords for those that have forgotten theirs over the holidays. We will send a letter home next week with the new one so don’t worry if it doesn’t work currently. It really helps things in class if you can avoid changing them. I have also sent home a letter with login details for tt rockstars as we use this a lot in Year 4.

Key things for you to keep track of in Year 4:

Our P.E day is Thursday and our Forest school day is Friday.

Reading records: Myself or a TA will read with your child every week and write in their reading record (This will start from week 2). Whilst they should be reading everyday for at least 10 minutes, I award house points for children that have at least 3 days of reading per week in their books. It doesn’t have to be an adult writing the entry since in the children are old enough to do this sensibly.

Times Tables Books: I expect children to do 3 columns per week of any times table they need to work on. These will be checked on Friday and house points will be given to those who have practised.

Times Tables Rockstars: I will check for at least one login per week and I will award house points on Friday morning for those that have used it.

Spellings: These will be given out on a Friday afternoon via Google Classroom and tested on the following Friday morning. The children will be given a couple of chances to practice in class during the week.

Homework: This will usually be posted on Google Classroom on a Friday and due in by the following Thursday. For this week answer the question:

Can you think of anything we use today that dates back to Roman times?

That’s all for now and please don’t forget to respond to the Fishbourne Villa Trip letter by Wednesday 15th. We are going on Monday 20th!

Mr Butler