Welcome to Pine Tree Class

We hope you have all had a lovely Easter spending time with family and friends and the children are ready for our Summer Term.

On this page, you will find some useful information about the term ahead and any key messages that you need to be aware of.  If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see our class Twitter feed and instructions for Google Classroom. We love to use Twitter to share some of the excellent things going on in class and will use Google Classroom to support learning at home - spellings, homework and useful documents will be uploaded and made available on there.  If you are on Twitter, please follow @pinetreeclass to see regular updates.

We are set to have a great term and have some really exciting things planned and lots of new things to learn about.  If there are ever any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to get in touch, either by popping in or telephoning.  The support you give is essential for your child's progress and the closer we can work together the better it will be for them.

Kind regards

Mr Ellis

Curriculum Overview:

In maths, we will be looking closely at calculating the perimeter, area and volume of various regular and irregular 2D and 3D shapes before completing a unit on statistics which will include reading and drawing various graphs and charts.

In English, we are going to be reading The Hunter and The Paperbag Prince. We will be focusing on selecting relevant and thoughtful vocabulary and using correct grammatical structures to write a variety of pieces of writing including diary entries, letters and balanced arguments. Where possible, we will try to link our spellings in class to our writing also.  We will be completing daily whole class reading sessions to develop the children’s reading stamina, pace, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills alongside individual reading sessions where each child will be heard to read by an adult weekly. Alongside everything we do in school, it is incredibly important that children are reading a variety of texts both fiction and non-fiction regularly at home and recording their comments in the planners. The planners need to be in school daily and to be signed at by an adult regularly. Finally, the children will need to focus on using spelling strategies and rules consistently to ensure they spell a variety of common and uncommon words accurately. They need to be practising their spellings regularly at home. Please see the spelling strategies document to support your child learning their weekly word lists at home. 

Science

We are scientists!

Our Science focus this term is Evolution & Inheritance, the children will be finding out about how living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago. They will discover how living things produce offspring of the same kind and identify how animals and plants have adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.

History/Geography                                                                                      

Geography

Our Geography topic for this term is ‘How are our coasts changing? This topic looks at effects of coastal erosion and plastic pollution on coastlines in the UK / around the world. Children will learn about the structure of the coasts of the UK and other coasts around the world and how their shape and geography have changed over thousands of years.

History

In History, we are investigating whether the Vikings would do anything for power and money. We will be studying the Viking era closely – looking at their daily life, invasions and battles.

Reading: 

Please make sure that you read for at least 10 minutes everyday.  This can be your school book, own book, newspapers, comics, shopping list etc and record in your planner.

Spellings:

Spellings will be added to Google Classroom on a Friday afternoon and the children will be tested the following Friday.  Spellings will focus on particular spelling rule/pattern each week and we will also be looking at words taken from the statutory word list.  These will be taught and practised throughout the week. 

PE:

The children will have indoor PE on a Wednesday and outdoor PE on a Friday.  The children should come to school wearing their PE kits.  PE kits should be a house colour t-shirt, plain black shorts/ joggers/leggings and a plain black jacket/jumper.  Please remember to tie long hair up and make sure no jewellery is worn.

Homework:

Homework will be set on a Friday and this should be returned by the following Wednesday.  Homework will consist of a maths activity and an English activity linked to the unit of work they are covering in class, so they should be able to complete the activity independently. 

Some useful websites, resources and links:

https://spellingframe.co.uk - Spelling Frame - A great, interactive website to give you chance to practise your spellings in a variety of different ways.

https://ttrockstars.com/ - Times Table Rockstars. Use this website to practise your times tables, battle with your band mates and keep your arithmetic skills up to scratch!