Year 4 Team: Miss S McVey (Class Teacher), Miss Clifford & Miss Dunbavin : Blog items
Date: 23rd May 2023 @ 9:24am
The end of term is upon us, our spirits are high and we have lots of reasons to feel proud of ourselves this term.
To reflect on our Collective Worship value of courage this term, we considered all the times we have been courageous by facing your fears and showing strength in the face of adversity. We recognised how courage refers not only to physical courage but also to moral or emotional courage. As a class, we decided that our favourite courageous moment this term was our efforts to face our fears and enter the Bat Cave at Chester Zoo!
Our Maths lessons have focused on supporting our ability to recall the times tables up to the x12 times tables. With a specific focus on the 6 and 8 times tables, we used times tables wheels to fill in the gaps to show the answer to a given times table, we performed raps and songs that left us singing the same song all day long and even recapped our calculation methods with chalk on the playground. We understand how tricky it can be to answer a given multiplication question so quickly, but we know if we keep working hard on all the tips and tricks we have been practising, we will be confident in recalling times tables quicker and quicker each day.
It was a joy to revisit some of our English books from Year 2 and look back at a piece of poetry we wrote inspired by the Matilda Musical song ‘When I grow up’. From Lamborghinis to flying off to space, our dreams had no limits! We adopted our poems from two years ago and changed the verses to include a more up to date focus on our future hopes and dreams, consider the hopes we have for others too. We used a repetitive pattern and the phrase ‘so that I’ to add justification for our hopes and dreams. Our poems are definitely worthy to be read aloud on the West End Stage!
In Spanish, we learnt the Spanish words associated with the items we use daily in the classroom and the equipment we need to support our learning. We learnt how we can use the phrase ‘Tengo’ to mean ‘I have’ and add the Spanish word for the equipment in front of us to finish the phase to explain to someone the things we have in our pencil class. Our focus turned to considering whether to use ‘un’ or ‘una’ and how ‘mi’ should be used if we are talking about an item that is mine.
On Friday, must to our delight… we used Minecraft Education to complete a series of challenges that enabled us to develop our coding skills. In order to build our very own version of TSP using the software, we had to collaborate online to create digital content and create a 3D structure using the Minecraft tools.
To conclude the week, we spent time as a class making valuable memories and sharing our highlights from the term. It was also time to say goodbye to Miss Bradford and Miss Hadwin as we wish them well as they continue their teacher training.
Wishing you all a lovely half term break. We can’t wait to hear all about it on our first day back!
Reminders:
- Please ensure that children come to school with a water bottle each day, especially during these hotter days.
- Year 4 PE lessons will remain on Tuesday and Friday each week.
- Year 4 Multiplication Check Week 1 commencing Monday 5th June.
Date: 16th May 2023 @ 12:57pm
Another great week in Year 4!
It was time to get crafty in RE and design our very own churches. Taking a step by step approach to outline the church building, we then added the finer details to show our awareness of the features in a church. Our churches came to life with the addition of stain glasses windows, created using coloured tissue paper to make our desired effect.
With the understanding that deforestation has a negative impact on the Amazon Rainforest, we acted by planning and writing letters to the tree surgeons in Brazil airing our concerns about the action they are taking. After setting out our letters using the formal letter writing features, we used exclamation sentence types, rhetorical questions and factual information to make our plea. In Geography, we supported our letters with an accompanying poster that highlighted the layers of the rainforest and the specific animals and habitats effected by deforestation.
As we draw closer to carrying out our Multiplication Check, we are focusing on the tricky times tables that require a few tricks and tips to help us master. Learning through songs, games and number lines are all strategies we are finding help us grasp the trickier facts we need to recall. We have also been confirming our understanding of converting between the 12- and 24-hour clock, writing in digital time and drawing the hands on an analogue clock face.
What a day we had on Friday! If the coach trip itself wasn’t exciting enough, our smiles filled the zoo as we watched the elephants showering, tigers roaring and penguins gliding. We headed off to explore different enclosures, spoke to many of the Zoo Keepers and ventured through their very own rainforest. To conclude the day, we mustered up the courage to enter the free flying bat cave.
You may also have noticed the installation of our Community Book Swap Box here at Trinity St. Peter's. This has been installed in memory of Margaret Blake, a past Governor here at TSP, who loved coming in to school and hearing children read. It is located on the wall (near the defibrillator) and the idea is for the whole community (adults and children) to use this book swap box so we can share our love for reading with all!
Reminders:
- Mufti Day on Friday 26th May
- Term ends Friday 26th May 3.05pm.
- KS2 Cross Country Race open to all KS2 children – Thursday 25th May 4pm at Stanley High School.
Date: 10th May 2023 @ 2:35pm
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We may have only been together for 4 days this week but boy have we had fun!
Continuing to think about our Collective Worship value of Courage, we thought about the courageous steps we can take towards overcoming our fears. We designed our very own church notice board in RE, displaying vital information about community activities, church events and worship times. We ensured that throughout our church notice board, Christians values were promoted and encouraged.
Excitement filled the classroom as our preparations and research projects for Chester Zoo got underway. After analysing virtual information boards around the zoo, we created our own information board bursting with factual information about the rainforest and the wildlife that might be found inside it. We selected our own catchy headings, pictures, 3 second summary and sub-headings to support the factual information we recorder to share with the reader. We recognised the importance of making the information board engaging to read and discussed how the use of questions, alliteration and both headings and sub-headings can contribute towards this.
We have recalled lots of facts about time this week, thinking about how many days are in each month of the year, the number of months in a year and also the conversion between seconds, minutes and hours. Later in the week, we considered why the numbers 13-23 are used on a clock and recognised that this meant the clock was in a 24 hour format. Next week, we will be converting times from their 24 hour format and considering the different ways we can represent times in the AM and PM.
In Science, we learnt about the water cycle and the process of evaporation, condensation and precipitation. We enjoyed representing the water cycle using sandwich bags and sticking them to the classroom window so we can observe the process over time and see how the water progresses around our cycles. To showcase the wildlife in the rainforest, we took inspiration from Henry Rousseau to create a water coloured backdrop to place our stencilled silhouette animals onto. Continuing with our focus on rainforests, we learnt all about the tribes who called the Amazon their home and compared their way of living to that in our modern society.
Taking all of our learning surrounding rainforests in to consideration, next week, we will be writing a letter to express our concerns regarding deforestation in rainforests and the knock-on effects deforestation has on wildlife, people and communities.
Have a wonderful weekend, Year 4. See you Monday!
Reminders:
- Class Photographs – Wednesday 17th May.
- Chester Zoo Trip on Friday 19th May. Children need to bring a packed lunch and water bottle with them.
- Mufti-Day – Friday 19th May.
Date: 3rd May 2023 @ 8:52pm
A short, yet productive, week for us in Year 4!
Thinking about the colours we spotted when visiting St. Peter’s church last week, we reflected on why these particular colours are used within the church and the meaning behind them. After exploring what each colour signifies, we connected the colours to events in the Christian calendar such as Advent, Lent and Easter and identified the colour we would associated with each event or celebration.
In Maths, we compared amounts of money and recognised the notes or coins needed to make an amount greater than or less than a given amount. Using our understanding of rounding, we focused on recognising the nearest pound our amounts were closest to and visited the Year 4 TSP Sweet Shop again to check the change was correct when we purchased an item. Bringing all our learning together, we finished the week by solving money world problems.
After reminding ourselves of the key features of a non-chronological report, we identified the heading and factual information about the amazing Amazon rainforest. We were challenged to create a 3 second summary to explain what the page described and create our own sub-headings, for the numbered paragraphs. With so many words ending in the ‘ous’ spelling, we reminded ourselves of the spelling rule when using this ending changing words such as danger and poison into dangerous and poisonous. Later in the week, we turned our attention to a group of cute Sloths and researched factual information we could use in our very own non-chronological report. Our facts were then grouped into paragraphs, as we allocated a suitable sub-heading to each paragraph.
