Otter Class (Year 4) 2024 - 2025

Welcome to the class page for Otter Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 4. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you

Miss Walker, Miss Ingham and Mrs Sumner

Autumn 2

In our writing lessons we will be reading Leaf by Sandra Dieckmann.

"When a polar bear arrives unexpectedly in the woods, the other animals fear and avoid him, suspecting him to be dangerous and his odd habit of collecting leaves only adds to their distrust. Then one day, they watch as he attempts to fly over the water with wings made of colourful leaves... trying to get back home."

We will be writing our own narratives about being an outisder as well as an information report.

We will be continuing to practise fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases and speech punctuation. 

In reading this half term, we are looking at  A World Full of Animal Stories.

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to improve our understanding of what we read.

Reading plays a significant role in children's development and we encourage it as much as possible! It comes with many benefits including:

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

You can support your child at home by reading with them daily and recording it in their reading diaries to help them add stamps onto their Book Worm. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

In Maths this half term, we will be focusing on Multiplication and Division using our White Rose Maths booklets.

In June, all Year 4 pupils take part in the Multiplication Tables Check where they are given 25 questions on any multiplication facts up to 12x12. To ensure that our children are ready for this, we will be practising our times tables daily. As part of our practice, each child has their own login for Times Table Rockstars which they can access both at school and at home. Just a few minutes of practice each day can really help children to improve their knowledge and speed! 

This half term in science we are going to be learning all about  Animals including humans. We will be learning all about how our bodies work particularly the digestive system. 

Our humanties focus for this half term is Geography. We will be learning all about Rainforests and how these can be used.

This half term in music we will be learning all about Body and Tuned percussion. We will be finding out how to make different sounds using our body and how we can build the texture of these to compose music, this will be focused around creating rainforest inspired music.

Your child will have 2 PE lessons each week. Their days will be announced before next week. Please also check on Class Dojo. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be learning all about Dodgeball and Netball.

 Mondays- Each Monday, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week which are tested on Friday. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings each morning in class, however, extra practice at home is essential. As well as this pupils will be given a maths callenge to complete in their scrap books with a family member at home!

Other useful links:

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.