Year 4 News 7.3.25

As writers, our monster hunter guides are now complete. We wrote our final paragraph to describe how to trap our chosen monster. It was great to read such a variety of ideas. We have then started a new unit. We have then started a new unit inspired by the book 'Lost Happy Endings'. We started by writing predictions for the story. So far, we have learnt that the book is about a little girl called Jub who scatters happy endings from her sack through the forest. But, in the story, the evil witch steals the sack. We have now been asked to write the witch a twisted narrative in order for her to return our happy endings. We are not impressed because the witch wants our stories to be sad and evil! We have written our own character poems this week based on Jub and have also been looking through the example text and trying to understand the language which has been used. We hope this will help us when we come to write our own!

In Maths, our lessons have been based on fractions again this week. We are using the fraction vocabulary with lots of confidence to describe mixed numbers and improper fractions. We began the week converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions and then we moved onto calculating equivalent fractions. We learnt about using fraction walls as well as our knowledge of multiples to work out equivalent fractions.

In spellings, we began our new unit to learn about the ous suffix.

We have enjoyed reading aloud this week and taking part in a world book day themed activity.

In PSHE, we also focused on learning about asthma to know what can trigger asthma, how people treat their asthma and what to do if someone has an asthma attack. This formed part of our Health and Safety week lessons.

We have then also taken part in another two PSHE lessons. In our first HeartSmart lesson, we thought about unseen heroes. We started by listing the people who help to keep our community safe. We thought about why it was important to have these people and what an important contribution they may. To celebrate them, we wrote thank you cards which have then be shared with them. We loved to see the positive impact we had made! 'When you do things, do not let selfishness or pride be your guide. Instead, be humble and give more honor to others than to yourselves. Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others.' Philippians 2:3-4.In our second lesson, we focused on 'Teamwork makes the dream work'. We reflected on what this meant and then put this into practice. We created a human tangle and trying to unknot ourselves. Afterwards, we talked about how important clear communication, listening to one another and negotiating was in making the challenge a success. We learnt that being HeartSmart means knowing when we need other people to help us achieve what we are trying to do. 'As iron sharpens iron, so people can improve each other.' Proverbs 27:17

In French this week, we have learnt how to say the names for rooms in our house.

We are now on the final stages of our DT construction task to make a pavilion. This week, we added different types of cladding.

In PE, we warmed up with a game of defend your friend before before using hockey and football games to practice moving into a space after passing. The games were designed to get the children moving and thinking quickly, passing accurately and moving straight away into a space to keep a fast pace.

We also took part in our first hockey lesson this week. We started our lesson by playing 'Dragon's nest'. We had to attempt to steal the eggs (balls) from the nest and return them to our own. We learnt about holding our stick and we could move the ball with control. We then went on to learn how to dribble around cones and stop the ball.

In History this week, we revisited our key question: How has crime and punishment changed through time? We recalled everything we had learnt about crime and punishment in the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Tudor time. We realised that punishments were brutal in the past but did start to be more of a way of humiliating people rather than hurting. We then started to learn about the Victorian crime and punishment system. We have learnt when the Victorian era was and how the industrial revolution also prompted a turning point in crime and punishment – the introduction of the police and prisons. We are looking forward to learn more next lesson.

In our computing lessons this week we have covered two lessons. We have learnt about repeated patterns and algorithms. We started by identifying patterns and showing how they are repeated. We have learnt how to programme our turtle to move using square brackets and a repeat code. We have been able to code squares of different sizes. We then went on to learnt even more about coding. We have learnt how to code shapes when we were provided with the angles that we needed to use. We enjoyed trying to use loops to create a repeated loop.

In our trumpet lessons, we can now play so much songs using the notes middle c, d, e and f. We are becoming quite the experts!

In our RE lessons this week, we looked at the Easter story and found examples of both trust and betrayal taking place within it. We then went on to learn about Judas' betrayal. We explored extracts from the bible and artist impressions of what this was like.

In science this week, we looked at how wonderful water is. We added the findings to last week's evaporation experiment first, before moving on to learn about the different states water can be in. We discussed the temperatures at which water changes state and carried out experiments so we could observe the processes that cause water to change state. Well done Year 4. You were really well behaved during the experiments. Your patience was definitely needed when observing the ice cubes melting!

Maths.co.uk homework has been set. Please keep taking place in our TT Rockstars competition – we are so close now!

Have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Morris and Mrs Pointon