Welcome to Penguins class.

We are Year 3&4 and we are taught by Mr Young and Miss Timms. 

Hello, this is just a quick note of introduction from Mr Young. It is my great pleasure to be returning to Bledington having taught here from September 2006 through to December 2014. I was very proud to be part of the Bledington team in that time and am equally proud to be able to rejoin it once more.

I have been teaching since 2005 and enjoy working as part of a school team to be able to share the journey of making the school better alongside staff and children.

I don't have children of my own, but I do have a mischievous and adventurous bear, named Harumphrey. We have travelled the world together and had all sorts of adventures! Sometimes he pops into school to help us with our learning although at times he can be more of a hindrance than a help!

In my spare time I love cycling (not very fast, but increasingly far and often fuelled by Pot Noodles!) and I am out and about as often as I can be - even in the snow - which is my favourite weather!

Congratulations to Penguins for a great first term back - it is always difficult to come back from that lovely summer break and settle into a new class / new room / new routines but they have all done really well this term to adapt and overcome!

In term 2 we begin looking at how we can protect our planet - we will be learning about natural resources, energy production and the use of renewable and non-renewable resources.

In science we will be learning about plants and their life cycles including learning about seed dispersal. In English, we have a great picture book to help get us using our imaginations  - having a 'no text' book allows us to take the story in whichever direction we wish - we will be using 'Flotsam' by David Weisner - a great opportunity for us to develop our inference skills and generate ideas based on images, character descriptions as well as creating our own new creatures (all will be revealed!)

Our maths will begin with a revisit to additional and subtraction techniques before we move into multiplication and division work.

Our PE days are Wednesday and Tuesday this term as we are lucky enough to have a cricket coach working with us on a Monday afternoon.

It would be great if the Year 4's began working on their times tables at home in preparation for the MTC check later in the year - I am aiming for everyone to get 25/25 in June - I will add a link below to an online version.

My thanks, as always, for your continued support!

MR Y

For more pictures of everything we have been getting up to, take a look at our gallery!

Year 3 & 4 home learning

Every week, we will be looking at new Phonics or Spelling rules which help us in our writing. A weekly list, based on these rules, will be set on Seesaw to be tested on Friday. We will be working on these in class, but some help at home is always needed! Please use all the strategies we share in class to help you, or read below for some more ideas!

You will receive weekly homework in the form of a READ task and Spellings. Spelling lists will be set on Monday on Seesaw, to be tested on Friday. READ tasks will be set per book for those on banded books, and weekly for those Free-Readers who are reading thicker texts. 

Children in Penguins will also receive termly homework, given out in the first week of term on Seesaw and due back in the last week of term. This is usually 6 activities to be completed across 6 weeks (but this may change due to the length of a particular term). These activities cover Literacy, Maths, Science, Art, Design and much more but will all allow you and your child to get really involved in our class topics.

Please see Seesaw for homework sheets and more information.

Literacy

In Literacy, we work hard on a range of skills, both in Reading and Writing. Everyday we have a spelling and phonic session looking at age-appropriate rules and patterns, a Writer's Toolkit session looking at Grammar and Punctuation and a Guided Reading session looking at our comprehension and inference skills. In our main Literacy lesson, we look at reading and writing skills, both composition and creative skills. We often use to Drama to help us understand better the texts we are looking at and Talk for Writing skills help us get ready to get our ideas down on paper.

Reading

Each child has their own school reading book, chosen with an adult from school library at an appropriate reading band for that child. Your child will bring this home, along with their 'READ book' - this is their reading diary where they need to record what and when they are reading. In this book will also be a READ activity; a specific task we would like your child to complete to help support their comprehension of the text they have brought home. This task should be completed once a week (for Free-readers) and per book for those on banded books. Reading books can be changed on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday but we expect children to have their school reading book and READ book in school every day.

If your child would also like to read books from home, that is very much encouraged! Please write any extra books you also read at home in your READ book so we can see the wide range of literature you are getting through! If you have a request for the school library, a book you would love to find on the shelves to have as a school reading book, please pop a note in the requests box on the shelf and we will see what we can do!

Maths

In Penguin Class, we are working very hard on our Maths Passport targets; learning all of our number bonds, times tables, division facts and mental maths skills. We are trying our hardest to make sure we know our 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 times tables. Every child has their own targets which can be worked on by following the link below...

 Useful Links