Week Beginning 30th January

This term seems to be going very quickly.  Can we remind Year 4 parents that the year group is going to the new Penketh Fire Station this Thursday.  Can you all please make sure that permission slips have been returned.

English

Year 3

In English we will continue our work around the book Eacape from Pompeii.  We will revise powerful verbs and consider what makes effective description.  We will then plan and draft our own story in the same style as the book.  The children will be given the opportunity to edit and improve their work too, independently and in pairs.  We will be looking for good description, the use of speech punctuation, different sentence starters (e.g. as soon as, over the hill, that evening) and conjunctions to join sentences (e.g. when, if, because, although).

Year 4

Children will be finishing off their non-fiction unit this week.  After writing their own newspaper report last week, children will now be writing one report from a range of viewpoints.  This will have them considering what we mean by the term ‘bias’ and see if they can write from the point of view for, against and from a neutral perspective.

Maths

Year 3

Learning Area –            Division

Learning Concept -          This week children will be recapping on division and looking at calculations which involve remainders.  Children will be using a number line to help them.

Year 4

Learning Area –            Fractions

Learning Concept -          Recognise and show, using diagrams, families of common equivalent fractions.

                                            

Teaching sequence -      Know all equivalent fractions of 1/2 up to and including the denominator 12

Know all equivalent fractions of 1/4 up to and including the denominator 12

Know all equivalent fractions of ¾ up to and including the denominator 12

Know all equivalent fractions of 1/3 up to and including the denominator 12

Know all equivalent fractions of 2/3 up to and including the denominator 12

Topic

This week children will be continuing with our new topic of ‘The Romans’.  This week children will look at a rebellion which took place against the Romans in Britain which was led by the well-known historical figure - Boudicca.

 RE

Children will be completing their RE topic - Journeys.  This week will see children remembering, celebrating and responding to a journey through a year and the Christian family’s journey with Jesus.

Week Beginning 23rd January

Ready for another week 3/4?  Lots of things to get through this week...

English

Year 3

We will focus our next few week's lessons around the text, "Escape from Pompeii" by Christina Balit. The children will read and listen to the story, engage with the text through discussion and drama.  They will have the opportunity to articulate ideas about the text using an increasingly varied vocabulary.  There is also a grammar focus on using powerful verbs and a chance to develop thesaurus skills next week.

Year 4

Children will be continuing with the non-fiction unit this week.  This week they will be recapping on the features of journalistic writing and the type of language that is used in the media to encourage readers/listeners to pay attention.  Children will be looking at how to present information in the format of a newspaper report.  They will draft the content of the report and then write it up in a final piece.

Maths

Year 3

Learning Area –            Fractions

Learning Concept -          Recognise and show, using diagrams, equivalent fractions with small denominators.

Recognise, find and write fractions of a discrete set of objects: unit fractions & non-unit fractions with small denominators.

Teaching sequence -      Know that 1/2 is the same as 2/4

Be able to show 1/3 and 2/6 of a square

Know what fractional values are, e.g. ¼ is one part of four, etc.

Know what a unit fraction is

Know what a non-unit fraction is

Use fractions to solve problems

Use a fraction wall diagram to solve problems

Year 4

Learning Area –            Place Value – Roman Numerals

Learning Concept -          Read Roman numerals to 100 and understand that over time, the numeral system changes to include the concept of zero and place value.

                                               

Teaching sequence -      Read Roman numerals from 1 to 10

Read Roman numerals to 50

Read Roman numerals to 100

Write Roman numerals from 1 to 10

Write Roman numerals to 50

Write Roman numerals to 100

Topic

This week children will be continuing with our new topic of ‘The Romans’.  This week children will be gaining an understanding of why the Romans built new roads in Britain, where some of the main roads ran from and how the roads were made.

 RE

Children will be continuing with their RE topic - Journeys.  For the next couple of weeks children will be working through the Reveal section of this unit.  This second week will have children looking at the feasts of Our Lady, the pilgrimage psalms and the Christian’s life journey.

Week Beginning 16th January

Another week full of opportunities to learn new things and practise what we have already covered.  Children also have the Friends of St Vincent’s Film Night to look forward to this week.  Can we take this opportunity as a phase team to thank all parents and grandparents who came along last Thursday to help with the pantomime and to thank all others who offered to help too.  We all had a great time and Mr Hughes has now fully recovered from the experience.

