Year 4 News 25.10.24 – Happy Half Term!

In Maths, our key fact knowledge has been very useful to help work out a range of mental calculations. We have also developed our skills to recognise which calculations can be completed mentally. We have learnt about using efficient methods (changing our numbers from 999 to 100 and then subtracting one from the answer) and using the equivalent difference. We learnt that if the rate of increase is the same, the difference will never change.

As writers, we have enjoyed the experience of being a newspaper reporter to write our final news reports. We have focused on using present perfect tense, speech punctuation, expanded noun phrases, word play and fronted adverbials to support our writing. We have worked hard to complete all four paragraphs and write our plan across the week.

In Reading, the poem to Asgard has been our focus. We explored our likes and dislikes, together with finding the most successful and least successful parts.

In spelling this week, we finished learning about the word ending 'sure'.

In PSHE, we have explored the Health aspect of this subject by looking at how alcohol can affect people. Our starting point was to describe the things that are good and the things that are bad for our bodies. We all listened carefully and responded thoughtfully when learning about the laws protecting people from the risks of alcohol. In groups, we looked at posters published to let people know about the risks. This gave us lots of ideas to create our own information poster. We also had the opportunity to ask questions, and you did so in such a mature way Year 4.

In our final forest school session this week, we took part in lots of fantastic activities. We learnt how to become Viking warriors and learnt how to become archers. We also built our own shelters and created longboats out of our forest school resources. We then enjoyed creating our own fires and toasting marshmallows. We have loved forest school this half term and learnt so many skills.

In Computing, our lesson was all about who owns the information displayed on different websites. We used a variety websites to understand that some websites allow you to view and download content, and others give you the opportunity to create content. We also thought carefully about the rules for sharing things in real life and online.

We have no formal homework set for this half term. We hope that you enjoy time together. If you do have any outstanding homework, we just ask that this is pleased looked at.

We started our new RE unit this week. Our lesson began by darkening our room and lighting a candle. We considered how the light made us feel and we also considered how Jesus is thought as as the light of the world. We then listened to a song based on the bible verse from Gospel of John 1:1-14. We thought about how this linked to our initial ideas. The children created their own poems about light.

PC Nick came in to speak to us about Halloween and Bonfire safety today and shared key messages with the children.

We loved learning about Patch the Pumkin this week and were inspired to make our own Patch to help us to let our light shine!

We continued to work on our learning from Black History Month. We have made a piece of art work to success the impact that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela had on history.

In our dance lesson this week, we spent our final week to create a new solo 32 count dance routine. We used our poem from reading 'To Asgard'. We looked at verses from the poem and used these ideas to create motifs of dance movements. We then performed these in groups and the class guessed which part of the poem each group had based their motifs around.

Have a wonderful half term.

Miss Welch and Mrs Pointon