Year 4 News 15.9.23

In English, we recapped on our editing symbols and spent time editing our first pieces of Year 4 writing. We became familiar with a new Sentence Accuracy activity. We used our sentence checkers to look at the key features of our sentences with the aim to be as accurate as possible. We have really enjoyed learning more about our Vehicle text this week – The Whale. In our sentence accuracy lessons, we have learnt about expanded noun phrases, using alternative pronouns and the correct use of standard English. In our lessons, we have explored the text through the pictures predicting what the story may be about. We have also written a simile poem. For this, we needed to focus on the nouns linked to pictures of the sea, then adding adjectives. Once we had done this, we were able to add expanded noun phrases and similes. Our poems are a fantastic showcase of our ideas. We ended our English learning this week by exploring our example text and beginning to understand the vocabulary used within it.

Our Maths lessons this week began by exploring the place value of 4 digit numbers. Our practical resources were very helpful when we compared the value of numbers and we could also use a part whole model to show the value of each digit. Understanding how we can partition numbers into 1000, 100, 10 and 1 and flexibly – which simply means into groups of numbers with different values. We have then moved on to using place value grids to find 1, 10, 100 and 1000 more or less than any given number. We ended our week by completing an arithmetic quiz, recalling Y3 skills.

During our Reading lessons this week, we have enjoyed looking at the book 'Explore; Vikings' and learning lots of new information. We have focused this week on what the Vikings did, how they were great travellers and what they did for entertainment.

In our Science lesson this week, we recapped the seven life processes. The children matched the words to their definitions and recorded this in their books. In our forest school session this week, we carried out a field study. The children spent time to carefully explore our school grounds identifying all types of living things. We learnt about the different types of habitats that we have – micro and macro. We also learnt about how we can classify animals as vertebrae and invertebrates. We thoroughly enjoyed conducting this investigation and were surprised with how much we found!

In our computing lesson this week, we have started to learn about the internet. We have acted out the way the internet works. Understanding that messages are sent from a server through a switch and onto it's desired location. Travelling through a router if information is shared between multiple networks.

Catapults was our theme for DT this week. The class were hooked into our unit with some exciting videos. We saw the project that we were going to construct and discussed some ways that we would achieve this. As the first part of our process, we sketched our design with labels in our books.

Our HeartSmart theme this week was focusing on how the words we say have power. The children acted this out saying unkind things to a piece of paper and an apple. We then tried to flatten out the creases of the paper and noticed that our words left marks. For our apple, we saw how our apple became bruised on the inside. This showed the impact our words have on the feelings of others. 'Encourage others and build each other up' Thessalonians 5:11.

We have enjoyed our wellbeing time this week thinking about our favourite colour and why this is. We learnt how we can use the strategy of counting forwards and backwards from any given number to help us to have moments of calm.

Spagtastic homework has been set this week.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Miss Welch and Mrs Pointon