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.

Week Ending 28/10/2016

Year Four have developed their reading by continuing to study the text ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by Michael Morpurggo. We have engaged with group reading sessions which have stretched their understanding of various characters and their motives. These conversations have demonstrated the classes’ ability to ask probing questions and show empathy in a range of situations.

In numeracy one of our recent areas of focus has been shape.  We have investigated shapes in the classroom and also around school. The children have learnt to recognise different aspects of 3D shapes and are able to count faces, edges and vertices of various objects.  Could you find something in or around your house to measure the number of faces, edges and vertices of? You are welcome to post pictures of your findings in the comments section. Who can find the most interesting shape to explore? 

Prior to the end of term, we spent lots of time and effort producing work related to Halloween. We learnt about building tension within writing through the use of dramatic short sentences. We did some more work on structuring our ideas into clear paragraphs which is now being done with much more accuracy. We discussed different ways of developing the plot, how to introduce the setting and characters and also including a surprising twist in our stories. By the end of the final week the children were able to write ghost stories set in our school or the surrounding area. The results were superb!

We hope that everybody has had an enjoyable and restful break, ready for the new term to begin.  The children should be proud of their achievements during the first part of the year and we are confident that as we move forwards they will continue to succeed.  

Week Ending 14/10/16

Welcome to the ENS Onegino blog for the Year Four class. Throughout the year you will be able to read all about the activities taking place both in the classroom and beyond.  We have had a fantastic start to the academic year, building on the strong foundations laid in previous years and also introducing new skills across the curriculum. We hope you find these posts to be informative regarding your child’s learning and also enjoyable to read.  

Although no two weeks in the classroom are the same, this week at ENS has been far from ordinary! We began the week on Monday by taking a trip to the Onegino lake, where we completed a maths lesson relating to the recently covered topic of coordinates. We also used the open space to do some maths games such as a times time practice version of musical statues. 

On Wednesday, we were all full of excitement as we took part in the school trip to the Experimentarium Museum. All of the class had a brilliant time stimulating a great deal of interest in science which will serve them well in lesson time in the coming weeks. We especially loved the mirror labyrinth... some of the children could even navigate their way through better than the teachers!

After returning to school, we wrote about our experience in the form of a recount. Children revised the conventions of non - fiction writing and we also introduced structuring writing into paragraphs. We look forward to sharing with you some of the work they have produced!