Before I get into anything else, the Year 4 field trip has managed to sneak up on me somehow. I still need five parent helpers who would be available from about 9 am to around 3:30pm on Wednesday, 7th of June. Please check your diaries and if you are able to go, please let me know ASAP. Thank you.


With one more week left in this half-term, we are finishing up several topics. We are nearing the conclusion of our science topic on electricity, and will move after the half term onto animals and habitats. In RE we are about to finish up Sacred Books and Texts and will move on to Sacred stories and ideas.


We're having a really good time writing non-chronological reports about the school. Everyone knows something about it, so there isn't much to look up. We've also had some guest speakers in to explain some of the specialties of the school, including Mrs Teakle, Mr Sherwood and Mrs Brewis to explain various clubs and safety procedures.


The children are doing so well that I am going to arrange to have them type their reports up on a computer and add some digital images that a few of them will take. I think they will make great pieces of work for them to show off and to illustrate to them how far they've come as writers.


On to homework: this class has, for whatever reason, always got more children on the list for Homework Club--the Thursday-at-lunch-time club supervised by the head teacher, than any other class. In many cases this is because the children have just not bothered to do the work at home. Others have done the work but left it at home. It may seem harsh that we treat those children as if they haven't done the work at all, but we are trying to prepare them for secondary school and the hard deadlines of day-to-day life. If you would like to gently remind the children to check their bags on Thursday mornings for an orange book, I'm sure it would help shorten that weekly list.


Here are the spelling words for the coming week:


experiment
promise
although
continue
purpose
antimatter
antifreeze
antibiotic
antibody

 anti-climax

As you can see, we are finishing up our list of frequently-missed words and moving back into prefixes and suffixes, this week's being 'anti-', which is Greek for 'against' or 'opposed to.'

Have a good weekend.

This week we finished our unit on traditional tales in English, which culminated in writing a vivid description of a Roman god. The children came up with some wonderful similes, including "Mars was as muscular as three Renaldos and a Messi." As a non-football fan, I'll have to take that one on faith as being true.


We have two weeks left in our science topic on electricity and circuits. We will begin to explore what a circuit is and how and why electricity works the way it does. We'll be introducing everyone to electrons and other parts of the atom.


We've begun looking at why Rome decided to invade Britain, and how many times it took to finally succeed. In the next week we'll look at the invasion under Emperor Claudius and what that meant for British people.


We've been looking at sacred books in RE, and we've finished the bible and have moved on to the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikh faith. We'll look at Hindu books just before the half term.


Here are the spelling words for next week:


probably


suppose


appear


business


complete


experience


possess


surprise


arrive


consider


Have a good weekend!

Week three of the summer term. They seem to be going so fast! We're now halfway through our science topic on electricity. The children have just finished looking up safety rules for using electricity and making up colourful posters for handling electrical items, some of which have been displayed on the Science wall. Coming up next week we'll be working with batteries, light bulbs and various wires to complete a circuit and explore more of how electricity works and what it even is.


In history we've started looking at the conflict between the Celts and the Romans, and at why the Romans were able to take over so much of the known world at the time. Part of that involved having the children make their own Celtic shield. Next we'll be looking at Roman soldiers and what made it so difficult for them to be defeated.


In RE we've looked at the sacred text of the Christians and will soon be looking at the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs. In a couple of weeks we'll look at Hindu sacred texts as well.


We will be finishing up our topic on traditional tales in English next week. We spent time looking at several myths, legends and just-so stories and have now had a try at rewriting the Romulus and Remus story and at writing our own just-so story. Next week we'll finish up by looking at some of the famous heroes of mythology and creating a story around the hero.


Next week is SATs week, of course, which will affect the Year 4 class in the following ways: The Hall will be out of commission for much of the week, and that will limit access to things like the toilet. I will be warning everyone Monday morning about the limited access to the facilities, but you might want to remind your children at home that they will need to be extra vigilant about using the toilet during their breaks, even if it isn't urgent yet.


On to homework: Our second week seems to have gone well, even with the shift in days. It is a shame to see so many of the class in the Homework Club at lunchtime, and I hope that the new routine at home will set in and we will have far fewer unfinished pages.


Here are next week's spelling words:

enough

fruit

island

ordinary

position

strange

answer

circle 

exercise


Have a great weekend.