PE - balance

Today in PE, we focused on our balance. We started the lesson by focusing on our balance before we applied this to movements such as jumping and hopping where we had to balance at the end. We then applied this to equipment where we had to jump over the equipment using our balances at the end. Finally, we tried to improve our stork tests score from the beginning of the unit. 
 

Maths - adding and subtracting

In Maths, we have shifted our focus onto addition and subtraction using our place value knowledge. Today, we are looking what happens to a number when we add to specific place values and how that changes the number. Sometimes, the operation can only change one place value and sometimes it can change others. 
 

English - newspaper reports

This week, we started to investigate what makes up a newspaper report and tried to find these features in example of reports. We know a newspaper report must include: a headline, a byline, an introductory paragraph answering the 5 questions (who, what, where, when and why), the body of the report, a picture, a caption and quotes. We found all these features and have started to plan our own newspaper reports.

The Collection

This week, we have been on an amazing trip where we continued our learning about the Anglo- Saxons. We started our trip by retrieving our understanding of Romans before we linked these to Anglo-Saxons. We looked at actual artefacts including a real life skull that the museum scanned using CGI to replicate what the person would have looked like!

Following this, we then went on an archaeological dig where we found artefacts and had to record our findings before we made our museum piece.

After lunch, we played a game called ‘rot or not’ where we decided which materials would rot or not in a grave. Then we replicated what would have been found in a grave and how that would look before we dressed 2 of our friends up in Anglo-Saxon clothes. 
 

Science - melting chocolate

In Science, we continue our learning on materials as we discover what happens when we melt chocolate. We were confident in our understanding that the chocolate would melt but we made predictions on which size chocolate would melt quicker. Using hot water bottles, we set the experiment up and we were surprised to see how quick they melted. We probed our investigation with straws to see the full effect. 
 

PE - developing coordination

In PE, we continue our learning on Fitness and developing our bodies. This week, our focus was on coordination and how we can use our hand-eye coordination to develop our bouncing, throwing and catching skills. We then tried to improve our original scores of catching a ball from the 1st session.

Maths - Roman Numerals

In Maths, we are learning all about Roman Numerals. We are learning about the rules that we must follow. For example, I =1, V = 5, X = 10, L = 50 and C =100. Roman Numerals are made up of adding or subtracting numbers. XXII = 10 + 10 + 1 + 1 = 22 or XLV = 50 - 10 + 5 = 55. Here we are using place value sticks to represent numbers to build on our own understanding. 
 

Science - Materials

Today, we continued our understanding of solids, liquids and gases as we investigated the properties of gases. We know that the particles in solids are packed together and particles in liquids can move around more but what about gases? 1st, we looked at a bottle. Mr Shortland tried to squash it but it would not squash. When we took the lid off, the bottle was much easier to squash. This is because the gas that was trapped inside the bottle had anyway to escape. We then looked at 3 materials. Sand, rocks and cubes. Mr Shortland placed them in a beaker and poured water over. We noticed that bubbles formed from in between the materials. We decided that this is the gas escaping.

Beowulf

We continue our work on Beowulf as we look into the different emotions that King Hrothgar would have felt during the time of Grendel reign. His emotions changed throughout the whole experience starting with joy that his hall was built to despair after the attacks had been happening for 12 years! Finally, we looked at how he felt when he heard Beowulf was on the way to help. Some groups thought Hrothgar would be delighted whereas some groups thought he would feel doubtful that this man could defeat the undefeatable beast.

Anglo-Saxons

This term, we are looking at Anglo-Saxons and how they came to settle in Britain. 1st, we need to understand why they settled in Britain and what type of people they were. We 1st looked at a very famous burial site named Sutton Hoo where a king was buried in a boat. We conducted our own archaeological dig where we found artefacts in our mound of grass. 
 

We then looked a bit more in depth on why the Anglo-Saxons came over to Britain. We know they came from the Scandinavian countries and they were farmers. We predict they came to Britain because of the better climate for growing crops.

PE - Fitness

Mr Shortland is definitely working us hard! In PE, we have been taking part in a range of exercises that have seen us recording baseline scores in a bid that we will be able to beat them as we progress through the term. We have been testing our speed, agility, endurance and strength by running laps, shuttle runs, stork tests, catching a ball and push ups. We can’t wait to see how well we have progressed!

Maths - Place Value - Flexible Partitioning

Moving our learning on in Maths and we have been investigating that numbers can be partitioned in a number of ways and can swap place values. For example, 3265 can be partitioned as 3000, 200, 60 and 5 or it can be partitioned as 2000, 1200, 40 and 25 along with multiple other ways. We have enjoyed investigating the many different ways as we continue to broaden our understanding.

Collective Worship - Queen Elizabeth II 

After hearing the tragic news of the death of Our Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, we as a school felt it was necessary to have a time of reflection on her amazing 70 year reign as our sovereign. The children have created reflections and artwork based on Charlie Mackesy (who they studied in Year 3) to show their respects. All in Hope Class share their thoughts and prayers to the Royal Family at this difficult time.

RE - Salvation

This term in RE will see us revisiting the Holy Week and why this is important to Christians and how it is celebrated. We started our session by Viking our big frieze in the hall that shows us the key stories in the Bible, to which we were able to spot the segment that represented Salvation and the Easter Story. We then stopped to reflect on how the key days of Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday are represented. The children had to then predict what the three individual crosses were for, which days they represented and how they are important to Christians. 
 

Maths - Place Value - Partitioning

To begin our learning in Maths in Year 4, we have been focusing on our Place Value knowledge, in particular 4-digit numbers. We now know that they can be partitioned into thousands, hundreds, tens and ones and represent those accordingly.

Art - Rembrandt

This term, we have started our Art unit of work linked to the artist Rembrandt and his work on gestural drawing that makes his artwork looks like it has movement. We researched his life and how is paintings looked before we looked more in depth in some of his artwork. We cut out a selection of his artwork and annotated what we noticed before having a go at trying to recreate the style using different media.

English - Beowulf - Wanted Poster

This term, we have been reading the book ‘Beowulf’ written by Michael Murpurgo where a creature has been terrorising the good people of Heorot. King Hrothgar needs a hero! So, we are creating a wanted poster for the capture of Grendel to bring his reign of terror to the end. We have been looking at ways we can describe this creature using expanded noun phrases and prepositions before we looked at features of wanted posters to make sure we include all the vital information. Will you be the hero we need to save Heorot?

Science - Materials

This term in Science, we have started looking at solids and liquids and how the are different. We tried to classify some objects as solid and liquid, but we were given a question that stumped us to begin with. Is sand a liquid because it can be poured? We then discovered that some materials are hard to classify because they may not meet all the features of a classification. For example, would you say shaving foam is a solid or a liquid?

PSHE - Relationships - The Colour Monster

What an amazing start to our time in Year 4! We started the term of by looking at our feelings and how they look and make us feel. We read the book ‘The Colour Monster’ and then chose our own feelings and separated the feelings into their own individual jars. We then identified the times we felt these emotions and discussed how it’s important to recognise our own emotions first before we recognise others if we want to build positive relationships.