Curriculum Newsletter
Year 3/4 ~ Autumn Term 2010
Our Theme is...
Going Wild (10 weeks) Festivals (4 weeks)
Our Visual Literacy is...
Jungle Book
Our PE Days are...
Friday (Mrs Sibley’s Class)
Tuesday & Friday (Mrs Gladen’s Class)
Our Homework day is...
Homework is given on a Friday to be handed in on a Monday.
Children are to learn spellings every week to be tested on a
Monday. Times-tables are to be learnt weekly and tested on a
Friday. We recommend that children read every evening.
Mathematical Development
Communication Language and Literacy
The children begin this term with reading and writing whole numbers in figures
and words to 1000. The children will identify the position of these numbers on a
numberline and increase their knowledge on place value to identify hundreds,
tens and units. The children continue to strengthen their recall of number facts
including addition and subtraction facts to 20, sums and differences of multiples
of 10 and beginning to recite times-tables facts.
The children will then progress onto using patterns, properties and relationships
between shapes to solve problems. Knowledge of 2-D shapes will be extended
and they will recognise 3-D shapes, sorting them using criteria such as the
number of vertices, edges or faces.
Later on in the unit we will be exploring suitable units of measurement to
estimate or measure length, mass or capacity. The children will become familiar
with relationships between standard units of measure ; for example, they know
that 1 kg is the same as 1000 g. Learning will continue onto the children reading
the time on a 12–hour digital clock and on an analogue clock to the nearest 5
minute.
Finally, the children will review multiplication as repeated addition and division
as repeated subtraction and understand the relationship between multiplication
and division. We will learn to derive quickly the doubles of all numbers 1 to 20
and recognise that halving is the inverse of doubling. The children will begin to
recognise fractions of shapes.
To begin the term we will be watching our visual literacy stimulus of ‘Jungle
Book’ as an introduction to our ‘Going Wild’ theme. The children will read and
explore information texts on wild animals and plants in the jungle with our work
then progressing onto recognising the key features of information text and
evaluating its usefulness. Following this, the children will work in groups to
research information to produce their own non-fiction information text writing.
This will incorporate our visual literacy ‘Jungle book’ and our whole school trip to
Colchester Zoo
Learning in this area will then progress onto looking at persuasive text. The
children will first identify persuasive text language features to be able to
eventually write their own persuasive text. The aim is to write a script for a
‘Jungle Book’ trailer encouraging its audience to watch the film.
Concluding our ‘Going Wild’ theme we will be reading and responding to poetry
based on animals. The children will identify patterns in language and use this
knowledge to write their own animal poetry.
In the final four weeks of term we switch our theme to ‘Festivals’. It is through
this theme that the children will explore stories from other cultures in line with
the festive period of Christmas. The children will study the stories read by
focussing their learning on their understanding of characters motives and
behaviour through dramatic conventions such as hot seating, living the story
through the eyes of the characters.
In year 3/4 the children will begin their learning of a modern foreign language. At
Holy Trinity we study French and the children will participate in French lessons
weekly.
Physical Development
Knowledge & Understanding of the World
The children in year 3/4 have two hours of PE per week. The option of being
either indoors or outside will depend on the weather and activity for any given
lesson. The children will be undertaking units of work related to invasion games
planned and led by Mr Wiskin during this term.
Throughout all PE activities the children will develop control, co-ordination and
spatial awareness. We will also learn to evaluate our own and others work by
describing what others do and make suggestions for improvement. The children
will also be encouraged to think about the changes that occur during exercise to
our bodies as well as the importance that physical activity has on us to enjoy a
healthy lifestyle.
Our theme of ‘Going Wild’ forms a basis for us to learn about habitats in
science. The children will recognise different types of habitat, making
predictions and investigating the organisms that live in particular habitats.
Learning will progress onto grouping organisms and using keys to identify plants
and animals. Exploration of food sources will then lead onto the children’s
investigations into food chains.
With the cold weather encroaching upon us ‘Keeping Warm’ seems a suitable
topic to explore later on in the term in science. Through this unit the children will
build on their ideas about temperature as a measure of how hot or cold objects
are and learn about thermal insulators as materials which can help to keep
things warm or cool.
Our work in Geography will be initiated by looking at the book ‘Window’ by
Jeannie Baker. The picture book shows how land is used and how people effect
the environment over a 24 year period. We will explore how the land is used
through a school window collecting different forms of information and evidence,
progressing on to thinking about how the environment might change in the
future.
The theme of ‘Festivals’ will provide a stimulus to our History work by looking at
when Christmas traditions of today were initiated and the story behind each of
them.
Creative Development
Personal, Social & Emotional
The children are able to explore their creativity through art and music this term.
In art we will explore repeating patterns by investigating the ways in which they
are produced in order to create our own ‘Going Wild’ patterns. Our work will be
linked to learning in ICT to investigate how to use graphics software using copy
and paste, select and resize objects and altering size of brush tool on the
computer for the children’s own pattern creation.
In music we will begin our learning using the music express scheme of work
starting with developing the children's ability to create simple rhythmic patterns
and perform them using notation as a support.. Later in the term our music work
will focus on preparation for our Christmas production.
At the beginning of the school year the children will be reminded on the Holy
Trinity behaviour code and we will work together to establish a set of class rules.
The focus for this term is on the children engaging in work on friendship and
feelings. The children will be encouraged to show and describe what a good
friend is; recognising and talking about their feelings associated to different
friendship situations learning to cope with some fears and worries.
Following on from this we will explore sameness and difference, reflecting upon
the judgements that we may make from peoples external appearances and how
it might feel to be treated differently from others. Taking this into account we will
go on to think about how we should treat other people.
In RE we will be following the County scheme of work which will be looking at
journeys.
Important Messages and Reminders…
Please can we remind parents to make sure that your child’s name is written inside all school uniform/equipment to reduce the amount of lost property.
On PE Days please ensure that your child has their PE kit in school. Please also remember that earrings should be removed or covered with tape and that hair
should be tied back for health and safety reasons.
It is really helpful if parents can continue to support children’s learning at home and ensure that reading is completed regularly and recorded in the children’s diaries