8.30 Morning Maths

8.50 Collective Worship

9.10 Run

9.20 Maths Fluency - Multiplication Tables

9.30 Maths

10.30 Break

10.45 Spelling

11.00 English

12.00 Lunch

1.00 Guided Reading

1.30 Topic Lesson 1

2.15 Topic Lesson 2

3.00 Story

3.15 Home

Please Note:

We have PE at the Village Hall every Wednesday afternoon and our Outdoor Learning session is on a Monday afternoon.

Once a term, we lead Collective Worship on a Friday at 2.45pm. 

At Kennet Valley, we encourage the children to read for pleasure and do this by exposing the children to lots of engaging, high-quality texts.  Have a look at the 'Books for Topics' recommendations for inspiration at home. 

Recommended Reads for Year 3

Recommended Reads for Year 4   

Practice the high frequency words as well as the Year 3/4 word list.

100 High frequency words 

200 High frequency words 

Year 3/4 Word List

TOP TIP: only choose 4 or 5 words at a time!

Make it fun by:

• Playing games like hangman and making word searches. 
• Practice writing words in different media - they could use their fingers to write in shaving foam or sand, write in chalk outside, use paint and paintbrushes etc. 
• Back tracing and air writing 
• Arrange letter magnets or letter tiles to make the spelling words. 
• Solve anagrams. 
• Make up a mnemonic.
• Use rainbow writing and spelling pyramids.
• Use the Look, Cover, Write, Check method.

In Columba, we practice our times tables daily. Over the year, we will cover all times tables up to the 12 times table. Any practice the children can do at home will really help to support them in being able to fluently recall the facts. You can encourage your child by:

• Quizzing them with quick fire questions. This could be while you are making dinner or in the car. 
• Chanting the tables.  At school, we say the biggest number first e.g. ‘Four 1s are 4, Four 2s are 8, Four 3s are 12, Four 4s are 16, Five 4s are 20, Six 4s are 24.’   
• Displaying a poster with all the times tables facts.  You could place post-it notes around the house with the facts they find tricky to help remember them.     
• Creating flash cards with your children. They could write the answer on the back and test themselves.  
• Singing and dancing to the BBC Super Movers songs. 
• Playing on www.timestables.co.uk Complete the 5 activity steps before playing games. You can also practice the format of the Year 4 multiplication check. 
• Playing games on mathsframe.co.uk 

Knowledge Organisers summarise key knowledge of a topic and specify what the children will learn. They can be used to get an overview of a new topic, be referred to during a topic and used at home to consolidate learning. 

How to use your Knowledge Organiser at home

• Share and read it together.

• Ask your child questions so they can explain key information.

• Make flashcards with the key vocabulary and definitions and see if your child can match the word to the definition. This can be extended by making it into a memory game.

• Create a quiz. You could create some multiple-choice questions.

As part of Black History Month, we studied Rosa Parks. Together, we read the Little People Big Dreams Rosa Parks book and discussed her experiences living in America in 1955. The children used the book as well as other sources to research her life. They then wrote Non-Chronological Reports about Rosa Parks. The children impressed me with their subject knowledge and I loved how eager they were to use the subject specific vocabulary that we have been focusing on in their writing.

In maths, we have been focusing on multiplication and division. We have looked at different strategies to help us mentally solve multiplication and division calculations and have practiced our time tables in a variety of ways, including different games in the playground.

For the last 7 weeks, Columba have enjoyed an hour of fencing in their weekly Wednesday PE sessions. These sessions were run by Neil from the Swindon Fencing Club. I am delighted to announce that they have all passed their Grade 1 and will receive their certificates in Collective Worship next term.

We had an amazing time on our residential trip to Charterhouse! We had an action packed time and had lots of fun! Columba fully embraced all the activities and pushed themselves beyond their comfort zone.

The activities included:

• Bushcraft (den building and lighting fires)
• A night walk
• Caving
• Gorge walking
• Camp fire (which included toasting marshmallows!)
• Orienterring

What a great start to the new school year Columba class had!

In English, we used the book 'Leon and the Place Between' to innovate our own narratives. The children took their character to a different 'Place Between'. I loved how imaginative they were and enjoyed reading their finished fantasy stories!

In Maths, we have been focusing on Place Value as well as using the formal written method for addition and subtraction. The children worked really hard to solve calculations using this method. We have been using base 10 to help us, particularly with calculations where we have needed to exchange.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our Electricity Science block and have loved making circuits. We have explored what changes we can make to a circuit and even made our own switches.