Another busy week in Year 4. Please read below for our learning and achievements:

Maths: We continued our topic of multiplication and division by looking at related facts for multiplication and division alongside informal methods of written multiplication.

English: We recapped the skills needed for our narrative and plotted our narrative map. We are now planning and writing our own narrative based on our book The Whale.

Science: We have finished our topic of Ecology by discussing how humans have changed the environment in our local area. We spoke about both positive impacts and negative impacts. We focused on Florence Fields and how this would have positive impacts, such as more houses being affordable, more public transport and how they would build a nature reserve to protect the ecosystem.

History: We continued our topic of Ancient Rome by focusing on leisure activities. These included the forum, Roman baths, gladiator fights held in amphitheatres, chariot racing in circuits and more peaceful interests such as poetry, feasts and theatre.

Geography: We continued our learning of Eastern Europe by comparing and contrasting Lithuania to the UK. We focused on physical geographical factors such as location, size/population, rivers, mountains, cities, landmarks and climate.

RE: We continued our worldview of Buddhism and focused on the theme of compassion. We read about Kisa and the Mustard Seed, a story in which Kisa's child had died, and the Buddha told her she could only get a mustard seed if a member of the house had not died. After visiting each house in her community, she did not have a mustard seed. We spoke about how grief is a part of our lives.

PE: Handball with ICS.

Guided Reading: We answered retrieval questions on texts focused on Children's Mental Health Week.

Gap Analysis: We consolidated our learning of place value of three and four-digit numbers.

Another jam-packed week in Year 4! Please enjoy our learning and achievements from this week:

Maths: This week we continued our learning of multiplication and division by multiplying a number by 1 and 0, dividing a number by 1 and itself and multiplying by three numbers.

English: We started our sentence stacking lessons based on our book The Whale. We also completed an experience day on storms - we watched videos of different types of storms and used dictionaries and thesauruses to find adjectives, onomatopoeia and alliteration to describe a storm!

Science: We continued our unit of Ecology by focusing on food chains. We identified different producers, consumers and decomposers. We then created our own food chain.

History: We have started our new topic of Ancient Rome. We learnt that Ancient Rome was a powerful empire located in Italy. We located the empire on a map and spoke about geographical factors that helped Rome become so successful: mountains, rivers and seas to stop intruders, grow crops to feed armies and allow for exploration and trade.

PSHE: We started our new unit of Dreams and Goals. We spoke about our dreams for the future.

RE: Our worldview this half-term is Buddhism. We spoke about why the world can be wonderful for others, but why it may not be wonderful for some. We spoke about how the world could be wonderful by ensuring there are homes for everyone, everyone is listened to and loved, there were no more wars, and wildlife was protected.

PE: We have continued gymnastics with Mr Watson.

Reading: We answered inference and prediction questions based on the Chinese New Year.

Handwriting: We focused on the hard letter formations of s, r and v.

Spelling: We focused on the spelling rule of 'tch'.

Gap Analysis: We focused on areas of improvement from our last set of assessments. In Maths, we read and identified Roman Numerals up to 100 and in reading we summarised the main points of a text.

It has been so lovely to welcome the children back, and we are looking forward to another busy and fun half-term together! Our learning and achievements for the week:

Maths: We continued our learning of times-tables by focusing on the 11x and 12x times-tables. We have been using TT Rockstars to practice our multiplication check!

English: We started our new book, The Whale. We researched different types of whales and used a photo of the main character Lucy to infer how she is an adventurer.

Science: We started our new topic of Ecology and created fact files on different habitats, such as the rainforest, Arctic, desert, pond and ocean. We researched the conditions, weather, animals and plants, what they eat and how they survive within the habitat.

Geography: We started our new topic of Eastern Europe. We divided into Balkan and Baltic countries alongside the capital cities.

PE: We began our half-term of gymnastics with Mr Watson.

Reading: We focused on retrieval questions based on Around the World texts.

Handwriting: We focused on hard letters b, k and p.

Spellings: We focused on syllable division. 

Gap Analysis: We focused on areas of improvement from our last set of assessments. In Maths, we showed different representations of numbers up and beyond 1000 through base-10, numberlines and measuring jugs. In Reading, we sequenced events and in GPS we identified and use Standard English.

We consolidated our knowledge of Ancient Greece by taking part in an Ancient Greek Day! We created our own tribute pendants to the Gods, found out the different roles in Greek life and who we would recruit to our army, handled Greek artefacts and chose which equipment we would wear as a soldier. We were able to build a shield war, use Greek weapons and wear Greek armour!

We also took part in the Rudolph Run to raise money for Tapping House - an amazing £125 raised from our class. So proud of all those who took part and thank you for your sponsors!

Geography: We continued our learning of Mediterranean Europe by focusing on the climate. We learnt that during summer, temperatures are higher, and it is hot and dry and, in winter, temperatures are lower, so it is cold and wet. 

English: We became TV/radio interviewers and took on the roles of chief editor or a wizard, witch and warrior and used the 5W's to describe a feather being found.

D. T: We used our skills of cutting, rubbing and chopping to bake our apple crumbles! We enjoyed tasting them!

We were very lucky to be visited by the author, David Barker, who spoke to us about his career, the London Falling Series and tips on becoming a writer. We even had a chance to ask him lots of questions and become inspired by writing. We were also very lucky to have both books signed for the class.

Another great week of learning and achievements in Year 4! Incredibly proud of the class for winning the Attendance Cup this week - keep this up!

Maths: We continued and finished our topic of addition and subtraction - we focused on subtracting four-digit numbers with and without exchange.

English: We started our sentence stacking of Wizards of Once. We focused on the 5W's, alliteration and puns.

Science: We carried on our unit of classification. We focused on amphibians and fish being vertebrates. We learnt that animals can also be classified by being cold-blooded or warm-blooded.

History: We continued our learning of Ancient Greece. We focused on the Greek polytheistic beliefs and how they worshipped many gods. We learnt about the Olympian Gods who lived in a palace in the clouds, such as Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena and Hades.

Spanish: We learnt about different instruments.