Good afternoon everyone,
I hope you’ve all had a lovely week. Can you believe how quickly this half term is going? It really does feel like the shortest one yet – it’s flown by! That said, we’ve certainly packed a lot in. From VE Day celebrations to the excitement of PGL and, of course, our weekly swimming sessions (sadly, only one more to go!).
Here’s a little round-up of what we’ve been up to in Year 4 this week:
English
The children have done a brilliant job finishing off their biographies on Howard Carter. We’ve now moved on to writing newspaper reports about his famous discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. We kicked off by looking at real newspapers and discussing their key features – headlines, captions, quotes and how news is now often read online instead of in print. The children are really getting into the role of journalists!
Maths
Money, money, money! For some reason, this topic has really captured the children’s interest – they’ve been incredibly enthusiastic. We’ve been working on comparing and ordering different amounts and converting between pence, pounds and mixed amounts. This is something we’ll continue with next week as we explore solving problems involving money.
Geography
In our rivers topic, we’ve started looking at some of the UK’s and the world’s most famous rivers. The children used atlases to locate rivers like the Thames, the Amazon, the Nile and the Mississippi. We discussed their importance, where they flow from and to and what makes each one unique. It was great to see how confidently the children used the atlases to find locations and follow the rivers’ paths.
Science
This week, our science lessons were all about vertebrates. The children learned how animals with backbones are grouped into five main categories: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. We explored the characteristics of each group – such as how they breathe, whether they lay eggs and if they’re warm or cold-blooded – and then created flow charts to help us sort animals based on these features. A lot of great thinking and discussion took place!
Computing
In computing, we’ve moved onto game coding. The children are using Scratch to build simple games and have been learning how to make characters repeat actions using loops in their code. It’s been brilliant to see how quickly they’ve picked this up – some have already started designing their own versions of popular games. Watch this space – we might have some future game designers in our midst!
Looking ahead to next week...
We have our open afternoon on Wednesday – it would be lovely to see many of you there!
It’s also Walk to School Week, so we’re encouraging the children to take part however they can – even if it’s just parking a little further away and walking the last bit.
The Year 3/4 Cranborne Cup will be taking place (children involved have already been told).
On Friday, the children will be heading off to the KS2 Mini Marathon at Oakmere
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. I hope you all have a lovely weekend!
