20th March 2017

Maths:
Since returning for the new term, children have engaged with a range of problem solving activities. We have had lots of opportunities for group work with lots of trial and error and logical thinking being used to be successful.

Topic:
We have learned about the different stages of digestion in our latest science topic. We are now starting to study life in Shakespeare's England, before studying 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' in our English lessons.

English:
We are incredibly story of the short stories we most recently produced set in New York in the style of the class book we recently completed. We are writing in well structured paragraphs and are able to build suspense through clever variation of sentence types. Currently we are studying the difference between formal and informal writing by writing a formal letter to the director of ENS, explaining why we would like the next school to be built.

Class Update: Week ending 10th February

We spent the early part of this week becoming proficient in using the short ‘bus stop’ method for division. Afterwards, we tackled a of range of questions worded in different ways to test understanding. Ending the week with tasks requiring us to apply our knowledge to problem solving which incorporated the skills, in which children chose the method of division they found most effective.

In topic we have been looking at geographical aspects of North America, this links to the shared book we have been reading in class, ‘When you reach me’.  This week the children have learnt about the differences between urban and rural settings, going on to write a letter to a friend from the perspective of our stories narrator. In the letters we described life living in New York and what they might find interesting or difficult if they were to visit.

Children have learnt how to use an embedded clause in their writing in order to add description in a different way. They have also done some work on writing in a play script format. We enjoyed our recent work creating reports about Rosa Parks and this week we have written an interview with the driver of the bus. 

http://www.theschoolrun.com/what-is-an-embedded-clause

Art Week in Year Four

In our topic time this week, Year Four have created self-portraits in the style of Andy Warhol. We discussed his approach and looked at a range of his work before starting to create our own prints.

Whilst regularly revising areas of arithmetic throughout the week, our maths lessons have also followed the theme of art week. We have studied symmetry and tessellations, creating continuing patterns.

For our English lessons this week we have looked at various pieces of art to inspire writing.  We have written a character description based on ‘the old guitarist’ by Picasso and have written poems after studying a painting by Lowry.

January Class Update

English: We have continued our work on chronological reports this week, moving on to produce newspaper articles. We read extracts from a biography of the life of Rosa Parks and then studied the features of a newspaper article. The class produced articles which gave an accurate portrayal of the story that made Rosa Parks famous and were able to do so by including all of the features of the text type.

Maths: We have developed our work on decimals to include some work with numbers which contain numbers to two decimal places. We applied our increasingly strong understanding of place value in order to multiply larger four digit numbers by single digit numbers.

Topic: We have studied the teeth of various animals and have sorted them according to the types of food they eat. We have compared herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. We have also learnt that humans have two sets of teeth during their lifetime and the implications this has from when we grow our adult teeth.

20th January 2017 – New Term Update

After welcoming back the majority of the children at the start of this week, we have been able to dive fully into the new content for the spring term.

Maths:

In maths this week, we have worked on developing our understanding of place value in relation to decimals.  We have compared decimals to fractions, multiplied decimals numbers by 10 and 100 and have started to complete addition problems using decimal numbers. Below is a picture of the children completing a game in which a hundred square grid represented numbers between 0.1 and 10. This allowed them to develop their conceptual understanding of the place value of each decimal number.

Topic:

Our first topic for the new year is a science topic of teeth and healthy eating. We have looked at our own teeth and explored our initial ideas about why we have different types of teeth. Moving on, we have learnt the various parts of a tooth and can produce a diagram to label those parts. We have also learnt the names and purposes of each tooth in our mouth.

English:

 English lessons this week have been based around the text of ‘Henry’s freedom box’, with a view to creating a chronological report about the man’s life story.  You can follow the link below to listen to a reading of the story. We created short improvised drama pieces in order to focus on the dialogue, which the children later wrote up following the rules for writing speech that we looked at in the previous term.

Two of the children representing Henry and the slave master in a speaking and listening activity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGK04B_Zof0

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Year Four Update - 2nd December

Over the past two weeks the children have begun rehearsing more regularly for the Christmas performance.  Any additional time they can spend practising their lines at home is greatly appreciated, thank you for all the hard work you have put in up to now.

Our English work has again focussed on building careful description into our writing. The children have written the next chapter of the book we have been reading as a class. After having developed use of adverbs at sentence level, it was great to see the children apply this to an extended piece of work.  

 

Last week we started to look for the first time as a class at poetry, we look forward to sharing this work with you before the Christmas break.

In maths we have been developing our ability to divide increasingly large numbers by one digit numbers through the method of chunking. As a result of lots of hard work, the children are progressing well and can use the process learned in class to reach the correct answer on most occasions.  We now understand how to complete calculations that include remainders and have started to apply our learning to different problem solving contexts.

Children now have a homework folder to take home which will be used for their homework task each week, as well as recording their reading and spelling practice. It is important that this folder is in school every day in order to track reading, even if the homework task is not yet complete. The task for this week requires the children to explore poetry at home, reinforcing their knowledge of the techniques we have started to study in class.  

Please see the links below for some age appropriate examples of poems the children may find interesting.

Mr Daniel

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/famous/children/

http://www.storyit.com/Classics/JustPoems/

 

Welcome Back...Week Ending 11/11/16

 

Welcome Back - Week ending 11th November 2016

The children have started the new term with a superb attitude, displaying great effort and enthusiasm in all areas of school.

In maths this week, we have learned a new method for multiplication. Everyone in the group made lots of progress and is able to multiply two digit by one digit numbers using this process. They have applied this knowledge to a range of calculations which then led to various related problem solving tasks.

Children produced exciting stories before half term and have successfully developed their paragraphing and sentence structure. Our English work this week has centred around building more detailed descriptions into our writing.. We have revised verbs and adjectives and worked on incorporating adverbs to improve the work we completed previously.

Preparations have begun for the Christmas performance, in which all of the children have an important role to play. Any time you can give them to help rehearse lines would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you.

Mr Daniel.