Year 4 News 25.11.22

In Maths we have begun a new unit on measure. We recapped our measure vocabulary and used this knowledge to begin a new topic about Perimeter. We used both squares and units of measure to find the total perimeter of squares and rectangles. We continued to use squares to measure the perimeter of rectangles and squares. We then pushed our learning further by learning how to calculate the perimeter of rectilinear shapes. This required us to carefully check we had the length of every side and were carefully adding our amounts together.

We have focussed on Poetry in our some of our English sessions this week. We discovered new vocabulary, made predictions and talked about the effect of the words chosen by the poet. Our Haiku poetry is now complete. We enjoyed presenting the poem to enter into a CDAT competition. We used word banks and thesauruses to extend our word choices. Good luck to all our Year 4 entries. Later on in our week, we went back to our Arthur and the Golden Rope inspired unit of work. This week, we have looked at an example of a nonfiction model text about a creature named Jotnar. It offered useful advice on how to summon it, capture it and defeat it. In our activities, we have done a lot of vocabulary work. We have looked carefully at the vocabulary used within the text. Found the meaning of these words and shown how we can use them to form our own sentences. We have also learnt about finding synonyms for words. Using a chant from our nonfiction text, we created our own poems. We then moved on to analyse the text through answering questions. We ended our week by learning about using the adverbials despite and consequently to write some fantastic sentences.

In Reading, we have completed our poetry lessons evaluating which of the poems we had read we liked the most. We then went on to read and analyse a Viking saga. We really enjoyed exploring the characters emotions and how the author used particular language to represent fear of the characters.

In Computing, we continued to debug our algorithms to create shapes. We were keen to challenge our skills when the shapes had different lengths and different angles.

We have begun our first Science lesson based on electricity. We were able to share our prior knowledge and think about how we use electricity. Our first activity was to identify a range of electrical appliances and sort them into those that use mains electricity and those that are battery powered. We made some interesting observations related to a few of the appliances that use both types of power.

In our HeartSmart lesson this week, we have started to think more about our mental wellbeing. Like in our courageous advocacy activities, we have considered what has a positive impact on our mental health but also what has a negative impact.

In our Art lessons this week, we have completed our unit on George Seurat's pointillism and created our own artwork. This showcased our pointillism and colouring mixing skills. The results of our work look fantastic!

For our Young Voices practice this week, we began to learn the lyrics and dance moves to – Nile Rodgers Dance Party. We learnt the dance moves to Sing from your Heart; as well as the dance section to support Urban Strides (on stage dance group) with their stage performance.

During RE this week, we have continued to reflect on elements of Good News in the Christmas story. We started our lesson by identifying the similarities and differences between the Christmas story and the story of Elizabeth and Zachariah. We noticed that there were a lot! We then listened to the story of Simeon and Anna. We noticed that this story took place after the birth of Jesus and it celebrated the people of God meeting their Saviour – Jesus.

We have also made a start to our studywork books this week to showcase our amazing work this term.

Our My Happy Mind focus this week is to understand the importance of using and spotting our character strengths. We recapped the five key strengths and thought about how we have used our top  three in different situations.

We also had a fantastic opportunity to visit the book sale today. Books will be available to buy from school on Monday and Tuesday.

This week's SPAG homework is based on Noun Phrases.

Have a lovely weekend! 
Miss Welch and Mrs Pointon