We were thrilled to have been given the opportunity to have a Skateboarding lesson on Wednesday! With our helmets and knee pads on, we used our balance and coordination skills to not only control the movement of the skateboard but keep ourselves balanced when taking our feet off the ground. Another delight took place on Thursday, as we were introduced to the new Lego club starting next term with a taster to see how Lego can be a fun and interactive experience to enjoy with our friends.
Friday brought our very own Coronation picnic! We thoroughly enjoyed sharing this memorable experience with our friends and recognising the significance of the weekend ahead. Following our lunch, we completed artwork inspired by the future King by collaging a template of his face with all things British!
We look forward to seeing the new king lead our country and the fun celebrations we are taking part in this weekend. Have a great one, Year 4!
Date: 25th Apr 2023 @ 10:30am
Another fantastic week in Year 4, here are some of our highlights:
To support our understanding of our new topic in RE, ‘Are all churches the same?’ we took a visit to St. Peter’s church to identify different features inside the church and were greatly helped by Reverend Gordon with some of the special names these features are given. We then connected our visit to help use label features in a given church image before comparing the features found with those in a Mosque. Thinking critically, we identified similarities and differences between the two, ensuring we justified the importance of this feature being present to the Muslim and Christianity religions.
We concluded our focus on decimals and fractions this week, by pairing up a fraction with its equivalent decimal and ensuring we understand how to find a fraction of a given amount. We know the importance of checking how many groups the fraction is outlining but also the number of groups the numerator is representing, that we need to count. We then moved onto thinking about money and how we can make different amounts in multiple ways. With a visit to the Year 4 class toy shop, we made our very own wish lists of things we wanted to buy and used the least about of coins to make our purchases. Next week, we will be ordering and rounding amounts of money.
In our focus story, ‘Where the sea meets the forest’ the book refers to the forest both in the past, present and future. With this in mind, we created our very own expanded noun phrases to accompany the sentence starter ‘I once was in a place where...’ to outline what the forest looked like at that time. We connected our understanding of deforestation to the future forest image, as we noticed no trees were shown simply buildings and new developments. Thinking about possessive apostrophes, we created a list of the top 10 things we would take on an expedition to a rainforest and used apostrophes to show the items we would lend from our friends e.g. Bob’s torch. We also listened to a fantastic documentary narrated by the incredible David Attenborough, listening to the language and word choices he makes to describe the habits of a Draco lizard. With his inspiration, we were then tasked to write our own narration to read alongside his documentary surround a hungry tree shrew.
In Geography, we divided a diagram of a rainforest into its four layers and discovered the animals and wildlife living in each layer. Our Art lesson moved onto focusing on a leaf print and how we could overlap the leaves on our page to create the image of an overgrown rainforest. We discovered that we could use the end of the paintbrush to imprint the veins onto our painted leaves. In PE, we had great fun created partner balances. It was vital we used a secure and safe wrist grip to keep our partner balanced and developed our core strength through some fitness exercises to enhance our stability.
Following the Multiplication Check Parent Briefing this week, all information regarding the check has been shared via School Spider. We ask that for the remaining weeks of this term, times tables are a big focus for any additional learning taking place at home.
Have a lovely weekend and Bank Holiday Monday, Year 4. See you back in class on Tuesday 2nd May!
Reminders:
- Wednesday 3rd May – PE kits for the Year 4 Skateboard session
- Multiplication Check Briefing information sent via School Spider
Date: 18th Apr 2023 @ 11:56am
What a fantastic first week back we have had! It was so lovely to see all the children back and enjoying spending time with their friends, excited to hear all about the new things we will be learning this term.
This term, our focus turns to looking at different churches in RE and considering if all churches are the same. Through research, we discovered this week that not all church buildings look the same from the outside but some have similar features according to denomination. We also used religious vocabulary to names features of a church we already knew from visiting St Peter’s and Holy Trinity Church.
We have continued to develop our knowledge of decimals in Maths. We now understand that when dividing, numbers can be shifted into the tenths and hundredths and we must show this by using a zero and decimal place before the number. After identifying the fractions for a half, quarter and three quarters, we identified the correlating decimal and rounded decimals to the nearest whole.
Our new focus book ‘Where the Forest Meets the Sea’ by Jeannie Baker connects to our Geography and Art topics this term and is full of beautiful illustrates to showcase the wonders of a rainforest. We have explored the sounds associated with a rainforest and used descriptive language to outline what our senses can see and hear. Later, we took sentences from the book and changed the pronouns to ensure there was a varying range of pronouns used before creating our own glossary of words in the book we wanted to learn the meaning of.
To reflect on our learning surrounding greenhouses last term and enhance our understanding of seasonal food for our DT topic in the coming weeks, we visited a local allotment and met with the gardeners to grow their plants and vegetables on the site. It was amazing to see such a diverse range of greenhouses, all fit for the same purpose and the range of fruits and vegetables that are being grown at this time of year. We learnt some handy tips on how best to care for the seeds we are growing in our greenhouses and the different ways of growing vegetables in our climate.
In Geography, we focused on identifying the location of rainforests on a world map. We first identified the line of the equator and learnt that the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn are located above and below the equator line and it is within this zone that the rainforests are located. In Science, we showcased the make up of particles in different states of matter and considered whether it is only liquids that can be poured.
Using the artist Henri Rousseau as inspiration, we explored his famous painting ‘Tiger in a tropical storm’ and discussed the techniques used in the image. With our sights set on making the animals in the forest scene ‘pop’, we made our colour choices and began making the parrots drawn in our forest scenes stand out amongst the over growth. In PE, we began to take on the sport of Tri-Golf, creating a mini golf course around our school field with the aim to develop of aiming skills towards a given target flag.
It has been so lovely to have you back, Year 4! Have a restful weekend.
Reminders:
- Clarinet lessons take place every Monday.
- PE lessons take place every Tuesday and Friday
- Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check Parent Briefing – Tuesday 25th April
Date: 28th Mar 2023 @ 10:28am
We the end of the Spring Term upon us, we spent some time reflecting on our fantastic achievements and our goings on this week.
This term, we have been working hard to consolidate our knowledges of our times tables ahead of the Year 4 Multiplication Check. We have found that we learn our times tables best through games such as Battle Ships, Monopoly and Top Trumps. We also found a great resource which enabled us to make times tables fortune tellers which meant we could continue to practise our times tables at break times and through the school day.
It was time to take on our DT project, designing our very own greenhouses with a specific design criterion in mind. First, we explored a greenhouses’ function and the requirements it needs to have in order for the plants inside to grow. We identified the part of the greenhouse which allows the sunlight to enter and how we can ensure the plants do not overheat. In our design process, we outlined the materials and tools needed to create our greenhouses, how we will ensure we have a resealable opening and the colours and patterns we will use to decorate our product. After a great morning creating our designs, we then reflected on our successes against the design criteria and any areas of improvement we would note for next time.
On Friday we attended our Easter Service led by the fantastic Year 3 children. It was amazing to watch their performance and see their incredible acting and singing come to life. We did a great job supporting Year 3 with the lovely songs in our service and celebrating this wonderful time of the year.
There was only one way to end the term… with an Easter Egg Hunt! On the sound of the horn, we set off finding clues around the school which directed us to a teacher or classroom where the next clue could be found. We used fantastic teamwork and inference skills to deduce that the final clue led us back to our own classroom where winning Easter vouchers were awaiting our arrival. At the end of the day, we were able to exchange our voucher for an Easter treat!
What an amazing term we have had, Year 4. Go make some incredible memories with your family and friends this Easter and we look forward to seeing you back on Monday 17th April. Best wishes from us all x
Reminders:
- School commences on Monday 17th April.
