We have had some fantastic weather this week which means there’s lots of wonderful energy around the school. Let’s have a look at what Year 4 have learnt this week.

English

In English we have been reading folk tales from around the world collected in a book called ‘Tales of Wisdom and Wonder’. This week we read ‘Fish in the Forest’ wherein a Farmer has a wife who is a terrible gossip and he needs to come up with a plan to stop her telling all and sundry about the chest of gold he discovered. We then practiced adapting this story into a play. We worked on making sure stage directions are in the present tense and narration is in the past tense. We then learned about set design and what that job entails, having a go ourselves at designing the set for the second act of our play. We then got out the laptops to learn how to format a playscript on Word. We learned how to italicise text and/or make it bold.

Next week we will be using the skills we’ve learnt to write an entire playscript from scratch.

 

Maths

In maths this week, we have been learning about angles. Year 4 were already very familiar with right angles but we have learned that a right angle is 90 degrees whilst an acute angle is smaller than 90 but larger than 0 degrees and an obtuse angle is larger than 90 but smaller than 180 degrees. We then applied our new knowledge of angles to our existing knowledge of polygons to more accurately define a regular polygon. We now know that a regular polygon not only has sides that are all equal but also interior angles that are also equal.

Next week we will be exploring Roman numerals.

Thematic

In thematic this week we have zoomed in on the river Thames to learn about the history of it. From the Romans invading Britain in 43CE and building a hamlet near the Thames called Londinium, through to the ‘Great Stink’ caused by people dumping their rubbish and sewage into the Thames, and to the Thames today and how it is used for trade, tourism which in turn, boosts the economy. We then looked at how rivers can be used to generate hydroelectric power and learned about Reading Hydro which the children created presentations on.

Next week we will move onto science and learn about the differences between solids, liquids and gases.

Spellings

Mr Oxley’s group:

Burn, turn, curly, surf, hurt, fur, burnt, father

Challenge words: nurse, curve, during

Mrs Cousin’s and Miss Stephens’ groups:

educate                               imagination      prepare                               exploration

imagine                               circulation         explore                               education

circulate                             preparation

does, purpose, quarter

Challenge words: multiplication, identification, qualification

Love to learn

We will soon be learning about solids, liquids and gases in science and the differences between them on a molecular level. For this week’s home learning, we would like you to look around the world and see what solids, liquids and gases you can find and present your findings however you see fit. You could create a table and write in what you find, you could try to draw the difference examples or take pictures.
As a challenge, you could even try to find out how the molecules within solids, liquids and gases act differently.

Please could this challenge be handed in by Wednesday 7^th May.

 

Dates to remember

5th May – Bank Holiday

6th May – Thrive Coffee Afternoon at 3.30pm

21st May – Year 4 class assembly 2.50-3.05

23rd May – Be here, Be you, Belong celebration. Children can come to school wearing anything they feel represents them as part of our ‘Dress to Express’ day. We will have a parade at 2pm on the field to celebrate this, to which our families are all invited.

 

Many thanks

We hope you have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cousins and Mr Oxley