Year 4 HOME PRACTICE Friday 4th March 2022

Date: 4th Mar 2022 @ 3:45pm

Year 4

Home Practice 4^th March 2022

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS TO THE TIPPY TOES UKRAINE APPEAL – YOU HAVE BEEN VERY GENEROUS

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

In English, we started to investigate inverted commas and how to punctuate speech correctly.  In addition, we wrote a diary extract from Kensuke’s point of view and his feelings towards Michael, especially about the fire he had started.

In Maths, we continued to learn about hundredths, writing fraction and decimal equivalents. Year 4 have worked hard on their maths this week and shown a very good understanding of a tricky concept. Well done Year 4!

In RE, we learnt about different parts of the Mass, such as the Penitential Act, the Communion Rite and the Concluding Rite.  In addition, we wrote Lenten Promises which we took to Golden Assembly, and we went to church on Ash Wednesday when Father Michael blessed us with ashes.   

As it was Mardi Gras this week, we had a pancake themed French lesson. The children practised saying what kind of pancakes they liked and then they wrote some excellent sentences in French about this. Well done

We started learning a new song called ‘Boudicca’ from the musical ‘Rockin’ Romans’ in Music this week.  We also played the rhythm game, ‘Gimme 1’, and continued with the cup game, ‘Mambo Cup Rhythm’ from last week.  Finally, we began to learn ‘Pat, click, clap, groove’ – we needed lots of co-ordination for this!

In Science, we deepened our learning of ‘states of matter’. We were given a range of items, such as flour, rice, jam, toothpaste, a raw egg, milk etc which we needed to classify into the headings ‘solids, liquids and gases’. Some of these items were tricky to classify and overlapped 2 of the headings!  In addition, we carried out some science experiments to find evidence of gases around us.

This week in PSHE, we talked about how feelings change over time, including throughout the day, and how everyday things can affect our feelings. 

As part of Fairtrade Fortnight, we talked about the difference between needs and wants.  We discussed what we need to survive and to live a happy and healthy life, as well as what we ‘want’, which isn’t necessary, but nice to have.  We also listened to a story about a cocoa bean farmer who lives in West Africa and how joining Fairtrade means she is paid a better price for her cocoa beans.

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

You have been given your own individual times table target.  Please make sure you continue to practise your times tables in preparation for your test next week, on Thursday (10^th March 2022). 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/

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

Counting

This week, please practise counting in 4’s and 8’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 4’s

For example, start at 0 and count up to 48 and back again (this will help with your 4 times table)

0   4   8   12                          48   44   40  etc

Count in 8’s

For example, start at 0 and count up to 96 and back again (this will help with your 8 times table)

0   8   16   24   etc              96  88   80    etc

Spellings

This week’s spellings all have the suffix -ation.  A suffix is a letter or group of letters which is added to the end of a word which makes a new word.  The suffix -ation is added to verbs to form nouns.  For example educate becomes education. Please practise your spellings each evening at home as many of you are still not doing this.  You will be tested on them next Thursday (10^th March 2022).

education               creation                frustration            conversation

celebration            punctuation            calculation             hesitation

imagination            invitation               location                 investigation

sensation               explanation            determination

Sumdog challenges

You have been set 3 challenges on Sumdog:

• A spelling challenge based on the spellings above
• A times table challenge based on the 4 and 8 times tables
• A decimal equivalents challenge – recognising and writing decimal equivalents of any number of tenths or hundredths

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.