Happy Half Term Year 4 26.5.23

In Maths, our area lesson gave us the opportunity to apply all our learning over the last few weeks. We practised counting squares to compare different rectilinear shapes. We have continued our money lessons from Tuesday onwards. We have learnt this week to calculate money as both pounds and pence. This was useful to then learn how to add amounts of money. At the end of the week, we then learnt about multiplying amounts of money. For this, we converted values to pence before working it out.

In English, we were able to showcase all our skills to write fronted adverbials in a non fiction piece. This writing task allowed us to recount an experience where we pretended David Attenborough came to visit our school or a nearby woodland. We watched a video and got to know all about David Attenborough's link with Queen Elizabeth II. On Tuesday, we focused on our sentence accuracy using past tense verbs. We have then planned and written biographies about Jacques Cousteau. We spent time to research facts, organise these under subheadings for our plans and then write our biographies. We really enjoyed learning about this amazing man.

In my happy mind, we spent time practising our happy breathing.

We also demonstrated great teamwork and communication skills within a PE lesson with Mr Hopkins – a visitor to school.

In our Reading lessons this week, we have continued to enjoy our reading aloud books and challenge books.

In our DT lessons this week, we have completed our purses. We continued to use our backs stitch to create the shape of our purse by joining two pieces of fabric to make the seam. Once this was completed, we then added our fastening. For this, we made a drawstring. We used cord and created a sleeve for this to sit inside and used running stitch. If the children completed their purses, they were able to add an embellishment. The children were asked to sew a pattern on to a new piece of fabric which was then attached to the front of the purse. The children showed their knowledge of running stitch, back stitch and cross stitch for this.

In our second DT lesson this week, we have evaluated our purses. We thought about what worked well in our design, what we felt was difficult and what we would do differently if we were to do this again. We enjoyed this opportunity to reflect on our work.

In our history lessons this week, we have learnt about sources of information. We started by considering what historians use to learn about the past. We then looked at sources of information from the Shang Dynasty. We looked at Shang writing and Oracle Bones. The children then considered to usefulness of these sources.

Y4 took part in our CDAT ethos conference this week. We enjoyed learning about the biggest story and learning about two particular elements – Creation and The Fall.

We used our computing lesson for this week to research Jacques Cousteau in our English lessons and practising our Timestable skills.

Within our Art lessons this week, we have completed our wax resist art work. We added our watercolours to see how the wax resists the watercolours.

We have not set formal homework for the half term. We would love the children to continue to play on TT rockstars and using Daily 10. The children are also welcome to continue writing book reviews and completing bingo tasks. We also hope that you all have a wonderful week as families.

We hope you have a fantastic half term.

Miss Welch and Mrs Pointon