Year 4 Blog - Friday 3rd November 2023

Date: 2nd Nov 2023 @ 12:56pm

Welcome to the Year 4 blog and another busy half term. We have worked our socks off this week and are very proud of our learning.  

In English, we concentrated on evaluating how Michael’s feelings and emotions changed throughout a chapter. We also identified and underlined main and subordinate clauses in sentences. We hope to develop our understanding of subordinate clauses and begin to use these within our independent writing.

• A subordinate clause starts with a subordinating conjunction.
• A conjunction is a word, or words, used to connect two clauses together. Words such as: although, because or when.
• These are all examples of subordinating conjunctions

In Maths, we started our new unit – Addition and Subtraction. We began by revising the formal written method of addition and used this to add 4 digit numbers together, including exchanging.  We then extended our learning to identify missing digits in column addition calculations, and adding three numbers together with four digits.

In RE, we read a passage of the Bible during which Jesus called Andrew, Simon, James and John to help him deliver the ‘Good News’. Some of us were then chosen to be ‘hotseated’ as an apostle.  We gave some very thoughtful and interesting responses which gave an insight into how the apostles may have been feeling about their mission.

In Art, we started our new topic ‘Exploring Pattern’. We started by making a sensory drawing using a needle. We were very proud of our finished drawings – have a look at some of them here.

In Science, we created our own classification keys to help identify different animals. We also finished our ‘Living Things’ topic with a lesson about environmental changes. We discussed natural changes and changes caused by humans, and explained the impact of changes on habitats and the animals that live there.  

In P.S.H.E., we started our Relationships topic 'Play the right way and inclusion'. We wrote down what we thought respect means and discussed what it involves. We watched a video and identified the positive attitudes and behaviours shown, especially when in a team. We also discussed what happens and what it feels like when people show respect / don't show respect.  

In French, we discussed whether some facts about Halloween in France were vrai o faux (true or false). We learned some vocabulary for typical Halloween things and were able to write the correct French word and English meaning for each picture in our books. We then played ‘What’s missing?’ and ‘Guess Who?’.

In Music, we started to learn the song Mama Mia and played some warm up games. Following this, we recapped the notes we learnt on the recorders in year 3 – B A and G.

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 4’s.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 48 and back again 

0   4   8   12     etc                             48   44   40   etc

Then practise counting in 8’s.

For example, start at 0 and down up to 96 and back again

0   8  16  24  etc                                  96  88  80   etc

Times tables

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

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

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

Spellings

Your spellings next week all have the i sound spelt y. 

gym             myth            pyramid       symbol         synonym

mystery       Egypt          system         lyrics           hymn 

gymnastics   typical         cylinder       physical       oxygen

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 4 and 8 times tables
• A challenge based on the formal written method of column addition – please note this only goes up to 3 digit plus 3 digit numbers

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

Have a great weekend - stay safe if you go to a bonfire.

The Year 4 Team