Monday 24th November

Welcome to this week's blog.

Homework

To help with the pressures of Year Four learning lots of lines, Christmas and everyone finding their costumes we have decided to not give out sentences etc but to just keep the Numeracy homework going. We will still be sending spellings home to learn for a test on Fridays.

Year Four get learning your words for the play please so we don't need scripts this week. Thank you.

As already mentioned last week this is a list of information about the play costumes.


Trees - Long sleeved green top and brown tights/leggings.
Villagers - Girls with an apron and a scarf round their head. Shawls around their shoulders.
Tiddles - cat costume.
Babouskas - old woman with scarf, apron, shawl.
Boris old fashioned male costume.
American tourists - modern day, loud shirts, big over the top glasses, toy camera round their neck, clashing colours of clothes.
Children - Traditional children, not modern day. No posh frocks, no strappy tops but playing out clothes.
Pop stars - modern day dress - boy band image
Pizza men - Red t- shirts, jeans, moustache, neck chief
Shepherds - traditional dress
Angels - traditional dress no wings please as they get in the way.
Wise men - traditional dress
Stars - Please remember that they have to be able to dance.
Mary and Joseph - traditional dress
Beggar - unkempt female costume
Body guards - men in black!

On Saturday we have our annual Christmas Fayre starting at 11.00am at school. Please send into school things for the tombola and other stalls too. We are having a non uniform day this Friday to help collect things for the Fayre. Thank you.

Operation Christmas Child

If you would like to send a shoebox into school, filled with Christmas gifts, then please do so by WEDNESDAY of this week. You will have received a leaflet explaining the types of things which are suitable to include for each age range. The boxes need to be able to be opened by customs, so securing the lid on with an elastic band is the best way to do this. Please also ensure that you remember to include the correct amount for postage costs.

LITERACY

We will be continuing to work on our comprehension skills - have a look at this site which will help you to develop your skills brilliantly:

http://reading.ecb.org/

As well as continuing to develop our comprehension skills this week we are looking at improving our sentences to help us to write detailed descriptions for our narrative writing. We will be exploring and extending our ideas using 2A sentences - where we choose two interesting adjectives to describe a noun:

e.g. the _____, ______ street becomes the dark, winding street or the loud, bustling street.

We will be looking at how our choice of adjectives can determine the mood of a piece of writing. We will also be challenging the children to extend their sentences to become more complex by adding in a HOW phrase.

e.g. She skipped down the road. HOW? She skipped down the road, singing loudly.

We will be working intensively on using adjectives (describing words). Look at these websites to brush up your knowledge:

Can you recognise sentences? http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/sentencebasics/whatisasentence/flash3.shtml

Can you improve sentences?

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/english/monmouthshire/choose_adj_monmouthshire.html - can you choose adjectives that fit the text?

http://www.cogcon.com/gamegoo/gooey.html - a really strange and unusual website for building up various word skills and knowledge. Weird but definitely memorable!!

Tables tests

Most Year Groups in the Juniors are doing a tables challenge every Friday morning. They have to try to complete a 100 timetables in a set amount of time.
The younger the child the more time they have.

100 correct get a gold certificate.
90 - 99 silver.
80 - 89 bronze.
After the children get three golds then they can move onto a division test then a mixture of multiplication and division.

Miss Robinson's and Mrs Bethell's groups are concentrating on number bonds and times tables.

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/resources/gordon/Hit%20the%20button%20v9.swf



http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/tabletrees.html


NUMERACY

Mrs Harding's group this week will be carrying on with fractions and starting to learn about negative numbers.

By the end of the week the children:

COULD be able to cancel fractions and change mixed numbers into improper fractions.

SHOULD be able to understand a negative and positive scale and calculate sums related to this.

MUST know what a negative number is and the meaning of improper fractions and mixed numbers.

To find out more please see:

http://www.funbrain.com/linejump/index.html

http://www.dositey.com/addsub/Mystery11.htm

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/fractions/#Fractions

http://www.mathsnet.net/fractions/

In Miss Robinson's group we will be continuing with our topic on Data Handling. Due to the hall timetable for rehearsals we did not manage to look at Venn Diagrams. The children worked very well on Tally Charts and Frequency Tables and so this week we will be reviewing and working on Venn Diagrams at the start of the week - moving on to Bar Charts and Pictogram by the end of the week.

The children

MUST know how to collect and use data from a Venn Diagram or Bar Chart.

SHOULD be able to answer a range of questions using data, graphs and charts.

COULD be able to interpret the information on a Pictogram accurately.

Please use the websites form last week as well as those below.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=triangles - venn diagrams

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/datapick.html - frequency tables and creating a graph

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/grapher.html - collect your own information to create a graph

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ - create different graphs

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/850/carrollv4.swf - try to really challenge yourself - have a look at Carroll Diagrams - can you work them out?

In Mrs Bethell’s group this week we are continuing with data handling. We will be interpreting graphs and pictograms and answering word problems. Also we will be collecting information to create bar charts and pictograms. Part of the week will also be spent on reviewing time and multiplication.

Children must be able to collect information and create a simple bar chart

Children should be able to interpret a bar chart and pictogram

Children could solve data word problems involving adding and finding the difference between categories.

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/tabletrees.html - practice tables

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/testtest.html - practice tables
http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/clock.html - practice telling the time

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/quizes/brain2.htm - easy mental maths test

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ - create a graph

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/fish.html - chance and probability

That's all for now.

Have a great week

The Three and Four Team
xxx