- Clarinet lessons continue in the Summer term.
- Year 4 PE lessons are on Tuesday and Friday each week.
Date: 21st Mar 2023 @ 10:03am
As the half term draws closer, let us take a look at some of this week’s highlights…
Coming to the end of our RE topic, we summarised the key Christian values of trust and forgiveness making the connection that Christians believe that they can trust Jesus. We recalled the events of Holy Week and Easter, before remembering incidents of betrayal in the Easter story, through the actions of Judas and in movies we like to watch. To further reflect on our Collective Worship value of Forgiveness, we looked closely at the symbol of the cross and discussed how it reminds Christians that God wants to forgive the wrong things that people do so that they can live in peace and friendship with Him and with others.
It was time to start our story writing in English, to create our own versions of our focus text ‘When the Giant Stirred’. We began by planning the opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending to our stories and noting any dialogue we would expect our characters to have in each part of our story. We ensured we thought about the possible fronted adverbials we could use to help set the scene or time of day events were taking place and how we could use a range of nouns to make our writing more exciting to read. Each day, we ensured we wrote a chunk of our story to form a paragraph so our stories went on a slow and steady, yet detailed journey, from start to end.
This week in Maths, we have explored how to find fractions of given quantities or amounts using bar models to help us understand how many parts the number is split into and what amount is within each part. We then identified tenths on a place value chart and began to understand tenths as a decimal and fraction, noting the jump on the place value chart when we divide a one-digit number by 10 or 100.
We continue to shine in Mrs McArdle’s clarinet lessons! We now understand how to construct our clarinets and are building speed in doing so, the sounds we are producing are becoming more of a perfected tone and we are even incorporating a range of notes by moving our finger position on the instrument. Our History lessons have also been packed full of evidence huting, as we focused on the push and pull factors that show reasoning for Saxon settlement and we uncovered the mystery of the empty grave in Sutton Hoo. This week we delved deeper into the story of how Christianity to Britain and it took about 70 years for English kings to give up pagan ways and become Christian.
A popular board game made an appearance in our PE lesson, as we used our OAA skills to solve a TSP Cluedo game. After discovering the suspect teachers, weapons that could have been used and the place where the crime may have taken place, we set off around our school grounds to find evidence of who or what could be crossed off the suspect list. Mr Brindley continues to put us through our paces on a Thursday and is extremely impressed with our developments in our knowledge and understanding of key skills and fitness components.
Before we take on the last week, Year 4, have a wonderful weekend!
Date: 14th Mar 2023 @ 10:36am
A week of reflecting about the power of the brain this week in Year 4 and reminding ourselves just how creative and critical we can be.
Reflecting on our Collective Worship value of Forgiveness and connecting the value to our RE lesson, we focused on Peter’s denial and Jesus’ forgiveness. We questioned why Peter betrayed Jesus and the denial he showed in the courtyard. We the importance of forgiving others and why Jesus encourages forgiveness too.
Focusing on the thoughts, feelings and dialogue one of the villagers may be experiencing in our story, we created a Bridge map with the support of some fantastic villagers in our classroom room, roleplaying the role to support our writing. We deduced from a given text different spelling, punctuation and grammar elements that should be present in our writing and looked at the power of using different nouns/noun phrases to enhance our writing.
Continuing our focus on fractions, we unpicked different ways to represent a mixed fraction and how in turn, it shows an improper fraction. Then our focus shifted to adding and subtracting a fraction with the same denominator before securing our understanding using the Learning by Questions website. Next week, we will begin to develop an awareness of decimals and their relationship with fractions.
To acknowledge Brain Awareness Week, we looked into our own brains by creating Brain Hats. Placing the hats on our heads, we were able to look at both sides of the brain to help us recognise its essential functions, as well as how the different lobes support us every day. We also reflected on our thinking maps, thinking hats and unique 4C model with focus on how these tools we have in school support us with our learning and enable our brains to create deeper thinking.
The classroom was full of dancing gloop on Wednesday, as we joined the rest of the school in celebrating British Science Week with a theme surrounding the weird and wonderful creations in George’s Marvellous Medicine. Our experiment not only allowed us to feel like George in the story but also developed our understanding that cornflour is made up of lots of tiny starch particles and when it is mixed with water, the starch particles become suspended in liquid as the water moves in between them.
In support of the work we have been carrying out with the LFC Foundation, we headed down to the National Trust and toured the environmental areas that are of a concern to the National Trust due to littering and animal habitats. After being set the challenge of thinking of strategies we could use to encourage visitors to the site to use the bins or take their rubbish home, we presented our Litter Slogans to The National Trust for use around the beach area. We are hopeful that our catchy slogans encourage visitors to “Not be the pollution, be the solution!
Red nose filled the classroom on Friday as we completed lots of fun and games – all with a red theme – in aid of Red Nose Day. It was our mission to ensure we came together to raise smiles in recognition of helping others through tough times in their lives. We should did have the best afternoon!
Sending our best wishes to all our TSP mums, nannas, grandmas and inspirational women in our children’s lives. We hope you have a lovely Mother’s Day and a fantastic week!
Date: 6th Mar 2023 @ 9:22pm
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A week full of determination to achieve and a positive outlook towards all of our learning tasks this week… even if we did have a test or two to complete.
This week, the children have worked incredibly hard to complete assessments to showcase their learning so far this year. Our school value of Hope was certainly achieved by all, as they tried their best and were determined to complete their assessments to the best of their ability.
Reflecting back to the moments of betrayal and trust we identified in popular children’s films last week, we connected our understanding to help us identify when trust and betrayal were apparent in the Easter story. We recognised that Jesus trusted his disciples and they trusted him, yet he was betrayed to the Roman authorities by one of his disciples, Judas.
In Collective Worship, we discussed how sometimes people do and say things that hurt us and how it can be difficult when someone has hurt us to forgive. Using the analogy of a fizzing vitamin tablet, we dropped a tablet into a bottle of water. As it fizzed away, we let the hurt feelings go and imagined forgiving the person as the hurt disappeared. We then reflected on how it feels to forgive others and the relief it brings to our hearts and mind.
Thinking about how we represent a new speaker when writing speech, we created a conversation between the villagers in our story ‘When the giant stirred’, reinforcing our knowledge of how to write speech and also adding the addition of a new line for a new speaker. Next week, we will look at how we can incorporate expanded noun phrases and front adverbials into our writing, alongside speech sentences.
Our Maths lessons have helped us to understand how to add and subtract fractions when the denominator is the same and how convert a improper fraction into a mixed number. Next week, we will start to explore decimals and what fraction and decimal amount are equivalent.
In recognition of International Women’s Day, we delved into books from the Little People, Big Dreams Series to find shared characteristics of inspiring women in history, politics, music, arts, design, science, and sports. Characteristics we identified included bravery, ambition and empowerment.
In our latest session with the LFC Foundation, we took are campaigns in support of endangered animals to the next level by creating campaign t-shirts to wear to enable us to spread to word regarding the importance of caring for our planet and the habitats of animals in our environment. We can’t wait to visit our local National Trust site next week to see some of the animals in our local area and provide the National Trust with our catchy anti-litter slogans to put around the site.
We hope that you make the most of your weekend, Year 4 and we look forward to seeing you again on Monday!
Date: 28th Feb 2023 @ 10:32am
What a delight to hear that our week in school has been “One of the best weeks ever!” World Book Day, a School Trip and our very first Clarinet lessons have all added to a great week in Year 4.
On Monday, we were introduced to our new musical instruments and Mrs McCardle discussed with us the different parts of the clarinet and how we can make a sound using the wooden reed inserted into the top of our mouth piece. She showed us how to put the pieces of our clarinet together and the way in which we need to blow into the mouth piece to make a sound. Each week, we will be working hard to learn some musical compositions which we can shared with our loved ones at home later in the year.
