We’ve had an incredible science week in Year 4! The children absolutely loved the ‘hands on, brains on, get curious’ science week and really enjoyed the science experiments that we conducted. More about that below. Here is what we have been up to this week…

Maths

In maths this week, we have been learning to multiply. Some of us continued to practice the grid method to multiply a 2-digit number by a 2-digit number. See below.

When the children were ready, they moved on to learn how to multiply a 2-digit number by a 2-digit number using long multiplication. This is a challenging method to learn to start with, but after lots of practice and hard work, they were doing brilliantly with it by the end of the week. We also used the method that we had been learning to multiply that week to solve 2-step word problems,

Next week we will be learning about time. We will be learning to calculate durations of time and solve problems involving converting units of time.

English

In English this week we have continued reading our new text called ‘I was a Rat’ by Phillip Pullman and our writing unit narratives with dialogue. We practised using complex and compound sentences in our story writing, and using fronted adverbials to start our sentences. The children are becoming quite skilled with these now, and their writing is varied and interesting to read.

Next week we will be learning about newspaper reports.

Thematic

This week was SCIENCE WEEK! The theme was ‘Hands on, brains on, get curious’ and we had such a great week! The children took part in 3 investigations. In our first investigation, we wanted to find out what would happen if we soaked an egg in vinegar. We left the egg in the vinegar for 3 days and by Thursday, the shell had dissolved enough that we could rub it off, and we were left with bouncy eggs!! See pictures below.

Our second experiment caused much excitement! We put some vinegar in a measuring cylinder. We used a funnel to put some bicarbonate of soda into a balloon. We then carefully attached the balloon to the top of the cylinder, making sure we kept the balloon flopped over with the bicarb in. We then tipped the bicarbonate of soda into the cylinder and a chemical reaction occurred, releasing carbon dioxide gas that blew up the balloon! Many shrieks of amazement and excitement were heard! See pics below.

In our last experiment, rainbow walking water, we set up 7 cups with water in and food colouring and made kitchen roll bridges between the cups. We watched the water go up the ‘bridges’ and transfer into the next empty cup due to capillary action. The colours mixed in the empty cups e.g. the blue and red coloured water mixed to make purple water. See pics below.

Next week we will begin our new themed learning unit called ‘My home, your home’ and will be learning about Spain.

Spellings

Spellings to learn this week are contractions so they must have the apostrophe in the correct place.

couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, can't, won't, don't, they're, aren't, doesn't, haven't, mustn't, they'll, you've

Red words: suppose, surprise, therefore

Love to Learn

Dates to remember

17th – 24th June – Book Fair 

19th June – Zoe Artemedis (local Author) visiting school 

24th June – Class photos 

26th June – Non-school uniform day for all in return for Summer Fair donations (see Summer fair letter that will come out early term 6 for details) 

30th June – Music evening at 6pm 

1st July – Big fat quiz of the year – parents invited to attend (year 4 at 1.30pm and year 5 at 2.15pm) 

8th July – Year 4 Come Dine with me picnic 

10th July – Year 3-6 Sports day from 9.15 on the top field 

10th July – School reports sent home 

13th, 14th, 15th July– Transition days (children will spend these days with their new class teacher) 

14th July 2.45pm – Parents invited into child’s new class to meet their teacher 

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Cousins, Mr Cook and Mrs Tammaro