Year 4 - Spring 2 - Week 1

Date: 23rd Feb 2022 @ 9:33pm

It was lovely to welcome the children back this week and hear all about their half-term adventures!

Building on from our discussions surrounding our monthly value of Joy, we reflected on the things that brought us joy and happiness this half term. With special things in mind that make us smile, we illustrated our own happiness jars with the special things in our lives that bring us joy. Our RE focus this term will provide us with an opportunity to focus on the significance of the incidents of betrayal and trust in the Easter story. To begin our RE work, this week, we played trust games. We had to lead a blindfolded partner around an obstacle course, put our hand in a feely bag and fall backwards into the arms of someone who was ready to catch us! This enabled us to reflect on who we trust and what qualities make a person trustworthy. 

Curiosity filled the room on Monday, as clues were given as to what our new focus book in English will be this term. With pictures of tropical fruit, movie clips from Moana and Hawaiian flower garlands, we knew it must contain a tropical island! We were also excited by the discovery of a volcano in our new book ‘The Giant that Stirred’, giving us a moment to connect back to our cherished ‘Escape from Pompeii’ story from last term. After spotting different features on the front cover, we created expanded noun phrases to explain just what can be found on this tropical island. Every effort was made to not list colours from the rainbow to describe the nouns, instead the children used words such as vermillion, emerald and crimson - what great use of vocabulary this week, Year 4! Next week, we will be explaining what the villagers in the story do in a typical day, by writing diary entries. 

After identifying and shading fractions of shapes, we've been putting our fraction knowledge to the test this week, by creating paper plate equivalent fractions. Alongside using fraction walls, our paper plates enabled us to visualise what fractions are equivalent. Later in the week, we identified that lots of equivalent fractions can be made by multiplying or dividing the top and bottom by the same number. When writing equivalent fractions, Year 4 know that whatever you do to the numerator, you do to the denominator too! Next week, we will be focusing on adding and subtracting fractions.

This Fairtrade Fortnight, we discovered where our produce comes from and celebrated the people who grow our food and drink.We then revealed just how little is paid to each worker in the banana trade, by creating a banana income split. Fairtrade Fortnight has provided us with a valuable opportunity this week to critically discuss what fair looks like in our world.

Why did the Romans invade? That is what we discovered this week in History, by finding facts in our outdoor area to explain why Britain was invaded by the Romans in AD43. We are thrilled to be learning about the Romans this term and thinking a little more about what we can learn from the Romans.

In PE this week, the children loved starting our tag rugby sessions. We began by figuring out the tricky knack to putting the belt and tags on! It truly is harder than you think! It was a delight to see the enjoyment from all the children as we played a game of cat and mouse, pulling the tags from the mouse’s tails. 

Have a lovely weekend, Year 4. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Reminders:

-World Book Day will be next Thursday. Children are encouraged to come to school dressed as a character from their favourite story.

-Next Thursday, children will need to bring in their PE kits to allow them to participate in PE with Mr Brindley from FHS.

-Clarinet lessons start on Monday. Permission slips need to be returned if you wish for your child to take their clarinet home each week.

-Reading Comprehension activities can be found on Google Classroom if your child would like to complete any additional home learning.