English

Year 3

We will continue our topic on myths and legends this week, which the children are really enjoying.  Having read a variety of Roman myths and identified their key features, we will go on to plan and write our own myths.  We will use the story of Romulus and Remus as a model, changing elements of it to make it our own.  We will incorporate speech into our writing, using the correct speech punctuation in our conversations between characters.  The children have been looking at synonyms for said too, so we will expect to see some of these in their independent writing.

Year 4

Children will be continuing with the non-fiction unit this week.  This week they will be looking at the features of journalistic writing and the type of language that is used in the media to encourage readers/listeners to pay attention.  Children will also be thinking about interview processes used to gather information for journalistic writing and will be devising their own interview questions.

Maths

Year 3

Learning Area –            Place Value

Learning Concept -          Compare and order numbers up to 1000

Recognise the place value of each digit in a 3 digit number

Teaching sequence -      Know which number in a set of 3 digit numbers is the greatest

Know which number in a set of 3 digit numbers is the smallest

Order a set of 3 digit numbers from smallest to largest

Order a set of 3 digit numbers from largest to smallest

Identify the hundreds, tens and ones in any 3 digit number

Partition a 3 digit number identifying the value

Year 4

Learning Area –            Statistics

Learning Concept -          Interpret and present discrete and continuous data using appropriate graphical methods, including:

-bar charts

-time graphs

                                               

Teaching sequence -      Tell the story’ of a bar chart with no scales on the axes

‘Tell the story’ of a bar chart with scales on the axes

‘Tell the story’ of a time graph with no scales on the axes

‘Tell the story’ of a time graph with scales on the axes

Construct a bar chart with correct labelling of both axes

Plot information on a time graph

Topic

This week children will be continuing with our new topic of ‘The Romans’.  This week children will be learning about who the Romans were and where they lived.  They will also be exploring who their leaders were and what family life was like for the Romans.

 RE

Children will be continuing with their RE topic - Journeys.  For the next couple of weeks children will be working through the Reveal section of this unit.  This first week will have children looking at the liturgical year, the seasons of the Church and what Ordinary Time is.

Week Beginning 9th January

Welcome back.  We all hope that you had a very happy and holy Christmas.  We had a few days last week to settle in and so we will be getting straight back to work this week.  Just a point to make about this Thursday 12^th January: children will be having an early registration at 8:30am and so the school gates will open from 8:15am.  This is so that we can have everyone registered and ready to leave for the pantomime!

English

Year 3

Our English lessons will be focused around myths and legends.  We will read a variety of Roman myths and identify their key features.   We will then focus on the story of Romulus and Remus, using drama to understand the events.  We will also discuss the characters, make predictions, draw inferences and compare endings to show how myths can be written as different versions.  Lastly, we will begin to look at speech punctuation in the text and synonyms for said.  There are many online versions of the story of Romulus and Remus as well as other Roman myths, if you wish to research and read together at home.

Year 4

Children will be starting another non-fiction unit this half term.  In this unit, the children explore the Big Question: What is the world’s most incredible sport? They will read the interactive eBook, find information whilst distinguishing between fact and opinion. Their aim is to answer the Big Question with the final target of planning and writing their own newspaper report.

Maths

Year 3

Learning Area –                Geometry – 3D shape

Learning Concept -          Make 3D shapes using modelling materials; recognise 3D shapes in different orientations; & describe them

                                               

Teaching sequence -      Make 3D shapes from a range of materials (including modelling materials and construction)

Accurately describe the properties of 3D shapes

Year 4

Learning Area –            Measures - Perimeter

Learning Concept -          Measure and calculate the perimeter of a rectilinear figure (including squares) in cm and m.

                                               

Teaching sequence -      Know the formula for calculating the perimeter of a rectangle (2 x length plus 2 x breadth)

Know that the perimeter of an irregular shape can be calculated by $adding the length of each individual side together

Topic

This week children will be starting to look at our new topic of ‘The Romans’.  We are all excited to start this unit.  This week will see the children creating some display work in a style which is very much related to the Romans.  We will also be considering what we know about the Romans already and what we want to find out with the aim of being able to write about what we have learnt at the end of the unit.

 RE

Children will be starting a new unit in RE called Journeys.  Through this Explore week children will reflect on the celebrations which took place over the Christmas period and consider what the year to come might bring.  They will think about planning  a journey throughout this new year of 2017.

