Welcome to Year 4!

Moonstone and Sapphire

Our teaching team: Miss Smalley and Mrs Gawthrope (Moonstone class), Mr Johnson and Mrs Stewart (Sapphire class)

Additional teaching staff: Mrs Talmage, Mr Minei

Teaching assistants: Mrs Wales and Mrs Somasundaram

PE

Our PE days are Mondays (indoor) and Fridays (outdoor). Children will need to come to school wearing their PE kids on these days. They will stay in their PE kits all day. If your child wears earrings, please make sure they are removed before school on PE days.

Spellings

 Our weekly spelling tests are on Tuesdays for those who have completed the RWI (Read Write Inc) scheme. We will send home the list of words to practise every Tuesday, and go through them together in school on Thursdays. Please help your child practise them at home so that they become fluent spellers and writers - the words they are tested on are frequently used words, and so the more familiar they are with reading and writing them, the better!

Spelling activities will be available electronically on The Spelling Shed, where your child can access a range of activities. It can be accessed here: The Spelling Shed. They should aim to complete at least 3 spelling activities each week. Spellings can also be practised using a range of handwritten methods, such as:

• Look, Cover, Write Check
•  Rainbow Writing (e.g. beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful)
•  Waterfall Writing (e.g. below)

b

be

bea

beau

beaut

beauti

beautif

beautifu

beautiful

Time Tables Test

We have weekly times tables tests, in line with The Vine's 'Times Table Mountain Challenge', every Friday in school. Children are given 2.5 minutes to complete 25 questions (6 seconds per question). The order in which we learn the times tables are as follows:

Mount Elbrus:

• x10
• x2
• x5
• x2, x5 and x10

Mount Kilimanjaro:

• x4
• x8
• x3
• x3, x4 and x8
• x2, x3, x4, x5, x8 and x10

Mount Aconcagua:

• x6
• x9
• x11
• x6, x9 and x11
• x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x8, x9, x10 and x11

Mount Everest:

• x12
• x7
• all times tables
• division and multiplication up to and including 12x12

Children need to get all 25 questions correct two times (not consecutively) before they are allowed to move onto the next challenge. Please practise these at home as much as you can to give them every chance of success they can get!