Year 4 Spelling

27 January 2017

This week, the children have been given three spelling activities. They need to use these to help them to learn the words given last week.

Consonants and Vowels

Write your spellings words; use a blue coloured pencil for consonants and a red coloured pencil for vowels.

Stair steps

Write your spellings as ‘stair steps’.

Alliterative Phrases or Sentences

Choose five of your spelling words and write five alliterative phrases or sentences. An alliteration uses the same initial letter. You may include a word or two that does not begin the same letter. Be sure to underline your spelling words.

Examples: cooling condensation, important instruction, every emotion explains experiences.

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.

07 October 2016

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.

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.

Summer Half Term

In line with our Homework Policy, there are no homework tasks or spellings to learn next week because it’s the Summer half-term holiday. Of course, there are plenty of ways to help your child continue learning: get reading, go places, talk lots!

Have a happy and healthy holiday.

It’s Christmas…

There are no homework tasks or spellings during the holiday period.

Instead, support your child in other ways. Make sure they take part in family events, encourage them to relax and catch up on some reading at home, encourage them to send thank you notes (emails are fine, too!) – all these things will help their English skills of speaking and listening, reading and writing.

Plenty of maths skills can be practised, too – planning some top telly and considering times and durations of programmes, working out what half price is when the sales start… could your child even help with some cooking to use various measures?

Whatever they do, make sure your child, and you, have a happy and healthy Christmas break.

It’s half-term…

…so there is no homework this week.

Please make sure your child spends some time most days reading – books, comics, newspapers… Why not visit the library or a book shop this week?

To support writing, your child should review their spellings from the last few weeks. You could test them on words from all the lists, and ask them to use the words in sentences or a story, or create a comic strip with a word used in each speech bubble.Perhaps you could set a challenge (for you as well as your child!) of using spelling words in everyday conversations! Practising handwriting by joining up is a useful activity, too.

In Maths, children in Key Stage 2 should definitely practise times tables – including the related division facts. Can your child respond within five seconds (not counting up to work it out) to questions like ‘What’s 7 times 8?’ and ‘What’s 42 divided by 6?’

Of course, make sure your child is happy and healthy over half-term, too! A walk and play at Roundhay Park, a bike ride, a conker challenge, a trip to the art gallery… Enjoy!

12 June 2015

This week’s spellings are nouns (singular to plural).

For some of the words, you have to drop the y and replace it with an ies in order to pluralise the word. Can you spot any other spelling patterns or rules in these words?