Year 4 News
Dear Parents and Carers,
First of all, I want to wish you all a very happy new year. As always we have been working incredibly hard in all subjects whilst starting some new units of work. We also have our residential coming up in the not too distant future, so please keep an eye out for an email with the date of the parent’s information evening.
In English, we have now completed our first unit of the Spring Term looking at poetry. We were inspired by William Blake’s poem Tyger to write poems about an animal. We identified various features of poems including rhyme scheme, repetition and stanzas before focussing on figurative language. The children helped to plan their poems by writing sets of similes, metaphors and examples of alliteration that they then incorporated into their poem. In Reading, we have started reading Varjak Paw by S.F.Said, the children loved hot seating the role of Elder Paw during a family council meeting.
In Maths, we have completed our work on amounts including measures by looking at converting meters to kilometres. We also worked on measuring mass by reading scales to the nearest 5 grams. This included working with decimal notation which was new for the children with the exception of working with money.
We have completed a good number of science investigations since we returned to complete our unit on States of Matter. The children made close and careful observations to time how long it took ice to melt in warm compared to cold water. The children had to use stop watches and thermometers to see how the ice effected the temperature of the water. In addition, the children planned and conducted a very challenging investigation that looked into how air temperature could affect the rate of the evaporation of water. We found that water evaporated much quicker when the temperature of the air was hotter (above a radiator) compared to when it was at room temperature or in the fridge. We actually found next to no evaporation happened when the water was in the fridge.
To support the school’s efforts to increase the biodiversity of the school grounds, Year 4 were very lucky to work with The Great Northumberland Forest organisation. Kristen, Tin and Tony came into school for two days to plant new hedgerows around the perimeter fence next to the park and new trees to supplement the wooded area next to the MUGA. Year 4 helped to plant part of the new hedgerow that was made up of cherry and willow trees and they placed plastic tubes over the young plants to provide support and protection for the next five years until they can survive without it.
In PSHE we have been looking at celebrating our mistakes and recognising that we can learn from them. In addition, we have been thinking about careers, and how you need to have the necessary skills to be able to complete the role. We thought about roles in school like Peer Mentors and identified the skills required to be successful.