Week Beginning 12th December

Well here we are again, the final week of the half term and the first term in school this year is coming to a close.  A few reminders for this week:

·        The children will be having their Christmas lunch this Monday.

·        The KS2 Christmas parties are taking place on Tuesday and all children have been placed in groups and have been allocated something to bring in for their party.

·        We have some special visitors coming in on Wednesday ...

·        Friday is our Carol service

The Year 3/4 Production

Well to quote Ceasar from the play, “you were fabulous darlings’.  The staff in the 3/4 team are so proud of all of the children.  The performances which they put on were brilliant and many comments have been made about how ‘professional’ the shows were.  Every single child in Year 3 and 4 should give themselves a pat on the back because they made this year’s Christmas production unforgettable.  Well done everyone - but don’t rest yet because Year 3/4 will be performing one of the songs from our production in the Carol Service on Friday!

Core sessions this week will be based on a Christmas theme as we want to make sure that the children are all smiling during the exciting build up to Christmas.  We will still be working hard though and will be having a very productive week.

 RE

Children will be finishing off their RE topic based on the time of the Church’s year which is currently Advent.  They will continue to prepare for the coming of Christmas and remembering the true meaning of the season.

Week beginning 5th December

We have a busy week for Year 3/4 this week with children performing their Christmas Production for the school and parents.  We have two morning shows on Tuesday and Wednesday and an evening performance on Thursday.  Can I also remind everyone that it is the Christmas fair this Friday in school and so children are allowed to wear their own clothes on this date.

English

Year 3&4

Assessments are being carried out this week as we are coming to the end of the Autumn term.

Maths

Year 3 & 4

Assessments are being carried out this week as we are coming to the end of the Autumn term.

 RE

Children have now started their new RE topic called visitors.  This is a topic which informs us about the time in the Church’s year called Advent.  Children are considering what it is like to have visitors and we will be discussing what this time of year is in preparation of.

Week Beginning 21st November

Not long to go now.  It will be Christmas before we know it.  First thing on Monday the children have a fantastic Mad Science assembly to look forward to.  Just a reminder as well that it is the second of the sessions for the Sacramental preparation programme for the Year 4s this Thursday.  This will be taking place at St Joseph’s at half 6pm.

English

Year 3

This week we will read The Tunnel by Anthony Browne which is an adventure/mystery story.  We will create a story map, thinking about the beginning, the build-up, the dilemma, the resolution and the ending.  We will think carefully about the characters' thoughts and feelings and carry out some drama activities to really understand them.  Following our drama, we will delve deeper into the text and look at some of the grammatical features, in particular, adverbial phrases.  Adverbial phrases give us more information about the verbs in a sentence.  The children will then put these into practice and re-write part of the story, using some of the adverbials that they have learned.

Year 4

Children have spent the last couple of weeks looking at creative extended writing.  This is because all Catholic primary schools have got together recently to compare writing from all year groups.  Consequently, the previous unit of work was put on hold.  However, we are going to start a shorter unit this week based on poetry.  Throughout this unit children will enjoy the range of poems and discuss and explore their uses of figurative language. They will learn and revise metaphor, simile and personification and then identify the features of free verse, haiku and performance poetry. Finally they draft and write their own poems using ones from the unit as models.

Maths

Year 3

Learning Area –            Measures - Time

Learning Concept -          Estimate and read time with increasing accuracy to the nearest minute;

Tell and write the time from an analogue clock, including using Roman numerals from I to XII

                                                               

Teaching sequence -      Read the time to one minute intervals.

Estimate the time to the nearest five minute interval, e.g. it is nearly ten past four.

Recognise the Roman numerals from I to XII.

Place I –XII on a clock face in correct place

Read time on clock with Roman numerals

Show equivalent time from Roman numeral clock face on regular analogue face and vice versa

  

Year 4

Learning Area –            Multiplication and Division

Learning Concept -          Recognise and use factor pairs and commutativity in mental calculations.

Teaching sequence -      Explain the term ‘factor pair’.

Know all the factors within all numbers to 10.

Work out all the factors of any number to 144.

Know the term ‘square number’ and recall all square numbers associated with numbers 1 –144.

 RE

Children will be finishing off their new unit for RE entitled Promises.  This week children will be remembering, celebrating and responding to how belonging to a group involves promises and rules and the meaning of the promises made at Baptism.