Year 4 Blog Friday 13th October 2023

Date: 12th Oct 2023 @ 1:22pm

Welcome to your Friday blog.

This week in English, we read the part of the novel where Kensuke meets Michael for the first time, and Kensuke shows his anger and frustration at Michael for lighting a fire. After reading this extract, we planned and wrote a diary account as if we were Kensuke.  We attempted to include lots of thoughts, feelings and emotions in our writing rather than just retelling the story. In addition, we also wrote a poem this week which we performed in class – we had great fun writing this!

In Maths, we drew bar charts.  We needed to use a scale which was appropriate to the numbers involved as well as accurately draw the bars on the chart.  In addition, we interpreted data and solved one-step questions using information in a bar chart. 

In PSHE, we recapped the things we have discussed so far to help build our self-esteem, such as: what we are good at, what our friends think we are good at, our achievements and our strengths.  We then discussed how it feels if we make a mistake or do something difficult. To help overcome these challenges, we decided which skills we want to develop and explained why.  

In Science, we wrote a definition of a habitat and shared examples of different habitats already known to us. We then recapped how animals can only survive in certain habitats. 

In French, we started the topic Pets. We revised the French words for some common pets and played some memory games to match the pairs using French vocabulary.

In RE, we started our new topic ‘Called’. We considered our feelings when we are chosen to do something as well as recalling times we have been chosen.  

In Geography, we defined a river and discussed its features. In addition, we also made a list of both examples and non-examples of a river.

In Computing, we explored Keynote. We discovered what it could be used for and investigated adding slides, backgrounds and text to our presentations.

Home Practice

Reading

Please read for 20 minutes each evening to an adult at home.  Make sure you discuss the story and the characters.  Find the meaning of any new words too.  Reading every night will help you read more fluently and with understanding. 

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 50’s and 25’s.

For example, start at 0 and count up to 750 and back again 

0   50   100   150     etc                             750   725   700   etc

For example, start at 0 and down up to 425 and back again

0   25   50   75  etc                                  425   400   375  etc

Times tables

Please practise your individual tables target for your test next week on. Ask someone at home to test you on your tables – can you recall them quickly and accurately?

Remember you can also practise your tables playing Hit the Button and timestables.co.uk

It is crucial that you learn all of your table facts as this will help you with many aspects of maths.

Spellings

Next week’s spellings all have the k sound spelt ch.

ache             anchor         Christmas              school          choir

echo            scheme        chorus                   chemist       chemistry

chemical       chaos           character              chameleon    chasm

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times tables challenge based on the 2, 5 and 10 times tables
• A challenge based on interpreting and solving questions using bar charts, pictograms and tables

Please make sure you log on and have a go!  Little and often is the key to success!

Thank you to everyone who came along to Parent’s Evening this week.  It was lovely to see you and we hope you enjoyed looking at your child’s work.

Have a great weekend

The Year 4 Team