Continuing with our focus on trust and betrayal in RE, we watched clips from popular children’s movies and discussed the times we could see the characters displaying trust or moments of betrayal. Clips included the trust Wendy had in Peter Pan when taking her first flight and the betrayal Lotso showed to Woody in Toy Story 3.
After reflecting on the daily chores the villagers undertake in the film Moana, we began to write diary entries to document their daily lives. We ensured each paragraph started with a fronted adverbial to indicate the time of day being referred to and structure our writing. We looked back at some of the STAR Vocab we learnt last week and set ourselves a challenge to incorporate our newly learnt words into our writing. Later in the week, our focus switched to writing speech and recalling the rules associated with using inverted comma’s. Next week, we will be working hard to ensure that when we are writing speech, we use a new line when a new character begins to speak.
In Maths, we have been converting improper fractions to whole numbers and identifying equivalent fractions. We made the connection that in order for a fraction to be equivalent, we multiply the numerator and denominator of the original fraction by the same amount. This has ensured we have not only been learning about fractions this week, but also recalling lots of our times tables. Next week, we will be converting improper fractions into Mixed numbers.
We were amazed by the incredible costumes on show as we celebrated World Book Day on Thursday. It was a joy to see how so many characters from our favourite books were brought to life… some personalists and characteristics were also portrayed too! We stumbled upon a damaged book surrounded by hazard tape and endless amounts of glitter streaming from the inside. We were informed that a character had escaped from the book and it was our job to find clues to solve the mystery. With out critical eyes at the ready, we hunted for clues and spent the day crossing of the suspect teachers until just one was left… Mrs Molloy the lion! We also participated in a book bingo, hunting for books in the class libraries across school to cross of our bingo cards. Books we had to find included one with a dragon, a book with a green cover and a poetry book. We definitely left on Thursday night with an increased loved for reading and an eagerness to delve into new books we discovered during the day.
To acknowledge Fair Trade fortnight, we discovered what happens to a banana before it reaches the consumer and discussed the reality of ‘who gets what’ from the sale of bananas. We were shocked at just how little workers receive and how some workers do not earn enough to meet their basic needs. On our next shop, we are keen to look at for Fairtrade labelling as we know that this is a way we can guarantee that workers get a fair deal for their work and products.
What a week, Year 4! Have a restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Reminders:
- If your child would like to take their clarinet home after their Music lesson each week, please confirm permission by returning the attached form or via the Year 4 email account (y4@tsp.sefton.school).
- Multiplication Times Tables Check Practise resources can be found on Google Classroom, alongside additional, optional Maths and Reading learning that can be completed at home.
Date: 22nd Feb 2023 @ 5:24pm
What a fantastic first week back!
After learning about Shrove Tuesday and why we refer to the day as Pancake Day, we tasted some scrumptious pancakes flavoured with maple syrup. What a tasty was to start the week! With Ash Wednesday in our sights, we then reflected on how Lent allows Christians to remember Jesus’ fasting in the desert and the things we would give up as a test of our self-discipline. Our focus in RE is to focus on trust and betrayal and how this can be seen in the Easter story, but first we needed to understand what the two terms meant. To do this, we had such fun guiding our trusted friends around our trim trail… blindfolded of course!
Fractions have been our focus in Maths, reminding ourselves of how to represent a whole and beginning to find patterns on number lines to be able to count beyond 1, by adding and taking away fractions. It has been important for us to connect our prior knowledge to recall terms such as equivalence, denominator and numerator. Next week, we will begin to partition mixed numbers and compare and order mixed numbers. With a big focus also on Times Tables this term, we are working hard to complete a daily Multiplication Times Table Check and use our school value of Hope to beat our score each day.
It was time to discover what our new book is for the term and make predictions regarding the setting, character and plot in this term’s English book ‘When the Giant Stirred’. By looking at two variations of the front cover, we soon identified the importance of using expanded noun phrases to describe and specify. We found rich vocabulary to help us use topic specific nouns such as Macaws, Loggerhead Sea Turtles and the Pacific Ocean. Next week, we will use the Moana film to help us understand the duties of villagers and begin to complete diary entries, using fronted adverbials, to outline the daily goings on in the tribal village.
Continuing our project with The Liverpool Football Club Foundation, we created bird feeders to place in our school grounds. We worked together to decorate, prep some bird seed and find the perfect place for them to hang. We hope that we have some little visitors to our mindfulness area soon. We also designed our own hanging wooden plaques to remind us of the important things in our environment that we need to nurture and protect.
In Science, we discovered how our devices, appliances and technology are powered by either the mains or batteries and discovered renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Thinking about the Anglo Saxons, we used a Circle Map and our Black thinking hats to recall any facts we already know about the Saxons and place their time in History on a timeline, adding events before and after 410-1066AD.
A jam packed week, Year 4. Have a restful weekend!
Reminders:
- If your child would like to take their clarinet home after their Music lesson each week, please confirm permission by returning the attached form or via the Year 4 email account (y4@tsp.sefton.school).
- Multiplication Times Tables Check Practise resources can be found on Google Classroom, alongside additional, optional Maths and Reading learning that can be completed at home.
- World Book Day – Thursday 2nd March
Date: 17th Jan 2023 @ 11:10am
This week has been a chilly one, but nevertheless, we have had a burning desire to learn new facts and to our best in all we do this week.
Through mindfulness, we reflected on our Collective Worship value of Humility, by thinking about how we may have shown this value in the classroom or on the playground. We discussed how some children find this a difficult value but as a class, we recognised the importance of being humble. Using our school value of Nurture, we discussed how an outward display of humility can make others feel.
In RE, we identified clues in artwork which suggest that Jesus has authority over the others illustrations that can be seen in the artwork. We were quick to realise that Jesus is stood above or in front of the others in the illustrations, is painted in white and often has a graceful, angelic and powerful pose.
Later in the week, it was time to compare our lives with the life of a Roman child. We focused on the activities, games and jobs Roman children carried out and found similarities and differences to our lives. Using fronted adverbials, we created a diary explaining what Tranio, the Roman child in our story, did at different points of the day. Using speech, we also explored the conversations that Tranio and Livia, the two characters in our story, may be having at different points. We ensured our speech sentences used inverted commas, had the correct punctuation and always noted who the speaker was. We are beginning to write a new speaker on a new line and will continue to implement this rule into our writing next week.
To support our multiplication calculations when multiplying two and three digit numbers by 1, we have learnt how to use the grid method and column multiplication method. We have completed lots of fluency questions to become confident in using these methods and at the end of the week, selected the method we felt most confident in using to support us in completing problem solving questions.
A huge thank you to our Reading Ambassadors for sharing our brand-new Inclusion and Diversity books to read in class. We loved exploring the books this week and selecting our favourite to become our whole class read. To support our understanding of Volcanoes, we have also been reading an information book packed full of interesting facts about earthquakes, tectonic plates and the layers of the Earth. Our writing in English in bursting with technical vocabulary to describe volcanoes, as we have transferred vocabulary and facts learnt in our Guided Reading lessons, to our English lessons.
We carried out an investigation in Science to discover how sound travels through different mediums, make predictions, and draw conclusions on which state sound travels best through. After drawing a diagram to show the particle make up and identifying the state of matter being investigated, we hit metal spoons together in the air, under water and against a solid to find which medium the sound travelled best through.
What a lovely week we have had, Year 4! We look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Reminders:
- Parent-Teacher Meetings will take place in the School Hall. Please arrive early in order to have time before your appointment to take a look at your child’s books.
- Children should return their Reading books to school weekly, on their reading day.
- Spellings continue to be posted on Google Classroom every Friday at 3pm and tested the following Thursday in class.
