Year 4 Blog Friday 6th October 2023

Date: 6th Oct 2023 @ 8:53am

Welcome to your Friday blog.

Another brilliant week of learning in Year 4.

In English, we drew and labelled the island Michael found himself on. We used description from the text and tried to use some of the same vocabulary to help us describe the island in detail. In addition, we looked at the features of a diary in preparation for planning and writing our own diary account.

In Maths, we measured and drew lengths as properties of 2D shapes. We practised measuring lines and sides of shapes, and then compared their lengths including numbers to one decimal place.  We did a brilliant job and were really proud of our achievements.  Later in the week, we calculated the perimeter of a rectilinear shape including finding the length of missing sides. Our learning was fantastic and we showed an excellent understanding. However, we needed to ensure we added the numbers given accurately!

In RE, we finished our topic about people / families with a beautiful class collective worship led by 4 of the children. We wrote thoughtful responses about what it means to us to be part of God’s family.

In History, we became archaeologists this week! We looked at various Roman artefacts and considered what we thought they were, what they were made of and what it told us about the Romans.

In Science, we reviewed our learning so far. Then, we introduced a new way to group animals – according to whether they are a vertebrate or an invertebrate (vertebrates have a spine, invertebrates do not).To show our understanding, we sorted some animals according to which group they belonged to and explained the difference.

In French, we reviewed how to say how many siblings we have, as well as say the date and our birthdays.  

In PE this week, we focussed on chest passes and teamwork skills. We took turns to pass and receive the ball and put these skills into a game of netball.

In PSHE, we learnt to recognise and appreciate our differences.  We made a tally of the things we had in common with others in the class and highlighted any differences. It became clear that even though we have a lot of things in common with our friends, we are also all individuals and unique. 

In Art, we continued with our topic of telling a story through sketching.

On Friday afternoon we went to church for the Harvest Festival. It was a lovely celebration and reminded us that crops have been gathered from the field.  It also enabled us to reflect and show gratitude for the food we enjoy every day. Many thanks for all your generous contributions. These will be taken to a local foodbank.

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 5’s

For example, start at 0 and count up to 60 and back again 

0   5   10   15   etc                             60   55   50   etc

Notice that the unit is always 5 or 0

For example, start at 8 and count upto 83 and back again

8    13    18      etc                             83   78   73   etc

Notice that the unit is always 8 or 3

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 this week are from the Year 3 / 4 spelling list. You will be tested on them next Wednesday.  Please practise them every evening.

appear         continue       grammar      material       possible

suppose       breadth       different     group           medicine

accident       century        February     pressure      surprise      

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 2, 5 and 10 times tables
• A maths challenge calculating the perimeter of rectilinear shapes

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

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team