We have had a great week in Year 4 this week. As the Christmas holidays approach, we have been getting into the spirit of the season and have been starting our day writing stories about wintery scenes while listening to festive music. We have been enjoying seeing Santa hats around the school and it was a real treat to see lots of Christmas jumpers on Friday.
The children have nearly all finished writing or typing up their speeches. They have worked hard to complete these and have been working on making them neat and clear so that they can read their writing easily. We will be working on polishing and practising the speeches at school but copies will also be going home before the end of term – please support your child by listening to them practice their speech.
In English, we have been learning about using direct speech. Using Kensuke’s Kingdom, the children have identified how direct speech is punctuated. They have been learning how to punctuate speech themselves by acting it out with actions and by using macaroni to show where the speech marks and commas go. Next week we will be writing our own versions of part of the story focusing on punctuating direct speech correctly.
In Maths, we have been learning how to order and compare decimal numbers with tenths and hundredths. When ordering and comparing numbers, we have been practising using our place value knowledge to help us decide which are the larger and smaller numbers. The children have been practising looking at the ones first, then the tenths and then the hundredths if they need to in order to compare decimals. We have been using the STEM sentence: I know this because…is greater/less than… Next week, we will be practising rounding decimals to the nearest whole and tenth. The maths sheets for this week are linked here: Maths sheets Week 6
During our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) morning, we learnt about the different frequencies that animals can hear. The children sorted animals into those that can hear infrasounds, human auditory field sounds and ultrasounds. They watched a video to help them understand how the ear changes as we age. You can watch it here at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxcbppCX6Rk
We had our last computing session of the term this week. The children really enjoyed writing and debugging their programme and had lots of things to share about what went well for them during this project. Next week we are going to write stories based on the programmes that the chidlren wrote.
The children continued practising their den building and fire making skills in forest school this week. The classes will have their last Forest School sessions next week. Amazon will have their session on Thursday next week. Please ensure that your child has appropriate, warm clothing for their session(warm tops, trousers and coats).
Please make sure your children are wearing the correct school uniform and have their PE kit in school.
In guided reading next week, we will be finishing reading Race to the Frozen North.
We will be thinking about and discussing the following questions:
- Ch 12 (comprehension): Do you think it is fair that Officer Peary never spoke to Matthew again? Explain your answer using examples from the text.
- Ch 13 (inference focus): Did Matthew have a successful life? Justify your answer using examples from the book.