The theme of this week has been myths and legends! In English, we have been reading and learning about the Anglo-Saxon legend of Beowulf. The children have heard all about Grendel the monster and they've had chance to create their own monsters. They have practised their thesaurus skills to find some great vocabulary choices to enhance their descriptions and make them as exciting as possible.
This learning has linked in nicely with our history as we continue to discover more about the Anglo-Saxons, this week focussing on how their religion and beliefs changed over time. Next week, we'll discover how the Anglo-Saxons organised the country and created the heptarchy. In maths, we have now finished our unit of learning all about multiplication and division. We've covered all of the times tables in our lessons now, so children are able to practise these at home until they become fluent. Next week's learning will focus on length and perimeter. Our learning in science focused (excuse the pun) on how we see light. We learnt about all about the structure of the eye and discovered how glasses help people who are short and long sighted. This afternoon, we continued creating optical illusions. They've turned out brilliantly! Keep your eyes peeled in school for a new display featuring our artwork... It's been a chilly week! The snow was certainly exciting and we enjoyed playing in it at break and lunch on Wednesday.
In English this week, the children have researched their chosen inventors and written their 'Inventors Portfolio'. We have a mixture of people including Steve Jobs (Apple), Karl Benz (the first car) and Mary Anderson (invented windscreen wipers!) Maths has involved plenty of multiplication this week and we have learnt how to use the column method to multiply larger numbers. In Science, we learnt about reflection and refraction. Next week, we will discover how we see and learn about the different parts of the eye. We have discovered lots more about how the Anglo-Saxons lived... including where and how they went to the toilet! This was a particular highlight for some children. I have sent home a letter about the Year 4 Multiplication Check. This also includes the children's log in details for Times Tables Rockstars which is great resource for practising times tables at home. Children need to know their times tables up to 12x12 by the end of year 4 as they are essential for their future learning in Maths. Next week, we've got a great week lined up with our new unit of English focusing on the legend of Beowulf. This will lead into some lovely descriptive writing about monsters and settings. Have a look at our optical illusions art work below. The children worked hard on these and didn't give up despite it being a bit tricky! This week in year 4 we have been very busy! In English we have continued to look at inventors, most recently Alexander Graham Bell who created the telephone in 1876. We will continue to look at how to write an effective inventors portfolio next week, ensuring to use expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials and recapping types of sentence structure.
In Maths, we have looked at multiplication and division by 10 and 100 using place value charts. We will continue this theme next week by multiplying by 2-digit and 1-digit numbers in which the children's times tables will be put to the test! We have also started our new science topic of 'Light', learning about what is light and where does it come from. This included undertaking an experiment to determine whether different materials were: Transparent, Translucent or Opaque. The photo shows that they are testing a whiteboard to see if any light can pass through it! This understanding will be crucial in next week's lesson when we look at reflection and refraction. The pupils have also explored what it means to be a part of a community in which they spoke about they are proud to be a part of a number of communities including, School, sports clubs and North Tawton. Next week we will be looking forward to finding out what life was like for the Anglo-Saxons and making 'Optical Illusions' in Art. It's been great to have all of the children back in class this week after the Christmas break. We also welcome back Miss Wallis and Mr Hunt who are with us again until the February half term.
Since we've been back, we've been busy making a start on our spring term topics. In English, we are looking at a book called 'How to Invent' and read a text all about Louis Braille. We will be using this text as a model to write our own 'Inventor's Portfolios'. In maths, we revisited factors and factor pairs to consolidate our learning here, and moved onto how to multiply a number by 10. Next week, we will look at multiplying by 100 and dividing by 10 and 100. We have started our new history topic of 'Anglo-Saxons and Scots'. In our first lesson, we learnt about how we know about the Anglo-Saxons considering the fact that not much was written down at the time. We discovered what artefacts are, and also had some great discussions about the reliability of evidence and what bias is. When I asked the children how future historians might find out about life in 2023, we realised our legacy might be online and through artefacts including phones and tablets! Next week, we will be starting our new science topic on 'Light' as well as looking at the meaning of community in our Life Skills lesson, plus much more. Today's pictures come from our Art lesson this afternoon where we used compasses to create some lovely geometric flower pictures. |
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April 2024
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