On Monday, the children in Class 4 started the day by reading along and listening to Chapter 6 of Charlotte’s Web. The children thought really hard about things that Wilbur could see, hear and smell in his barn. They worked together to record ideas and were asked to use powerful adjectives and interesting nouns. This work has been used today to plan a descriptive piece of writing about the barn. We explored features of descriptive writing, such as the use of powerful adjectives, interesting verbs, personification, alliteration and similes. Some children also used metaphors to write descriptive sentences. The children will move on to using their plan to draft their first piece of descriptive writing tomorrow.

In Maths, we have been revising the compact written method to carry out addition. Some children revisited their understanding of place value to carry out the expanded method of addition, partitioning numbers into Hundreds, Tens and Units and combining them to make a total. Examples of the methods can be found in our Calculations Policy under the heading ‘Current Subject plans’. Today, children were given Reasoning and Problem Solving challenges to give them the opportunity to show their understanding and apply their skills within a context.

In Music this week, the Year 4 children progressed in the unit of work surrounding ‘Ten Pieces – No Place Like’, by modern composer Kerry Andrews. The children focussed on 5 sounds they heard on a sound walk last week. They had to decide how to represent the sound using body and voice percussion. This is called creating a music motif. These were then placed within a soundscape for the children to follow and perform. The children did really well and performed their piece of music at the end of the session.

In Art this week, we found out about techniques used when painting a watercolour scene. The lesson was linked to our Novel Study unit ‘Descriptive Writing’. The children spent time reflecting on their work in English and used their ideas to sketch a scene of the barn, ready to paint with watercolours next week.

In French we explored vocabulary for different items within the classroom. Some of the vocabulary we covered can be found in this game here . 

The children have also continued to progress through our Computing unit of work. They have been experimenting with Scratch Junior and controlling a sprite (a character on the screen) and writing programmes to make the sprite move around the screen and perform different actions. Information on this App can be found here.

Well done Class 4! See you next week!

Mrs Conde  

So far this week, Class 4 have been role playing a dramatic extract from Charlotte’s Web. The children had to take on the role of a character and role play Wilbur’s great escape. The children needed to consider using emotive vocabulary and plenty of expression. On Tuesday, the children explored features of a Diary entry. They had to read a diary extract and pick out several features, such as use of the past tense, first person, colloquial language, punctuation for effect and more.

The Year 5 enjoyed another session of Brass in the hall. Year 4 children created a ‘soundscape’ after being absolutely quiet for 1 minute and recording sounds they could hear. Their partner then ‘read’ their soundscape and ‘played’ the sounds that had been recorded. The children also revised high, low, soft and loud sounds.

In Maths, the children used their place value knowledge to add and subtract numbers up to 1000 to a 4-digit number. On Tuesday, the class visited multiplication methods, including the grid method. Children worked confidently multiplying TUxU and TUxTU, clearly showing their calculations in their books. Some children worked on interactive games to revise the use of arrays to understand the concept of multiplication.

During Class worship, the focus was on how we are sometimes given hard ‘jobs’ by God, similar to how Noah was given the job of building his Ark. Noah had to persevere for a long time to build the Ark. Sometime we have to persevere at a job, whether it be helping a friend, working something out in a lesson, building something in school or at home, working hard at friendships etc.

In French, the children had a go at asking each other how old they are. The children also revised the numbers 1-31. Lots of children became really confident at asking ‘Quel âge as-tu?’ and responding by saying ‘J’ai huit/neuf ans’. The children also carried out a maths activity, writing the answers in words in French.

In PE, the children explored different body movements. They played a game where the children stood in a queue and the person at the back had to move to the front. However, the children in the queue created many different body shapes and movements to make it really difficult for the person at the back to move to the front of the queue! This was done to music. The children really enjoyed it.

The children continued to explore Stone Age art and craft work. They made sketches of examples they could find in books and online. They also had a go at creating marks with natural tools, such as sticks, leaves, pine cones, bark etc by dipping them into a charcoal and oil paste. This was good fun!

Well done Class 4.

Mrs Conde and I have had a great first couple of weeks with Class 4.

We have been reading Charlotte’s Web together and the children have produced letters to Mr Avery asking him to save Wilbur and also information texts all about how to care for pigs.

In maths we have been working on the place value of 4 digit numbers.

In Science we have looked at different kinds of electrical devices and made posters about electrical safety.

The children worked together to make a timeline for the classroom showing when the stone age was.  They have begun to look at cave paintings in Art and made archaeological digs out of a variety of materials for their classmates to excavate!

We are looking forward to another busy and exciting week!

Have a great weekend,

Mrs S Foster

Here’s a fun game to help your child learn their times tables.

Hit the Button

Hello! 

Class 4 have been busy so far this week. On Monday, as part of our Novel Study, we explored information on what is required to make a suitable home for a pig (Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web). The children were asked to design a suitable home and annotate their drawings using descriptive vocabulary. There were some lovely designs!

Year 5 had a great session of Brass on Monday morning. They all enjoyed it and came back from the session full of smiles. Year 4 children began to explore a musical programme called ‘Ten Pieces’ which has been developed by the BBC. It aims to introduce the younger generation to classical music. We listened to a composition called ‘No Place Like’ which was composed by Kerry Andrews. More information can be found via this link BBC Ten Pieces

The children all tried hard in a mental arithmetic test on Monday – we worked through the answers, methods and calculations together. On Monday afternoon, the children had chance to practise their programming skills using the App ‘Scratch Junior’.

We all revised our numbers 0-20 in French. We listened to a funny song which helped us to learn numbers beyond 30 too. The children then played a couple of games on our school language programme called ‘Language Nut’.

During Class Worship, we explored a passage from Hebrews 12:1-2 which helped us to understand that life can be compared to a race. We must persevere (our Worship focus for this half term) and focus on our goals.

In English today, we used the laptops to research how to care for a pig in preparation for compiling an information leaflet. We had to think about the use of sub-headings to organise our research.

We revised the use of landmarked and unmarked number lines to place numbers up to 10,000 in order from smallest to biggest.

In PE we explored the use of movement such as stretching high, bending down, marching, side stepping and much more to put together a sequence of movements in small groups. This was done to music in the hall.

We started to look at Stone Age artwork this afternoon. We had a look through topic books to find out any information we could on the different methods and types of artwork carried out by people during the Stone Age – more to follow next Tuesday!

Well done Class 4 – you have worked really hard. 

Mrs Conde 

The children in Class 4 have had a wonderful day. They have all enjoyed being together and catching up with news about their holiday adventures.

Today, the children were introduced to our new ‘Novel Study’ which will be ‘Charlotte’s Web’. We read a section from Chapter One and the children were asked to discuss the events and give their thoughts and feelings about what had happened and how it had made them feel. The children worked really hard to talk to each other and keep on task to record their ideas by writing them in thought bubbles.

We spent time exploring place value in Maths. Children had to identify the value of different digits in 3 and 4-digit numbers. We used number cards to make a range of numbers and the children had to write the values of the digit in place value grids. We then found the biggest and smallest numbers and also put all of the numbers in order from biggest to smallest.

This afternoon, we talked about the qualities of a person in Class 4 and what we would like to continue to grow as. For example, the children suggested that they wanted to continue to grow as writers, historians, artists, mathematicians, Christians, good friends, actors and many more! The children used Microsoft Publisher to create signs for a display board to remind us of what we are working hard to be.

The Class 4 newsletter has been placed in the Class 4 noticeboard and it will be uploaded onto here tomorrow.

Well done Class 4 – it was a great day!

Mrs Conde.