Year 4 Blog Friday 17th November 2023

Date: 16th Nov 2023 @ 3:46pm

Help the homeless – Foxton Centre Big PNE Sleepout Friday 17^th November 

Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are sleeping by the football pitch at PNE’s Deepdale Stadium this Friday 17^th November. This is to raise money for a day centre called The Foxton Centre who provide food and warmth to the homeless people of Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter will sleep on cardboard and will only have with them what they can carry. This will give them an insight into how difficult it is for people sleeping on the streets, particularly as the nights are getting colder. We are all fortunate that we have food and somewhere warm to go to sleep every night, this is not the case for some people in Preston. Miss Smith and Mrs Dexter are asking for sponsorship, any donation would go a long way to help Preston’s vulnerable homeless community.  

You can read more and donate here: 

https://www.justgiving.com/team/deepdaledreamers?utm_medium=proxy_team&utm_content=team%2Fdeepdaledreamers&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=pfp-email

Welcome to your Friday blog

In English this week, we wrote a message in a bottle as if we were the character Michael. As space was limited, we had to ensure that we chose our words carefully.

In Maths, we used arrays to identify what the term factor means.  Arrays and multiplication squares were then used to find all the factor pairs of a given number.  This new learning was tricky to start with, but with perseverance we have hopefully mastered it! 

In Science we started our new topic - Electricity. At the start of the lesson, we tried to think of as many electrical appliances as they could, using the alphabet as a guide for ideas. We then discussed how all of these appliances get electricity, whether it is mains power or battery power. We then sorted some appliances into a Venn Diagram to show which type of electricity powers them, or whether they need both.   

In RE, we finished our ‘Belonging’ topic by considering what it means to ‘live in the light’ and how at Confirmation, people promise to try and turn away from what is wrong and follow in God’s light.  We also learnt about the work of Sean Devereax who was a missionary and aid worker in Somalia.

In Geography, we watched a video to investigate how people use a river. We found out that rivers can be used for a variety of purposes including helping to water crops, wash clothes and cooking utensils, make energy in the form of hydro-electric power and were vital for our survival.

In Art, following on from last week, we were given another ‘rule’ which we needed to follow. The rule involved drawing parallel lines and some shading. We were impressed with our efforts. 

In French, we finished out Pets topic. To show our understanding of what we have learnt, we completed a listening activity, a reading activity and a writing activity. We did very well and we are ready to move on to our new topic of Home next week.

In Music, we continued to learn Au Clair de la Lune on our recorders, using the notes we already know – B A and G. We also started to practise some Carols for Christmas – Starry Night and O little town of Bethlehem.

In PSHE, as it was anti-bullying week, we watched the BBC Teach live lesson about this year's theme 'Make a Noise about Bullying'. We discussed what bullying is and learned how to speak out if it is happening. We also decided whether each scenario was 'banter or bullying' and gave reasons to show the difference. In addition, we discussed ideas of what we should say to someone if their joke isn't funny anymore and who our trusted adults are if we think we are being bullied.

We were also lucky to be put through our paces by Freddie Fit on Tuesday afternoon. You can see some pictures of us enjoying our fitness session here.

In addition, on Friday, we dressed in our pyjamas for Children in Need. Thank you for supporting this worthy cause.  If you haven't brought in your £1, you can still bring it in next week!

Home Practice

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 6’s.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 72 and back again 

0   6   12    18     etc                             72    66     60   etc

Then practise counting in 60’s.

For example, start at 0 and down up to 720 and back again

0   60   120   180  etc                          720   660   600   etc

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week. Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

You can practise your tables on Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

Please also practise your number facts. It has become evident that many of you are finding this tricky when you have been completing your written addition and subtraction.

You can practise your number facts on Hit the Button

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts and your number facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Your spellings next week all have the prefixes in-, il-, im- or ir-. 

inactive       incapable     incredible    inaccurate

immature     immobile      impossible    impatient

irregular      irrational     irresistible  irresponsible

illegal           illiterate      illogical        illegible

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 6 times tables
• A challenge based on multiplication arrays and the 3, 4 and 8 times tables

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

The Year 4 Team