Year 4 have been trying very hard this week to maintain their strength and resilience. This has largely been through the renewal of our ‘Tales Retold project’ and working as teams to produce practical and hands on pieces of work. The class have tried very hard to be vigilant in making the right choices and try their best and this improvement in their resilience has been so clear to see!
In Maths this week, Year 4 have continued practising their times tables daily. As a class, we have been primarily focusing on our challenging 7 and 8 times tables. Using The Daily Ten from Topmarks and TT Rockstars has been invaluable in boosting the class’ confidence and their fluency with their tables so please continue using such resources to practise at home. Also this week, Year 4 have started looking at remainders. This again has been testing the speed in which they can recall their times tables as well as then being able to apply those to number problems as we have been looking at how one number is divisible by another. Year 4 definitely found this new topic of Maths work a challenge however the resilience they have shown through the week in trying to master remainders is truly inspiring!
In English, Year 4 have started thinking about how the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories can inspire them to write their own animal creation story. As we spent last week looking at stories such as ‘How the Turtle got its Shell’ and "‘How the Birds got their Colours’, the class have had a lot of help in writing their own story explaining how an animal got their significant feature. We had all sorts of fabulous ideas such as ‘Why the sausage dog has a long body’, ‘How the snow leopard got its spots’ and ‘Why the hamster is so tiny’! Year 4 spent this week planning and describing their main character, creating their setting based on their animal’s habitat and finally starting to write the opening of their story. The staff in Year 4 were blown away by the amazing opening paragraphs that the children were able to come up with.
In RE this week, Year 4 spent time exploring why Jesus died on the cross for us and what this meant. The class tried to understand the magnitude of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice and selfless choice of giving his life to save us. The class then focused on the phrase ‘Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us’. Those children undertaking Holy Communion really recognised this as they say it in Mass every week. The class examined the meaning behind these words, how Jesus is the lamb of God because he sacrificed himself like lambs would have been sacrificed at the time Jesus was alive. That he takes away our sins through this sacrifice of himself and that because of this we need to be merciful and show gratitude.
In Science this week, Year 4 started their new topic of electricity! Year 4 learned that electricity is a natural source of power and is found all over the place such as; lightning, in bioelectricity found in living things and static electricity. We then explored how scientists spent years discovering how to utilise this electricity for people’s benefit. The class also learnt about the difference of alternating current and direct current, AC referring the the current in mains electricity and DC regarding the current in batteries.
In Topic this week, we have been looking at the last Anglo Saxon kings. As a class, we tried very hard to remember the chronology of the last kings to rule up to 1066 and the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror’s reign. We examined how mean and brutal these kings were to each other and their subjects!
A reminder that our World Book Day is on the 25th of March this year!
Congratulations to our Award Winners:
Golden Award - William.
Writing Award - Poppy.
Maths Award - Joshua.
Thank you from everyone in Year 4!
