Year 4 Weekly News 5.11.21

In our first lesson of English this week, we spent time editing our work from our writing before half term. The children were given feedback and asked to find their edits in their work. In our next lesson, we completed our new cold write. For this, the children were asked to write a letter to me outlining their favourite day of half term. It was lovely to read about what everyone had been up to. Then, we started to learn our model text through adding actions and recalling the information. Our model text for this unit is a letter from a brother at Lindisfarne Priory explaining what happened when Vikings invaded. Throughout the week, we have started to learn about fronted adverbials: what they are and how we can use them in our writing. We will continue with this learning next week.

In our Maths lessons this week, we have been learning more about addition and subtraction. We started by learning about equivalent difference. This is the difference in a question when the value between them is the same. We learnt about this through thinking of age. We learnt to use bar models to work out the difference between questions. We also considered how we could simplify questions by using the equivalent difference e.g. 1000 – 567 could be 999- 566 so that we did not need to exchange. We have also been learning how to use estimating to check our answers. We have used the process of rounding to add or subtract numbers mentally to check whether our answer is close to the correct figure.

In our reading lessons this week, we have had some opportunity for independent reading and two days of our reading comprehension activities. For our reading comprehension activities this week, we have been reading and answering questions based on a poem called 'To Asgard'.

In our computing lesson this week, we have continued to learn about algorithms. We know that an algorithm is a set of instructions which programs a code. We also know how to find bugs and debug programmes. In our lesson, we were introduced to a new character – Laurel. We needed to help Laurel 'collect' jewels throughout our codes. We were introduced to the new 'collect' block.

In our Art lesson this week, we learnt more about George Seurat and his style of work . We read a very interesting factfile about him. Next, we completed an observational drawing in the way in which Seurat would have. Many of his pieces were inspired by the landscape. So, we used the landscape around us. We went outside with our blankets and sketched the Fort. We loved spending this time outside and drawing what we could see.

We loved our Science lesson this week. This took up our entire Wednesday afternoon. The children started this lesson by considering what the word 'Absorb' means. The children had first seen this in our Science cold task. We came up with a class definition for this. Then, we started to learn about why we would need to absorb sound. We talked about how ear defenders and music studios needed to absorb sound. The children were informed that Mrs Chesters wanted us to find a material which best absorbs sound for her music room. We planned how we would conduct this experiment. Then, the children planned which materials they would use. They were able to choose from a wide range. Once we had planned our experiment, we conducted it. The children placed an iPad in a shoebox and covered in it a material. The iPad played a sound and we recorded the level of volume coming from the box. The more the sound was absorbed, the better the material would be for Mrs Chesters music room. We recorded each of the results in our books.

In our Wellbeing time this week, we have explored the story of the Colour Monster. Some of the children were familiar with this story and loved sharing what they already knew. We firstly listened to the story being read. We discussed each of the different emotions being represented in the story. Then, we went on to think about what made us feel each of these emotions. The children then drew pictures inside their feelings jars to represent this. At the end of the lesson, some of the children designed their own colour monster.

We enjoyed two PE sessions this week. One with Sportscape on Tuesday and one with Mrs Jenkins. For more information about our PE lessons, please read our PE news.

On Friday, we had some catch up time. We completed work which we had not had time to finish over the last couple of weeks. We started by finishing off our Marcus Rashford inspired football kits to celebrate what we learnt in our Black History lessons. We then moved on to complete our Wellbeing display. For this, the children were asked to think about what they thought wellbeing was. We also completed our history posters which explained what a Viking invasion would have looked like. We also had some wellbeing time in which we listened to music and completed some mindful colouring. The children loved this time to be calm after a busy week.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday.
Miss Welch