Date: 9th Jan 2023 @ 8:31pm
We have had a fantastic week, here in Year 4.
After recognising what authority looks like to us, this week, we identified Jesus’ authority in a range of Bible stories. By reflecting on Bible stories such as Jesus calms the storm, it became evident that Jesus has authority than just humanity, as well as creation and life. It was clear that his authority is respected and admired by others, all hoping he will assert his authority to benefit them. In Collective Worship, we discovered that Humility is equally important in all religions and is one of the virtues of Sikhism. Sikhs believe that ‘Nimrata’ or ‘Humility’ is an important characteristic of a person, and they should ensure they develop this virtue with their actions.
It is apparent that our focus on volcanoes this term is a huge interest and we are intrigued in all aspects of the curriculum to discover more about volcanoes to support our learning. In English, we have discovered a wealth of vocabulary this week to describe volcanoes and the environments they might be found in. We have defined and illustrated words such as barren, tremors, eruption and pumice, in order to remember their connection to volcanoes and how we can use them in our writing. Using conjunctions, we formed sentences to explain what happened in the opening of our story ‘Escape from Pompeii’, ensuring that we used a range of conjunctions and stayed away from the word ‘and’ as much as we could. We considered the words in the story which would need to be considered in order to create an image of the setting, spotting vocabulary that explained what could be seen, heard and smelt in the Roman town. Using our ideas, we formed a descriptive piece of writing to tell the reader what they would be able to see, hear and smell if they were to visit Pompeii. Next week, we will compare our lives with that of Tranio, the Roman child in our story and create a diary entry of his daily life.
Connecting our understanding of multiplying by 10, we began the week by multiplying numbers by 100. We discovered that in order to multiply by 100, we need to move our place value counters two columns to the left. Using our knowledge of place value and how the digits move on a place value grid when we multiply by 10 and 100, we recognised that to divide by 10 and 100, we simply moved our counters to the right instead. Using our knowledge from the week, we completed word problems by recording the multiplication calculation we needed to complete and demonstrating the multiplication on a place value grid. Next week, our focus moves onto written methods and how we can use the grid and column method to support us in multiply two and three digit numbers.
In Geography, we discovered that the Earth is made up of four layers; the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. We identified what each layers substance is and the distance from the Earths crust. PE saw us taking on a defence game of dodgeball. Working as knights, we had to defend our castles from the incoming cannon balls and aim for the oppositions defences. After discovering how sound travels from a sound source to our ear drum, this week, we investigated how sound travels through different mediums – solid, liquid and gas. Our predictions were put to the test as we discovered that sound travels best through a solid.
We also took the time to watch ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’, a hand-drawn animated film based on the children's book by Charlie Mackesy on BBC iplayer - It is a must watch! The story reminded us about the importance of kindness, friendship, courage and hope
Have a wonderful weekend, Year 4.
Reminders:
- Parent-Teacher meetings can be booked via School Spider.
- Children are encouraged to bring a water bottle to school and a healthy snack for breaktime.
- PE days remain on a Tuesday and Thursday this term. Please ensure children arrive to school dressed in their PE kit on these days.
Date: 3rd Jan 2023 @ 9:23pm
It was so wonderful to welcome everyone back to the classroom this week. We were so excited to get back to our learning and catch up with our friends.
To begin our RE topic, we explored what the word ‘authority’ means and how we portray authority in our community and across the world. Gathering photos to showcase what we know authority to be, we explained to our classroom who has authority in the world and what traits someone with authority holds. Year 4 produced some fantastic examples, connecting their understanding of people who hold power such as prime ministers and the police to even their older siblings stating that with age comes authority.
Escape from Pompeii by Christina Balit is our focus book in English this half term. Just from looking at the front cover, we were able to deduce that this story links to our Geography topic about volcanoes and the characters emotions show that a disaster is set to take place. We researched where Pompeii is and discovered that as we predicted, Mount Vesuvius is the volcano we can see on the front cover of the book. Using dictionaries, we found the definition of words we will encounter in our story that we might not have heard before and drew pictures to help us connect our understanding of the word to its definition. Next week, we will use fronted adverbials to recall the events that take place at different points in the day when we consider the life of a Roman boy.
We were introduced to Factorpillars in Maths as a memorable way to help us find factor pairs of a given number. After naming our caterpillar, we drew its face and body, before finding factors to create the caterpillar's legs. We made sure that the adjacent legs made a matching pair e.g. 10 and 2 are a factor pair for 20 and therefore would be a pair of legs for our caterpillar. Once we were confident in finding factor pairs, using dienes blocks for support, we investigated whether it was true that the bigger the number, the more factor pairs we can find. Next week, we will focus on how the place value of numbers changes when they are multiplied and divided by 10 and 100.
After creating an A-Z of sounds we can hear in different environments, we questioned where sound actually comes from. After watching rice bounce on top of a beating drum, it became apparent that the vibrations of the drum made the sound we could hear. We then went back to our A-Z sound list and identified what was vibrating in order for us to hear the sounds we noted down. In Geography, we identified the layers of the earth and labelled a cross section diagram highlighting the thickness of each layer and what it consists of.
On Friday, we acknowledged the Christian celebration of Epiphany. We learnt that the word Epiphany comes from the verb ‘to appear’. This means that the feast of Epiphany is a celebration of the time that Baby Jesus was seen by the visitors who had travelled to see him. We studied the stars and constellations, and discussed how stars were used to navigate the world and find directions. We were also thrilled to commence our outdoor and adventure activities in PE, using teamwork, diagrams and maps to help us problem solve and navigate our way around tasks.
We are looking forward to a full week back in class next week, Year 4. Have a lovely weekend!
Reminders:
- Year 4 PE lessons take place every Tuesday and Thursday. Please ensure your child arrives at school in their PE kit on these days.
- Spellings set before Christmas will be reposted on Google Classroom on Friday and tested next week.
- If your child is reading from the school books bands, please ensure their book is returned to school on their Reading day.
Date: 13th Dec 2022 @ 10:37am
Our time in Year 4 this week has truly ensured we are in the festive spirit, ready for Santa’s arrival.
Our week began with a Movie Afternoon watching the fantastic Christmas Chronicles 2. Popcorn, candy floss and hot chocolate made the perfect accompaniments to this festive treat. A huge thank you to Team TSP for the delightful treats we have been able to enjoy in school this week. Tuesday brought out ‘House Sing Off’ enabling us to battle it out against the other houses delivering our own renditions of traditional, festive songs.
What a fantastic surprise we had! On Wednesday, we were visited by some enchanting elves with a special message from Father Christmas himself. We also filled our boosts full of Christmas dinner, celebrating the festive period with our teachers and friends as we wore our Christmas hats and pulled Christmas crackers. If that wasn’t enough, we even gathered together to watch the incredible Churches Together Nativity and were blown away by the cast and their performance.
What a better way to end the term than with a celebration of our amazing Christmas Service performance. We are so proud of each and every one of you. You were truly remarkable and gave TSP the best Christmas send-off possible.
On top of all the festivities, Year 4 also completed their DT day by creating their very own Christmas stocking. After designing what our stocking would look like and selecting a suitable material, we learnt how to complete a running stitch and got to work joining our stocking templates together. With a fluffy white top and even our very own initial on the front, our stockings will shine brightly on our fireplaces for Christmases to come.
Can you hear the ring of jingle bells? Love Reading 4 Kids have released their mid-December newsletter. There's still time to order your Christmas books; their Christmas Gift Guide is full of festive treats for all ages, and you can also find more ideas for your perfect presents in their round-up of the best fiction and non-fiction books of 2022.
We hope our class Twitter page has reflected all the laughs and wonderful learning that has taken place since September. Thank you for the gifts and well wishes sent our way, we are truly grateful!
