Year 4 News
December
This week…
Dear Parents and Carers,
First of all on behalf of myself and Mrs Mallaburn, I wanted to say a huge thank you for the cards and gifts we received for Christmas. It was really far, far too generous. It has been a lovely first term with this Year 4 class. They have all worked incredibly hard and have made some very impressive progress. We hope you enjoyed the Carol Concerts if you attended and I wanted to say well done to a large number of our class who contributed to some very successful performances as part of the school choir.
In English, we have now finished reading Kate DiCamillo’s wonderful The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. It was quite an emotional read towards the end, but the children were becoming experts at book talk, identifying themes in the novel to discuss. We are currently writing two diary entries based on the book showing how the character’s personality changed and developed over time.
In Maths, we have been working on shape. We have been building 3D shapes from nets, counting edges, faces and vertices and working out the perimeter of regular 2D shapes. After the holiday we will be looking at area as well as measures including time and money.
In Geography, we have completed out unit on Rainforests. The children have learnt lots and we were very lucky to have Mr Bailey work with the class to create a green screen news report all about the rainforest. Scan the QR code below to watch the film.
In PSHE we have been learning about how all families are different including between families in the UK and between countries. We have also been learning about how we can use visualisation as a relaxation technique if we are feeling worried or anxious.
Finally, I just want to wish all children and families a very merry Christmas. We can’t wait to see you all in January.
Year 4 News
November
This week…
Dear Parents and Carers,
November has been a super busy but very enjoyable month culminating in our visit to Sunderland Winter Gardens and Museum. The children have been applying themselves brilliantly in all lessons so here is an overview of our learning.
In English, we have started our new class novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo in our reading lessons. It is quite an emotional book, but the children are really enjoying reading it and seeing how the character of Edward develops.
In Writing we have been inspired by David Weisner’s book Flotsam to write three short pieces of work. This has included using ‘flotsam’ or objects washed up at the beach to create a well-rounded character with likes and dislikes that the children then used to write a short narrative with the aim of creating tension.
In Maths we have been working on fractions. We have been finding fractions of numbers using our times tables as well as finding simple equivalencies between fractions. We also loved the Times Table Rocks Day with some amazing costumes!
In Science, we have started looking at states of matter by looking at solids, liquids and gasses. We have seen how liquid has a fixed volume but takes on the shape of its container whilst gasses have no fixed volume.
In Geography, we have started our unit Why are rainforests important to us? We started by learning about what a biome is and what different biomes including Tropical Rainforests have in common in terms of climate, vegetation and animals.
In Computing, the children have started to look at making their own animations using 2Animate on Purple Mash. They also looked at what makes an effective animation and how these can be made by hand including by using flick books.
Finally, in Music the children have been learning about Rock and Roll including by learning how to do a funky hand jive as you can see by scanning the QR Code below!
Year 4 News
October
Dear Parents and Carers,
I can’t believe that we are coming to the end of the first half term already. As always, we have been incredibly busy, but the children are all working very hard.
In Reading, we will finish our class novel The Witches by half term. We have been working on reading this Roald Dahl classic with expression and prosody and the children have loved acting out scenes, predicting future events and completing a conscience alley on a character’s thoughts and feelings before and after being turned into a mouse. You can see some of the conscience alley below.
In writing, we have completed our first long write of the year. We wrote a persuasive leaflet to young witches’ trying to persuade them to come to The Grand High Witch Academy run by The Grand High Witch herself. The children wrote a first draft to include Rule of Three, rhetorical questions and conjunctive adverbials before self-editing and publishing their leaflet in their Published Writing books.
In Maths, we have been covering column methods. The children have worked really hard on this and they are becoming much more proficient in column addition, subtraction, multiplication and bus stop division when no remainders are required.
In Science, we have completed our work on classifying living things. We have also completed a walk around the local area to identify the types of wildlife that is observable in late Autumn.
In Music the children have been making music to represent the layers of the rainforest. You can hear some of their glockenspiel playing below.
In History we have nearly completed our unit of work on how children’s lives have changed over time. We have looked at Tudor apprenticeships and we have looked at the lives of Victorian children that have included working in the mines, bird scaring and working in textile mills and the dangers associated with this. Also, we have been looking at the significance of Lord Shaftesbury in helping to improve the lives of Victorian children by proposing new laws in parliament.
Year 4 News
September
Dear Parents and Carers,
As it is the first newsletter of the academic year, I just wanted to say welcome to Year 4! We have had a super busy first couple of weeks since we came back and the children have settled in really well.
During the first week, we spent some time focussing on our new class hero Sir Bobby Robson as well as recapping rules and routines. Inspired by Sir Bobby, the children also designed a football kit for Ellington Primary School.
In English we have started our class novel of The Witches by Roald Dahl. We acted out some key scenes from the first chapters as you can see in the pictures below. In Writing, we first looked at performing poetry. We read a number of poems by Children’s Poet Laureate Joseph Coelho and then performed these in an engaging way thinking about how to use our voice and actions. The children also wrote riddle and Haiku poems.
In Maths, we have been covering Place Value targets. These have included representing and flexibly partitioning four digit numbers.
In Science, we have started our Living Things unit of work focussing on how we can group animals and plants in different ways including different types of vertebrates.
In French we have started our unit on presenting ourselves by learning how to introduce ourselves, asking someone’s name, telling a partner our name and then saying goodbye.