Welcome to Mrs Bothma’s class

Who's Who?

Mrs Bothma                             Mrs Pridmore                            Mrs Corr

Class teacher              Learning Support Assistant               Class teacher 

                                                                                          (Weds pm & Thurs)       

Home Learning

Mrs Bothma and Mrs Pridmore are now in school every day working with the children of Key Workers. Mrs Bothma will continue to make fortnightly phone calls home and emails with home learning will be responded to by Mrs Bothma or Mrs Pridmore during school hours.

Useful Websites

The children all have logins for the websites below which they have written in their Learning Logs.

Spring Term 

Our class text- Matilda by Roald Dahl and The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

Additional ‘must reads’- The Railway Children, The Sheep-Pig, The Secret Garden, Cool, Gangsta Granny , Leon and the Place Between

Focus Text genres- Newspaper reports, narrative and explanation

In Geography we will be creating our own maps using accurate symbols. In Science our learning will be States of Matter before half term and Rocks after half term. In Art we will be finding out more about Pop Art and taking influence from Andy Warhol. In PE we will be learning tag rugby skills and will start to apply these skills in a game as well as gymnastics.

Times Table Rockstars

By the end of Year 4 the children are expected to know the times tables up to 12x12 automatically, without having to count up in the multiples. The government have introduced a times tables check to monitor this at the end of Year 4 which will be starting at the end of this school year. Times Table Rockstars is a fantastic way for children to practise their multiplication facts at speed which we will be using in school several times a week. Further practice at home will help to support this – please see the previous letter for more information.

Ways to help at home

• Reading – Children in Year 3/4 are expected to read four times a week at home and record this in their learning log. This can be reading alone or to an adult however children at this age still gain such a lot from reading to others and being asked questions about the events/information, characters and language of the story/text. Any children who do not get the chance to read four times at home will have the opportunity for additional reading in school at break on a Friday. Encourage your child to read a variety of texts. Any child reading 30 times over a half term will receive a certificate from Mrs Perkins. All children will bring home a library book and their designated day to change their books is Wednesday.

• Writing – Help your child to with their handwriting. It would be most beneficial for your child to also write at home, practising the cursive script we use in school. All children have handwriting lessons and can work towards achieving a pen licence.

• Spelling- focus on the spelling rule and helping your child to learn the words using the Look Cover Write Check strategy or in any way that is beneficial to them. Your child will also be learning the curriculum words for their year group, including the zero tolerance words for their year. If you need another or extra copy, then please ask.

• Growth Mindset- This year we will continue to be placing great emphasis on the children developing a growing sense of pride and independence whilst developing a positive mind-set in everything that they do. It would be most beneficial for you to encourage your child to be organised and prepared for their day in school and help facilitate them becoming more positive and self- reliant.

• PE – reminder that children need an indoor and outdoor PE kit in school at all times. Indoor kit consists of a white t-shirt, black shorts and trainers and outdoor kit is a tracksuit of any colour.

Upcoming events:

March

• Educational visit to the National Coal Mining Museum (Thursday 5th March)

April

• INSET day (Friday 3rd April)

Useful websites

www.activelearnprimary.co.uk

www.ttrockstars.com