It has been a delight to count down to Christmas with you all, Year 4. You have made December such a magical experience for us all and we cannot wait to welcome you all back in January. From us all here in Year 4, we wish you a very happy Christmas and a safe and enjoyable festive period. Keep shining like the stars that you are! See you in 2023!
Reminders:
- Please find a copy of our virtual classroom attached for next half term.
- Return to School Wednesday 4th January 2023.
- PE lessons will take place on a Tuesday and Thursday in the Spring Term.
Date: 6th Dec 2022 @ 2:05pm
A full week of having Sparkle the elf in Year 4 can only been one thing… magical mischief has been taking place in the classroom. Sparkle has truly been having lots of fun wrapping toilet roll around our Christmas tree, taking a glitter bath in the sink and even making a slide with our reading books. We cannot wait to see what she gets up to next week.
We explored the symbol of light in the Jewish religion by finding out all about the Hanukkah festival and talking about the stories and traditions of Hanukkah. We used our black thinking hats to call upon facts we know about Christians believes about light and how this is similar and different to that of the Jewish religion.
We used expanded noun phrases in our writing this week and selected appropriate nouns to describe the events that took place before Leon entered the mysterious box in our story ‘Leon and the Place Between.’ We have been remembering how to punctuate our speech and ensuring that we only close our speech marks one a comma, full stop, question mark or explanation mark has been used. We even devised our own poetry inspired by the 'Zoo Dreams' poem written by John Foster. We found similarities to the Christmas carol. '12 days of Christmas'. We wonder if our animal themed renditions will be performed around the Christmas tree instead.
In Maths, we proved that when you multiply a number by 0 the answer is always 0 and when you multiply a number by 1 the answer is the same number you multiplied. To learn how to efficiently multiply three numbers together, we developed our own smile method. We recognised that by joining two numbers with a smile, it helped us to remember to multiply two numbers first, before then multiplying the answer with the last number.
We have thoroughly enjoyed opening our Environmental Advent calendar sent to us by SOUTHPORT Eco Centre. We have loved revealing the eco messages from stars in the Atkinson theatre’s Aladdin pantomime and learning about the effects our festive habits have on the environment around us. A big thank you to our Kindness Committee who again this week continued to spread more positivity around our classroom by delivering positivity postcards that had been sent to our class. Our hearts are so full after reading the kind and joyful messages sent our way.
In recognition of International Day for Persons with Disabilities, our PE lesson focused on inclusivity and how sports can be accessed and enjoyed by all. In History, we questioned Emperor Claudius regarding his intentions to invade Britain and deliberated the advantages and disadvantages for the invasion. Thinking ahead to next week, we began planning our festive stocking designs ready to complete our DT day next week. We thought about the material and colours we would like to use and the design that will be prominent on the front of our stockings.
As part of the Picture News Christmas campaign, we thought about the things that really matter to us and what gifts we can give this Christmas, that don't cost anything. It was a wonderful end the week, with our Christmas Party, Christmas jumper day and even Santa Dash. We were thrilled to be able to wear our festive outfits and enjoy games, songs and crafts with our friends to celebrate our coutdown to Christmas.
One more week together before we say our goodbyes for the festive period. I hope your elves are on their best behaviour this week, Year 4!
Reminders:
- Year 4 completed their final recorder lesson this week. Any recorders purchased from school can now remain at home and are yours to keep. Year 4 will recommence their Music lessons in the Spring 2 term, when they begin to learn the clarinet.
- Christmas Church Service at 9.15am.
- School finishes at 1pm on Friday 16th December.
Date: 30th Nov 2022 @ 11:15am
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
We arrived to school on the 1st December to find our classroom full of festive decorations and a cheeky little elf hiding amongst our tree. With lots of deliberation and a few clues spotted around our room, we identified that the elf’s name was Sparkle and she had been awake all evening bring festive joy to our classroom. Excitement filled the room when we discovered a note from Sparkle informing us that she had left the North Pole and made a new home in our classroom this Christmas. She informed us she will be on her best behaviour, if she can become part of our class. In typical Year 4 TSP style, we welcomed Sparkle with open arms.
Our festivities really took off, with a trip to the Christmas Extravaganza on Friday. We loved taking part in the various activities, spending time with our friends and singing along to our favourite Christmas songs. A big thank you Team TSP for organising such a fantastic event and helping us kick start our advent countdown in such a brilliant way.
Our visit to Liverpool Cathedral was truly incredible and supported our understanding of the symbolism of light. From learning about Christingles, to the gifts brought by the three wise men, we learnt so much about the meaning of light in such a beautiful Cathedral. We were in awe of the Cathedral’s size and beauty. After finding a deserted fire, alongside some lost belongings, we discovered that shepherds had left their sheep in the hills to head to Bethlehem to see the new born King. After admiring the incredible stained-glass windows in the Cathedral and the bible stories that are told through the windows, we got the chance to make our own window to represent The Nativity Story. We all left eager to visit the Cathedral again!
It was time to recall the 9’s, 7’s and 11’s in Maths, identifying numbers that are within each of these times tables and connections we can make to support our understanding. We applied our knowledge to problem solving questions, completed a dominos activity to connect questions with their answers and even played board games with our friends to test our times tables knowledge. Next week, we will be focusing on the 12 times tables, looking at what happens when we multiply and divide a number by 0 and 1 and also using the smile method to support us when multiplying 3, one-digit numbers.
In English, we ensured our sentences were using the correct tense throughout and verbs were used to describe the movements and actions of animals in a circus. We critically looked at how we spell words with the ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ endings, forming a table of evidence to suggest the rules associated with adding these endings to given words. Later in the week, we took a look back at the events that have taken place so far in out story Leon and the Place Between, before mapping the events out on a flow map. Next week, we will look at the key features of diary writing in a modelled text, before planning our own diary entries.
Have a wonderful weekend, Year 4!
Reminders:
- Santa Dash takes place on Thursday 8th December. Children are to come to school wearing suitable Mufti clothes to complete the Santa Dash in. Children can bring festive accessories or costumes to get changed into and race in.
- Our Christmas Jumper Day takes place on Friday 9th December. We look forward to seeing all the festive jumpers in class.
Date: 23rd Nov 2022 @ 5:03pm
Another great week in Year 4!
In RE, we connected our understanding of what light means to Christians with the song ‘My Lighthouse’. We took the time to reflect on what the lyrics in the song mean and how they can support our understanding that Jesus is the light of the world. Connecting to our Collective Worship value of Peace, we enjoyed a calming and peaceful Yoga session with Dom from Active Sefton, recognising the importance of Mindfulness and taking a moment to ourselves.
We are thoroughly enjoying reading ‘The train to impossible places’ by the fantastic Peter Bell, as part of our Guided Reading lessons. This fast-paced fantasy adventure is supporting our prediction, retrieval and inference skills. When writing, we are enhancing our sentences with the use of verbs and adverbs and utilising a range of subordinating conjunctions to join two sentences together. We even played our own version of Scrabble this week, connecting our knowledge of sounds to create words from a selection of letters. This game really did help us to remember the importance of sounding out and breaking down our words into their smaller sounds.
Our focus continues to be on the times tables in Maths and how we can call upon our times tables knowledge to support multiplication and division calculations. Using our critical thinking, we discovered similarities and differences between the 3 and 6 times tables, completed times tables wheels to recall the 8’s and even spotted how arrays can support our understanding that division is the inverse to multiplication. Next week, we will look at multiplying a number by 1 and 0 and also what happens when a number is divided by 1 or itself.
In Year 4, it is our mission to nurture our world and in particular, our community. To support our wishes for a more environmentally friendly word, we attended a Christmas Recycling Assembly delivered by Mersey Recycling Discovery Centre. This assembly reminded us of key messages surrounding the impact of packaging at Christmas time and ways to make small changes that can make a big difference.
