Focus Week - Year 4
The children in Year 4 have worked extremely hard this half term and we are very proud of what they have achieved.
In English, we have focused on 2 books this half term, The Selfish Giant and The Winter’s Child. The children wrote letters to the Selfish Giant, highlighting the impact of his actions but in a gentle and kind way. This led to the Selfish Giant reflecting on his actions through a diary entry. The children, using their expanded noun phrases and conjunctions, planned and created their own story using the events of a known narrative, The Selfish Giant. The Winter’s Child gave the children the opportunity to reflect on the impact and consequences of wishes. Through the use of prepositional phrases, the children then created amazing setting descriptions. The children thoroughly enjoyed their drama lesson in retelling the story of The Winter’s Child. We were so proud to see everyone’s enthusiasm and involvement.
In Maths we have worked hard on learning about money and time. With more and more shops transitioning to cashless, it was lovely to see that the children still know the fundamentals of money. Understanding and estimating affordability, and linking to our PSHE, the value of items and how each individual determines an item's value according to their own perspective. Telling the time, both on analogue and digital clocks, the children developed an understanding of both the 12 and 24-hour clocks, identifying patterns in order to convert from one to the other.
In Religious Education the children have been studying the language of scripture and its importance. We first looked at oral traditions and the transition to written scripture, identifying the diversity of people who share their traditions orally. We then focused on biblical Hebrew, describing how and where the Jewish diaspora emerged and the importance of Yiddish as a cultural language. We moved forward in studying the importance of Classical Arabic in Muslim beliefs and practices and looked at reasons why Arabic was chosen as the language for the Qur’an. It was lovely to hear children share their experiences in a proud and enthusiastic way.
Our Science topic this half term was all about classification and changing habitats, grouping living things and then through careful observations, making and using a classification key. We explored different habitats and their inhabitants across the different seasons. In groups, the children created story books from the perspective of a dormouse. Each group was given a season where they had to reflect on the narrative within their images and then present their booklet to the class. The children’s confidence in presenting to the class has really impressed us and their creativity in their drawings was wonderful to see and truly reflected the narrative which showed great understanding.
In Geography, our topic has been about rivers and how they are used, understanding the features, both human and physical, and the problems our rivers face. We were very fortunate to have a representative from the South East River Trust who led our activities at our river dipping trip. All the children thoroughly enjoyed the activities and the investigation of their findings of the creatures they found in the river. Each activity was welcomed with eagerness to participate.
Design and Technology has been our focus this half term with the creation of our slingshot cars. The children were very excited for this unit and thoroughly enjoyed designing, creating and racing their very own slingshot car. Children worked in pairs to create their own car, and with the knowledge of air resistance, they worked carefully in designing their car bodies for maximum speed and minimum resistance. Fun was had by all during the racing competition!
In Spanish we learnt about the weather and worked really hard on our pronunciation. Throughout the unit, children expanded their knowledge through the use of compass points to pinpoint locations and describe their weather. We finished the unit by writing our own weather forecast in groups and presenting it to the class.
We can't wait to see what the rest of this term will bring!
