It was so lovely to welcome the children back, and we had a fantastic, fun-filled week! Please see below for our learning and achievements:
A great start to Spring 2 with a visit from RockKidz! We spoke about our confidence and self-esteem by YASBA - You're Awesome so Be Awesome! We learnt the Monkey and even dance battled with Miss Chapman and Miss Edgeley. We loved singing and rocking out!
What a busy and fun-filled final week of Spring 1! Please see below our learning and many achievements:
Maths: We continued our topic of multiplication and are now focusing on formal method of multiplication. We multiplied a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number.
English: We have written, edited and rewrote our narrative based on our book The Whale. Some beautiful standards of work!
History: We have consolidated our learning of life in Ancient Rome by studying their language of Latin. We became etymologists - translating the calendar months and common words.
Geography: We have consolidated our learning of Eastern Europe by focusing on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. On a map, we identified the different countries and the total number of refugees.
PSHE: We continued our topic of dreams and goals. We either wrote a verse or gave reasons for setting our own plans and goals.
RE: We consolidated our learning of the Buddha's teaching by focusing on either The Buddha, Kisa and the Mustard Seed or Buddha and the Angry Elephant. We discussed how these teachings can still impact the lives of Buddhists today through the themes of suffering, compassion and grief.
Art: Our Art Day focused on the topic of Design. We studied Mattise's The Fall of Icarus, which we enjoyed learning about as it is linked with our Ancient Greek Myths from last term! We spoke about the elements of art: form, line, colour, shape, space and texture in this painting. We then recreated Mattise's two famous trapeze artists by cutting, sticking and using different coloured cards to create different shapes.
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 busy week in Year 4! This week the children completed their Spring Assessments in GPS, Spelling, Arithmetic, Reasoning and Reading. We also completed our Spring Multiplication Check and checked our reading level in our Big Cat Scheme. Miss Chapman, Miss Read and I are so proud of the children's resilience and ambition shown this week!
Please see below the rest of our learning and achievements:
English: We continued our sentence stacking lessons based on our book The Whale.
Science: We focused on how air pollution is a threat to the human environment. We identified factors such as acidic lakes, changes to the water cycle and the gas and fumes produced affecting our lungs.
History: We continued our learning of Ancient Rome and focused on the town of Pompeii. We learnt that the nearby mountain Vesuvius had an ash cloud building pressure all day, and it released into a hot pyroclastic flow that perfectly buried and preserved the town for over 2000 years! When archaeologists excavated the town, they found thousands of artefacts, buildings and casts of people frozen. We know a lot about life in Ancient Rome because of the excavation.
Geography: We continued our learning of Eastern Europe by identifying physical features on a map, such as the most famous river (Danube), the longest river (Volga) and mountains (Ural).
PSHE: We continued our topic of Dreams and Goals. We worked in groups to create drama pieces focused on different scenarios. We then discussed as a class how we can set different goals if our dreams don't come true.
RE: We continued our worldview of Buddhism. We learnt about the story of Buddha and the Angry Elephant. We answered comprehension questions based on this text and the importance of compassion.
PE: Handball with ICS coach.
Guided Reading: Retrieval and vocabulary questions based on National Storytelling Week.
Gap Analysis: In Maths we continued our learning of place values in 3-digit and 4-digit numbers by using place value charts and counters.
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.
Here is Year 4's learning and achievements from this week:
Maths: We continued with our learning of multiplication and division. This week we identified and used factor pairs and multiplied by 10 and 100.
English: We continued our sentence stacking based on our book The Whale. We also took part in an experience day related to our main character Lucy - building our own rafts!
Science: We learnt that living things depend on each other within an ecosystem and how there can be both positive and negative impacts.
History: We continued our learning of Ancient Rome by focusing on Roman society and how it became a republic. We learnt the ordering of society, starting with the consul (two members elected annually to run the city), senators (up to 300 who have the post for life and advise the consul), patricians (wealthy men who own land and money), plebeians (who are poor and do not own property) and slaves (owned and undertook most manual work).
Geography: We continued our learning of Eastern Europe by focusing on the climate. We learn that there are different climates in Eastern Europe and countries closer to the North Pole are colder, whereas countries closer to the Equator are warmer. We also learnt the climate in Eastern Europe is continental.
RE: We continued our study of Buddhism by speaking about Anicca (change). We spoke about changes in our lives and how this made us feel.
PSHE: We continued our learning of Dreams and Goals. This week we focused on how sometimes our dreams and goals do not come true, but spoke about being resilient when this doesn't happen.
Guided Reading: We explored new vocabulary and answered retrieval questions based on Awesome Series – Dick Kerr Girls Football.
Handwriting: We finished our studying of hard letters z, f and x.
Spellings: We focused on the spelling rules s, and es.
PE: We began handball with Mr Watson.
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.
Our final week before Christmas! We edited and rewrote our newspaper reports based on the Wizards of Once.
We completed our Christmas crafts - we designed our own cards and decorated our placemats for our Christmas lunch!
Miss Chapman and I were so proud of all the children this week - excellent behaviour at the pantomime where we enjoyed watching Cinderella, great performances at our Christmas production, and readings and traditional carols at our Christmas Church Service. Due to this, every child was awarded Dojo Champion!
Awards:
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!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Year 4!
Maths: We continued our learning of times tables, focusing on consolidating the 9x tables and the 7x tables.
English: We finished our sentence stacking for our newspaper report and created our narrative map.
Spanish: We learnt about fruits.
Geography: We learnt about food and farming in the Mediterranean.
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.
Maths: We continued with our topic of multiplication and division by focusing on the 6x tables, multiples of 3 and the 9x tables.
Science: We continued our topic of classification and focused on the key features of reptiles, amphibians and mammals.
Spanish: We continued our learning of instruments.
History: We continued our learning of Ancient Greece and looked at different Greek Myths, such as King Midas, where everything he touched turned to gold, Narcissus, who pined away from looking at his own reflection, and Medusa, who would turn you into stone if you looked at her.
D. T: We practised our cooking skills in preparation for baking our apple crumble next week. We practised rubbing in the flour, chopping vegetables and coring apples. Some of us were very helpful to Miss Chapman and helped wash and dry up the equipment!
