Year 4 - Spring 1 - Week 5
Date: 2nd Feb 2026 @ 8:24pm
Another wonderful week of learning in the Year 4 classroom!
In RE, we explored how authority is symbolised across different religions. We focused particularly on the Torah and discovered how it contains many laws that guide Jews in living a life that pleases God. Using a diamond‑9, we organised key statements from the Torah, ranking them from the most important to those we felt held less significance.
In English, it was time to put our letter‑writing skills to the test. The children wrote letters describing the events that unfolded in Pompeii after tremors were first felt beneath the ground. It has been heart‑warming to see how passionate they are about our class book Escape from Pompeii, and the historical language they have woven into their writing. Building on our speech‑writing checklists, we also challenged ourselves to include direct speech accurately. Our letters concluded with a critical question: Should the children return to Pompeii? The debates that followed were fantastic, and the children produced powerful justifications to support their viewpoints.
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, we used story sacks to re‑enact some of our favourite stories from our younger years. The children brought the tales to life with props, simple costume pieces and wonderfully animated narration. The enthusiasm and creativity on display were wonderful to see.
In Maths, we mastered the Bus Stop method for division, giving us a quick and efficient strategy for working with larger numbers. We placed the number to be divided under the ‘bus stop’ bracket and used our multiplication facts to work out how many times one number goes into another. This method will be especially useful when dividing 3‑digit numbers and tackling word problems. With four written methods now under our belt—column addition, column subtraction, column multiplication and the bus stop method—we were challenged to choose the most efficient method for a range of arithmetic questions.
Our Geography learning continued with a focus on volcanoes. We explored the three different types and learnt how to identify them by their physical features. Using Google Earth, we located volcanoes around the world and classified each one according to its type.
In Science, we investigated conductors and insulators. We played the metal‑hoop game, using a steady hand to avoid touching the wire and setting off the buzzer. This led us to question why the buzzer sounds and what this tells us about how electricity travels through different materials.