Our Scientific vocabulary vastly expanded this week, as we discovered what the Digestive system was and the purpose it has in our body. In Spanish, we learnt how to talk about our brothers and sisters, remembering the all-important Spanish difference we need to make when referring to a man or a woman. Our Swimming lessons have sadly come to an end, but the improved stamina and fitness we have gained has been beneficial in our Fitness lessons this week. We completed a range of fitness tests to gain our personal best score and we are determined to use our school value of Hope to beat our PB next week!
Have a lovely weekend, Year 4! Keep shining!
Reminders:
- Year 4 School Trip takes place on Tuesday 29th November. Children will need to bring packed lunch and water bottle in a disposable bag.
- As the colder days are upon us, please ensure your child brings a coat, gloves or any other winter accessories to keep them warm whilst enjoying their breaktime.
Date: 15th Nov 2022 @ 9:43pm
With so many events to celebrate and recognise this week, it sure has been a busy one!
We arrived to school ready to celebrate Kindness Week on Monday, following a delightful weekend showcasing out Kindness Video to our loved ones at home. With the understanding that this week marked Kindness Week, Anti-Bullying Week and also Children in Need, we knew spreading kindness was our top priority throughout our week.
We love to nurture others in Year 4, so this week we decided to spread kindness in the community by donating our unwanted toys, games and books to Barnardos Children’s Charity. Following our final swimming lesson, we headed into the village to deliver our donations and we overwhelmed by the grateful response we were given by the volunteers in store. We are thrilled to see our unwanted items displayed on the shelves, ready to be purchased and given to a loving home. We truly hope our donations bring joy to other children in our community.
A big thank you to BBC Teach for a fantastic Anti Bullying Live Lesson on Monday. We completed three activities, with the support of some famous faces, to understand who we can reach out to if we see signs of bullying and the importance of nurturing others. On Friday, we arrived at school in our Pudsey ears in aid of Children in Need. After designing our own Pudsey eye patches, we reflected on those less fortunate than us and the gratitude we have for the lives we live.
It was also Road Safety Week, so we popped down to visit our Reception class and teach them the meaning of some of the road signs we have been learning about. We did a fantastic job of policing the pathways, as Reception headed out onto the playground on their bikes and scooters, following the road signs we had put in place.
The children have worked extremely hard this week to complete assessments to showcase their learning so far this term. Our school value of Hope was certainly achieved by all as they tried their best and were determined to complete their assessments to the best of their ability.
Our Spanish knowledge is greatly developing with the understanding of how a phrase changes to suit a male or female person, we have developed different aspects of fitness by completing fitness challenges in PE and even enjoyed a fun lesson in the pool to celebrate the achievements in our swimming lessons in Year 4.
We are excited to welcome the Book Fair back next week. Don’t forget the fair will run from 24.11.22 to 29.11.22 and we encourage all to go and see the delightful books the fair has to offer.
Please also find attached to this blog, a parent information booklet regarding the Year 4 Multiplication Check which will be conducted in June 2023.
Reminders:
- Our swimming lessons have now come to an end, but our PE lessons continue to take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday.
- As the colder days are upon us, please ensure your child arrives to school with a coat to wear on the playground.
- Weekly spellings continue to be uploaded onto Google Classroom every Friday and tested the following Thursday.
Date: 7th Nov 2022 @ 3:53pm
What a wonderful week we have had in Year 4!
We connected our Collective Worship value of Peace with Remembrance Day this week, as we created a WW1 newspaper article background and lay a mosaic poppy to rest on our created backgrounds. We then discussed how the poppy is a sign of both remembrance and hope for a peaceful future. It was an honour to join Year 5 at the Memorial Cross at St. Peter’s Church to observe two minute’s silence and lay the wreaths created by the classes at TSP.
In English, we have been focusing on ensuring we are using the correct tense in our writing and selecting whether it is best to use ‘was’ or ‘were’ in a range of sentences. Using a thesaurus, we located synonyms to uplevel our writing and focused again on the importance of precise detail to give the reader a detailed picture of the environment and characters we are writing about. We thoroughly enjoyed illustrating the high street outlined in our text ‘The shop from nowhere’, only able to draw what was heard in the given descriptions. Inspired by this text, when then designed our own, writing a descriptive piece to detail the shops that made up our high streets. Next week, we will be focusing on using an adjective and an adverb to describe the appearance of movement of different acts in the circus.
With the understanding that we can calculate area by counting the squares inside a shape, we took to drawing our own shapes this week. With a coloured pencil in hand, we carefully coloured the desired numbers of squares to form a shape with a given area. We later moved onto comparing the areas of shapes before designing our very own Area Robots. We loved asking our friends to calculate the area of different parts of our robot’s body. Next week, we will be focusing on the 6, 8 and 9 times tables and learning so catchy songs to help with our recall of multiplication facts.
Using some real life teeth moulds, we identified the names and functions of teeth in Science and even showcased our missing teeth along the way! In PE, we completed different exercises as part of our circuit training session. With the music loud and our bodies raring to go, we took to the challenge of holding our exercises for as long as we could to really challenge and strengthen our muscles. We noticed the effects exercise had on our bodies and recorded our findings. In History, we created a conscious alley, to give our opinions on why Claudius should invade Britain and used our knowledge of feminine and masculine spelling in Spanish to distinguish sentences.
Love Reading for Kids have released their early November newsletter. This includes a first look at their Christmas Books and Gift Guide which is full of great ideas for all readers. Books really do make the best presents so please do take a look!
Have a lovely weekend, Year 4!
Reminders:
- Year 4’s last swimming lesson is Wednesday 16th November. Following this, PE lessons will remain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Children should continue to come to school in their PE kit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Donations to Barnardos Children’s Charity, as part of our Kindness Project, should be in school by Wednesday 16th November.
Date: 1st Nov 2022 @ 10:11am
We are back, ready to start the new term ahead and we sure are having fun!
Our week began with a look at our new Collective Worship monthly value of peace. We took the time to think about what peace looks like and times when we feel at peace. Using the Google Classroom Drawing app, we created a picture collage of our ideas to symbolise what peace looks like to us and also how peace can be seen in the Christianity religion. With the knowledge that Jesus is the Light of the world, we unpicked how Jesus brings light to our world and what support and guidance Jesus brings. We popped our ideas into a candle, with a bright flame to represent the idea of light being brought into our lives.
Connecting our understanding of negative numbers, this week in Maths we completed missing number sequences spotting the numbers needed below zero. Our attention then turned to Word Problems, with a focus on problems that required us to count backwards to numbers below zero. Later in the week, we were introduced to Area and what Area is by measuring the surface area of objects in our classroom, using squares. We learnt that to measure Area in Year 4, we simply count the squares inside a given shape or object. Next week, we will be focusing on drawing our own shapes with a given area and connecting our understanding of arrays to support measuring area in a quick and efficient way.
In English, we had an exciting morning at the TSP Circus. We used our sense to stimulate some fantastic ideas for our creative writing, linked to our new book ‘Leon and the Place Between’. We learnt about the importance of using adjectives in our writing so our readers can understand just what it is like to visit a circus and can grasp what the atmosphere is like. By using a double bubble map, we were able to showcase adjectives to highlight the similarities and differences between two images of a circus tent. Laughter filled the air as we played a game of truth and dare, to help us understand what dare Leon might be undertaking as the sign appears in our story asking ‘Do you dare to go to the Place Between’. We made some great predictions about what the Place Between might be and next week, we will create a survival guide for anyone who dares to visit.
A big thank you to Dom from Active Sefton, as we had a fantastic Health Habits session. We looked at the importance of eating a balanced and healthy diet and what that might consist of. We also had fun this week exploring different ways of meastering our times tables. We showcased amazing teamwork, enjoying the games and challenges set up in our classroom to help us develop our times tables recall.
