Year 4 Blog Friday 8th July 2022

Date: 8th Jul 2022 @ 3:39pm

Year 4

Home Practice 8^th July 2022

Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s what we have been learning this week ….

In English, we chose 3 characters from Chapter 1 and described how they treated Bill.  We complemented our work by drawing a picture of the characters.  In addition, we wrote a diary account from Bill’s point of view which included lots of thoughts and feelings.

In Maths, we learnt how to round decimal numbers to the nearest whole number and revised some mental addition strategies.

In RE, we started our new topic – God’s people.  We learnt about the life of an 8 year old boy called Eric who lives in Rwanda.  We then compared his life to our own.  In addition, we discussed role models, the qualities we like in them and what makes someone extraordinary.

In PE, we took part in an orienteering activity. We used a map to follow a sequence of cones – this was quite challenging at times, especially if we had the map upside down! In addition, we practised our tennis skills and attempted to return the ball to our partner accurately!

In French this week, we drew a monster and coloured it, then described it using super sentences. The children had to make the colours match the noun eg les jambes is feminine plural so the colour had to be feminine plural as well. Some children even managed to include a negative sentence too - great job, year 4.

During our PSHE lesson we finished our clips videos on the ipads.  We were all delighted with our videos which included ideas of simple changes we can all make to reduce plastic pollution. 

In Geography, we completed our double page spread about climate change. We wrote sections about what causes climate change, and how we can try and reduce global warming.  We were all incredibly proud of our work which is bright, colourful and informative.

In Science, we started our new topic – Teeth and digestion.  We looked at our teeth in a mirror and then identified the different types of teeth in our mouths and their functions.

This week’s 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. 

Times tables

Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables and division facts, especially those that you find tricky. 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 https://www.timestables.co.uk/

Please continue to practise your tables as they will prove invaluable in Year 5 and 6!

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 12’s – draw a line and some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers down as you count up.  When you count down, cover the numbers up, say the number, then reveal what you have got written down to check you’ve said the correct number.

Count in 12’s

For example, start at 0 and count up to 144 and back again  

0   12   24   etc                      144   132   120  etc

For example, start at 1.2’s and down up to 14.4 and back again

0   1.2   2.4        etc              14.4   13.2   12.0   etc

Spellings

The spellings this week all have the prefix ‘auto’ or ‘sub’.  A prefix is a group of letters that are added to the beginning of a word and change the meaning or make a new word. ‘Sub’ means under or below and ‘auto’ means self-controlled or about yourself (eg autobiography). The spellings are on Sumdog this week and will be tested next Friday (15^th July 2022).

automatic     autograph              autocue        autopilot      autobiography

automobile   automatically         submarine    subway         submerge

submit         subdivide               subheading   subordinate

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A maths challenge based on the 6 and 12 times tables
• A maths challenge – rounding to the nearest whole number

Please make sure you log on and have a go! Many of you are still not accessing Sumdog on a daily basis. Little and often is the key to success!

Number bonds

Number bonds are very important and help with many aspects of maths. The more confident you are with these, the easier you will find addition, subtraction, mental calculations etc.  Therefore, please continue practising your number bonds / addition skills playing Hit the Button

The game you will play will help with your number bonds and quick addition skills. For example:

8 + 6               you could partition this into         8 + 2 + 4 = 14

This is because 8 + 2 is a pair to 10, then add the 4 to 10

Click on the link above, then on Play Game.

Click on Number bonds

On the left-hand side you will see the words ‘Up to 20’

Click on Addition within 20

See how many you can get correct in 1 minute. Then have another go and try and beat your score.

Maths and spelling training

Please continue to use the maths and spellings training sections as these are tailored for your child to practise skills, facts and words that they find difficult.