Hello, I'm Mrs Makinde and I teach in Goldfinch class. My favourite subjects are English and Computing. This is my third year of teaching and my first year teaching here at St John's. 

In my spare time, you'll find me reading and exploring outside with my two daughters.

 

Other staff working in our class are:

Mrs Gavriilidis – Class TA

Mr Hasker (Fridays)

Our weekly timetable:

Important dates for the diary this term for Goldfinch Class:

Tuesday 5th November - Lantern workshop

Thursday 21st November - Year group walking tour of Canterbury and Beaney visit. 

Monday 25th November - Flu vaccines 

Wednesday 18th December - Christmas jumper day and Christmas lunch

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Our learning this term

Maths

This term, Year 4 will be deepening their addition and subtraction skills with some recap of learning and looking at efficient addition and subtraction. They will also learn how to find the area of a shape by counting squares. They will conclude the term with beginning multiplication and division, learning their times tables and division facts up to 12.

 

English

Our class book this term is The Firework-makers daughter by Phillip Pullman. We will be reading this wonderful story, and writing in the genres of poetry, letters, narrative and newspapers. Year 4 will be focusing on their use of subordinate clauses, fronted adverbials to add more excitement and detail into their writing, and the use of pronouns to ensure it is clear who the reader is talking about. We will continue to have a focus on punctuation and handwriting, to make writing clear and easy to read. 

Reading

While reading our class book, the children will be building on their inference skills and justify their answer using information from the text. Year 4 will continue to read independently every day and use Accelerated Reader to complete quizzes about the book.

Curriculum

This term we are exploring the geography of 'Our Busy City'. This focuses on Canterbury and how it has changed over recent years. We will be building on our previous learning of Human and Physical features and spotting their changes in Canterbury and why that might have been the case. Our trip around town will help us to see how Canterbury high street is used and create a sketch map of the town.

 

Science

This term we are exploring States of Matter. Year 4 will be learning how solids, liquids and gases are made up and how states of matter can change. We will be learning about evaporation and condensation and the water cycle. 

RE

This term in RE we are exploring the concept of Incarnation. Year 4 will look at different gospels from the Bible and what they teach about the birth of Jesus, and how these influence Christians to act. We will be interviewing a Reverend about Christian beliefs of Incarnation and the Holy Trinity. 

 

 

 

Learning at home for Goldfinch Class

• Reading expectation for year group
• Spelling shed
• TTS Rockstars
•  

 

Be ready for learning! In Goldfinch Class, your child will need to have these items in school:

• PE kit (to be worn on PE day) 

• Water bottle (no squash or juice) 

• Small rucksack (big enough to hold lunchbox and reading books) 

• Wellington boots (to leave in school) 

• Coat (weather appropriate) 

Please don’t bring other items into school, as we do not have space to store these, and it can cause upset if things are lost or damaged.

 

Highlights of our learning so far this year: