21 October 2016
It’s half-term, so there’s no homework. Enjoy the holiday instead: hunt down a collection of chestnuts on a walk at Roundhay Park, enjoy a cinema trip on a damp day, go further afield and visit somewhere new…
Whatever you do, have a good break.
14 October 2016
The spellings for this week are revision from this half term.
-s, -es, -er, -ing -ed suffixes
– you need to remember two rules for this:
- double up for a short vowel sound (‘swimming’ not ‘swiming’ because the i makes an short ‘i’ sound, not a longer ‘i’ sound as in ‘site’)
- drop the e for ing (and ed and er, too!)
un- and dis- prefixes
23 September 2016
The spellings to learn this week all have the prefix un or dis. The spelling test will be on Friday 30 September. Spelling tests will now be weekly along with the times table test.
disappear
disappointed
disagree
dishonest
disobey
unhappy
unusual
unlucky
unzip
undo
16 September 2016
We are looking at adding suffixes to verbs to create new words. Usually, this is fairly simple. However, there are some things we need to remember:
1. Double up for a short vowel sound – running, not runing.
2. Verbs ending in ‘e’ follow the “drop the ‘e’ for ‘ing'”, so the ‘e’ is removed before adding ‘-ed’ or ‘-ing’ – hoping not hopeing.
3. Some verbs don’t follow the rules for the past tense – built not builded.
4. You need to decide if you should add -s or -es to make a plural or a third person singular verb. Handy trick: If you add a syllable it is usually –es – foxes not foxs.
As your child will be learning the rules of adding suffixes rather than the spellings of individual words, I will test you on any word which follows these rules.
I will test you on Friday 23 September.
Here is a table which may help you begin practising your spellings:
09 September 2016
In a change from last year, spellings will be tested fortnightly, not weekly. This means there won’t be a test next week. Instead, you should spend more time not just practising the words but looking for other words which have the same sound in them. Sometimes, you will have spelling challenges do to to help your children deepen their learning of these and other words which fit the ‘sound’ or spelling rule .
Because of this extra time and practice, when it comes to the tests, the children won’t just be tested on the words in the initial list. I will choose some of the words from the list and some other words which fit the theme (the children will have been exposed to these extra words in class learning). Also, in future tests, some of the words from previous tests will be recapped to check that children are remembering what they have learnt.
The spellings this week do not follow a rule or pattern. Instead, I will just test the children on these words related to our topic:
world
continent
country
city
compass
where
were
England
atlas
globe
Take a look at the sheet inside your Homework book called Can you become a master of spelling? This has lots of different strategies for learning words. Find a few which work for your child.
Have a happy and healthy holiday
It’s the summer holidays at last, so there are no homework or spelling activities. Enjoy the holidays instead!
Does your child spend less time outdoors than prison inmates? A survey suggests three-quarters of children do, as the time spent playing in parks, woods and fields has shrunk dramatically due to lack of green spaces, digital technology and parents’ fears.
Research shows that playing outdoors promotes social skills, improves vision, reduces stress, increases attention span and provides vitamin D.
15 July 2016
| forgetting, forgotten,
beginning, beginner, prefer, preferred subdivide, subheading, submarine, submerge measure, treasure creature, furniture vein, weigh, eight, neighbour , they, gardening limited, limitation
|
young, touch, double,
trouble, country accept, except affect, effect disappoint, disagree, disobey misbehave, mislead, misspell inactive, incorrect illegal, illegible sadly, completely, usually, finally, comically happily, angrily gently, simply, humbly, nobly basically, frantically, dramatically ball, bawl berry, bury break, brake
|
fair, fare
great, grate groan, grown main, mane meat, meet missed, mist piece, peace plain, plane rain, rein, reign seen, scene weather, whether whose, who’s girl’s, girls’ boy’s, boys’ men’s, babies’, here, hear heel, heal, he’ll not, knot male, mail |
The above spellings include a lot of words that we have learnt this year; some words that follow the spelling rules that we have focused on and some words that may be new to your child. Like the Year 3/4 spelling list, this represents the sorts of spellings Year 3 children are expected to spell confidently.
We have spent a lot of time in class discussing effective ways of practising spellings. Your child will be able to explain the following techniques:
~highlighting
~drawing around spellings
~spelling pyramids
~illustrating spellings
~letter colouring
Why not spend some time with your child trying out these different techniques?
Your child will be tested on eight of these spellings at the end of next week.
08 July 2016
This week’s spellings have all been taken from a recent spelling test we took as a class. The words are all “Year 3/4” words that pupils are expected to be able to spell (actually one isn’t but you will have to check the whole list which is in your child’s spelling book to find out which).
- favourite
- neighbour
- chemist
- expression
- week
- weak
- unique
- certain
- enough
- television
You may wish to discuss what spelling rules and patterns your child can see within these words. Do any spelling patterns apply to more than one spelling? (expression and television both have ‘sion’ suffix)
01 July 2016
As you know, we have had to close school on Friday 01 July – Shadwell Lane had its water turned off. For that reason, and because two classes are out of school today, there hasn’t been chance to set homework or spellings for this week.
Even though there is no set homework or spellings, please remember there are lots of things that the children can be doing to reflect on their learning from this week.
Again, I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the school closure.
24 June 2016
This week’s spellings all follow the double up for a short vowel sound rule and are from the Year 3/4 spelling curriculum.
accidentally
actually
business
disappear
different
difficult
occasionally
thousand
opposite
possession
Some of these spellings may seem familiar but it is essential that we keep revisiting the double up for a short vowel sound rule. Within this list, there are examples where the double up rule isn’t always followed. Can you child spot these? There is also a red herring within this list. Can you spot it?
double up for a short vowel sound
In English spelling, we come across two types of vowel sounds – short vowel sounds like ‘a’ in apple and ‘e’ in berry and long vowel sounds like ‘a’ in change. Usually (but not always), the consonants after a short vowel sound are doubled. For example, opposite has a short ‘o’ at the start and is followed by a pair of ‘p’s.
