Year 4 News 1.07.22

Celebrating our school's bicentenary was an important part of our week this week in Year 4. In English, we wrote a letter to our future self, and we had the task to describe what 2022 is like. We wrote imagining that we would read this letter in 10 years time and we thought about what questions we would like to ask about the future. We also had the opportunity to write about what school is like now, our chosen career and our friends and family. On Monday, we took part in a Victorian day.

At the beginning of our day, the children were welcomed in to our Victorian classroom. Tables were laid out in rows and an image of the Queen was presented at the front. Upon entry, the children were asked to line up as boys and girls. Theirs hands and fingernails were inspected for cleanliness. The children were then introduced to our classroom rules. For our first task, the children were asked to practise their best handwriting. We practised each letter of the alphabet. We then went on to recite a traditional Victorian about being our best. For our Maths lesson, we learnt about Victorian money. Within our morning, we also spent time learning some Victorian games. The children enjoyed playing hopscotch, rolling marbles and also playing a forfeit – a game which required children to put an item into a box, if it was guessed to belong to that child, they would need to complete a forfeit to get it back. In our afternoon, we learnt about some Victorian toys. Linking to our animation unit in computing, the children created their own Victorian Thaumatrope.

To end our week, we held a celebration worship on Friday at church. I am so proud of the part that you all played in this worship. Well done to those who read words or took part in our wonderful singing.

In our Maths lessons this week, we completed our learning on time. Learning more about problem solving using time. We also completed our end of unit assessments.

In our writing lessons this week, we continued to add paragraphs to our shared write. We also used some of our English lessons to complete our reading assessments.

We dedicated part of our week to learning about artefacts. Firstly, we decided what an artefact is, and then we thought about key artefacts from different eras. With this knowledge, we explored the types of things that would make a good artefact for today, in 2022. A class photo, the whiteboard and a painted pebble were just a few of our ideas. School is planning to add examples of artefacts into a time capsule and I am looking forward to seeing which ones are chosen.

Our Reading time allowed us to move onto a text which is over 90 years old – The Wind in the Willows. Using our first extract, we enjoyed making predictions about the characters, and we began thinking about the river setting. We also completed our end of year quiz which gave us an opportunity to work on two timed activities.

In Geography we became river fact file experts. Using research from four different rivers from around the world, we compiled a fact file to include facts about the size, the location and the use of the river. Our next step was to transfer some of this learning onto a page within our study work books.

DT has been an important part of our week. Following the process of batik, the children drew their designs on to their fabric using pencil. Once they were happy with their design, they used the melted wax and canting tool to add their wax to the fabric. Once the wax had had a couple of days to dry, we began to add dye to our fabric.

In RE, we began with a great recap of our learning so far. We then completed a group activity to design a photo information board to describe a Puja, a Hindu worship. We thought about why Puja might be important to Hindus and added corresponding thought bubbles around our factual sentences.

We are so proud of everything we have done this week.

Miss Welch and Mrs Pointon