There is no doubt that this week has been the best so far, as we filmed our Kindness Week Video. From gelled hair to space buns, our hairstyles brought the 90s theme to life as we sang, danced and raved throughout the week to some classic 90s songs. We can’t wait to see our joyful efforts be brought to the screen next week when our video premiers.
Rest those dancing feet this weekend, Year 4 and get ready for our Kindness Video premier next week!
Reminders:
- Year 4 PE lessons continue to be on a Tuesday and Wednesday (Swimming).
- Year 4 Kindness Week Project donations to be in school by Wednesday 16th
- Please ensure your child returns their Reading books to school on their Reading day.
- Spellings will continue to be posted on Google Classroom every Friday and tested in class the following Thursday.
Date: 16th Oct 2022 @ 5:19pm
They say time flies when you are having fun and hasn’t it done just that!
To reflect on our RE focus this term, we outlined the main roles and responsibilities we have discovered David held from reading about him in Psalms and Bible Stories. He sure was a busy man! In Collective Worship, we took a look back at all we had achieved during the term and discussed what enabled us to reach those milestones and continue to do our very best. We explained how the things and people who support us in life are the most powerful assets we can have and those we are truly thankful for.
To beautifully display our writing this term, we spent time illustrating our own take on the Gorilla story in our Author Books. Year 4 created wonderful illustrations of the Zoo gates in which Hannah entered in our story ‘Gorilla’ as she visited the Zoo for the very first time. Using our very best handwriting, we then copied our writing around our illustrations. It was a joy to see the happiness on the children’s faces as they admired their writing.
What a great afternoon we had exploring and recreating Andy Warhol’s blotted line technique and his celebrity artwork. We showcased how we can use vibrant colours to create an eye catching design and how our colour choices can make a recurring pattern look different each time.
Our Spanish lesson was a spooky delight, as we entered the Language Angels escape room and tried to free ourselves from the haunted house by learning and recalling Spanish words and phrases. Thrills filled the air as children began to discover keys and learn new Spanish words for the spooky festive period.
A huge thank you to Unite, Formby for our Self Defence session this week. The session enabled us to learn some basic self defence, including how to release from grabs and demonstration to different defence techniques. We were also thrilled to attend the TSP Glow in the Dark Disco this week. It truly was an incredible event enjoyed by all. Thank you Team TSP!
A reminder that spellings for the first Thursday back after half-term are on Google Classroom. Attached to this blog is also the Year 4 Virtual Classroom which has links to various websites that can further support home learning. The pupils' individual passwords can all be found on Google Classroom.
Year 4, you have been a delight to teach this term and it already feels like we have spent a lifetime together. Have a wonderful week and we look forward to hearing all your exciting news when you return!
Reminders:
- School will resume on Monday 31st October.
- PE lessons will continue to be on a Tuesday and children should continue to come into school ‘beach ready’ for swimming every Wednesday.
- Recorders will continue every Monday. Children should continue to bring their recorder to school for their lesson.
Date: 12th Oct 2022 @ 9:38pm
A very busy week here in Year 4!
Continuing to reflect on our monthly value of Generosity, in Collective worship this week, we created a Generosity Tree. On a green leaf, we recorded a way in which we can be generosity to those in our school and in our community and pledged to do all we can to ensure our generosity benefited those around us. We reflected on our gratitude poster and reminded ourselves have we can show gratitude for the generosity we receive. In our RE lesson, we took the time to look at different Psalms and reflected on the Christian values and meaning shown. We discovered that the Lord is like a shepherd, he is our guiding light and helps us to make the right choices.
In English, we recapped our understanding of speech from last week, ensuring we understood the rules of creating a speech sentence and the punctuation needed. We then began to plan our very own Gorilla stories, replacing the characters, setting and plot with our very own, imaginative ideas. Consideration was made in our plans as to which fronted adverbials, speech sentences and adjectives we would use in our stories. As the week progressed, we began to write our stories in broken down steps and we look forward to finishing this next week before writing our stories in our Author Books.
We reminded ourselves of how to set out column addition this week, remembering the useful method to help us add two, four digit number. The children worked hard to ensure two lines were drawn to represent a doormat that the addition ten would sit under, ready to be added to the next column. We also loved using the LBQ website to conclude our coverage of Place Value and to see how our knowledge could be applied to help us solve Place Value problems. Next week, we will use the column method to help with subtraction calculations.
It was a delight to start the week by celebrating Hello Yellow Day! It brought so much joy, happiness and positivity to our week and we were delighted to design our very own positivity flags to be placed on the TSP positivity pathway. Our flags were full of positive and motivational messages, alongside uplifting pictures to bring joy to all at TSP.
In recognition of International Walk to School Month, we created a human bar chart representing how we travel to school. Reflecting on our results, we changed our bar chart to represent how we could travel to school to improve our environment. Connecting our understanding surrounding Martin Luther King, we concluded the week with a recognition to Hate Crime Awareness Week by symbolising with handprints how we are all equal, no matter the colour of our skin.
Keep shining, Year 4!
Reminders:
- The School Disco will take place on Thursday 20th
- On Friday 21st October we finish for half term.
Date: 4th Oct 2022 @ 10:53am
Year 4 have SHINED this week!
Having unpicked what our new Collective Worship monthly value of generosity is, we read the story of the Rainbow Fish. As a class, we outlined the ways in which the fish shows generosity and connected the story with our own experiences of how we share generosity in our daily lives. Taking a black and white fish, we then noted how we could add colour to the lives of others and make our world a Rainbow world. Taking on the role of David, we defeated Goliath in our RE lesson. We tennis balls at the ready, we took aim at our Goliath targets and shouted out the Christian values that David displayed when defeating Goliath.
Taking on the role of Hannah in the story ‘Gorilla’, this week we wrote diary entries to express to the reader the events leading up to Hannah’s birthday in the story. Our writing was full of fronted adverbials to specific when, where or how an event took place, and we used the first person to write as if we were Hannah. We also discovered that Macaroni makes the perfect speech marks, as we used the pasta to symbolise where speech marks should go in a sentence. Next week, we will begin to plan and write our own interpretation of the story, Gorilla. This story will include features of writing that we have focused on this term.
We revisited Roman Numerals to start the week in Maths, recapping the numeral for 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100. We were quick to discover that the sequence on numerals impacts on whether we add or take away a number. It was then time to show off our knowledge of rounding to 10, 100 and 1000, working hard to use a number line to support our thinking. We love using rhymes to help us remember facts in Year 4, why not ask us to perform the Roman Numerals song or even our handy rounding rhyme at home. Next week, we begin to look at adding and taking away numbers and the formal methods we can use to support our calculations.
Lots of strategic work in Basketball this week, as we played using just one basket for both teams to shoot in. We had to work hard to activate our ball whenever we intercepted it. In swimming, we continue to thrive, practising a range of strokes and developing our breathing technique when swimming longer distances. Vertebrates and Invertebrates were the focus in Science, as we categorised different animals to show whether they are an animal with or without a backbone.
To celebrate Black History Month, we focused on Martin Luther King and watches his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. We then created dreams of our own, to ensure our future world is peaceful and full of equality. Year 4 certainly have showcased our school value of Enjoy this week. We were thrilled to start our Mini Marathon, in support of the incredible people who ran the London Marathon. Even after 4 laps, we were still determined to keep going and run some more!
We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday, Year 4!
Reminders:
- The Year 4 virtual classroom can be found on Google Classroom and is attached to this blog. This outlines additional learning and links to websites we use in school, that your child can engage with at home.
- Year 4 PE days are Tuesday and Wednesday. Please ensure your child arrives to school wearing their PE kit on these days.
- As the colder weather sets in, please ensure your child brings a coat to school.
- Details on how to access your Parent-Teacher Meeting will be sent on Monday 10th October.