English

In English this week, we have completed our book ‘The Pebble in my Pocket’ and finished learning about the journey the pebble took through time from 485 million years ago to present day. We are excited to go and find our own pebbles, that may have been on a similar journey, on Thursday 8^th February on our walk to the coast. We also finished our writing unit on setting descriptions and the children planned their own earthquake setting and then wrote their own description of this using all of the skills we had learnt in the unit – their writing was incredible!

Next week, we will be exploring poetry based on ‘Pebble in my Pocket’ themes.

Maths

This week we have been learning about decimal numbers. The children have come across some new vocabulary:

• A whole number/integer – is a number that does not have a decimal or fractional part e.g. 34, 6, 937 or 42

• Decimal places – the children learnt that a decimal number with two digits after the decimal point is described as having 2 decimal places such as 4.65, 128.93 and a number with 1 decimal place would be for e.g. 7.4, 4.9

We have been comparing and ordering numbers with up to 2 decimal places and the rounding decimal numbers with 1 decimal place to the nearest integer (whole number) e.g. 27.4 rounded to the nearest integer is 27, 63.8 rounded to the nearest whole number is 64. We also, of course, had a fantastic Number Day on Friday filled with many fun maths activities.

Next week in maths we will learn about position and direction. If your child is unsure, please practice left and right and clockwise and anti-clockwise ready for next week. We will be learning abut co-ordinates and translating points on a 2D grid.

Thematic – Cracking the Earth’s Core

This week has been our Technology week and we had great fun. The children learnt about the different type of structures that a building can have. These can be frame structures or shell structures. Shell structures are a hollow, often dome-like structure e.g. the Eden Project in Cornwall, that is less strong than a frame structure, which has rigid parts joined together to create a frame e.g. a skyscraper. The children also learnt about foundations, triangulation and bracing and how these can be used to strengthen a structure. We then designed our own frame structures thinking about the materials and tools we would use. After this, we created our frame structures in small groups. The children made amazing structures that were actually incredibly strong! Here are some photos….

Next week will be RE week and we will be finding out about Hinduism and how Hindus worship at home and in the Mandir. It is also Internet Safety Day on Tuesday 6^th February and we will be spending the whole day learning about online safety.

Love to Learn 

We would like to say a huge well done for all of the amazing volcanoes that the children made at home. We had lego volcanoes, icing volcanoes, papier mâché volcanoes, incredible drawings and pictures and even a cake volcano! We than you greatly for your support with this.

This week’s Love to Learn task is a maths one.

Please pick 5 of the numbers below and round them to the nearest integer.

2.3     9.5     16.4     29.7    294.3     6.8       32.5     18.1      74.9    128.7

Now write out the decimal numbers and put a comparison sign (< or >) between them to compare them correctly:

2.35  ____  3.62                 1.81 ____  1.18               57.3 _____  53.7               0.03 ______ 0.3

9.03 ______ 9.30 _______9.33

Last of all, write these decimal numbers in ascending order:

7.1           1.07         0.1          7.17         1.01

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

Spellings

The children will be tested this week on the red words we have been learning across this term so these are the words to practice this week please:

grammar, group, guard, guide, heard, heart, height, history, imagine, important, increase, interest

Challenge words: possession, particular

Other News

Our Viking Year 4 TTRS Battle begins on Monday 5th February for the week. Team Turquoise and Team Cyan will be up against the Year 4 classes at Ramsgate Arts Primary School and Upton Primary School. Please encourage your child(ren) to play TTRS as much as they can at home and school next week! Come on Chilton Team Year 4 - we can do this! (Children can play TTRS between 7.30am and 7.30pm). If you need your child's login details, please ask their teacher.

Dates to remember  

- Tuesday 6th February is Online Safety Day and, this year, this also falls during Children's Mental Health Week. As part of this, the children are invited to 'Dress to Express' on Tuesday. They may wear whatever makes them happy - bright colours, their group uniforms (e.g. Brownies) or a dress up costume! 

- On Thursday 8th February we are going on our walk to the local beach to collect pebbles to finish off our learning about the book 'Pebble in my Pocket'. Please can the children wear shoes suitable for exploring rock pool areas, such as wellies.

- Friday 9th February 3.15pm - end of term 3.

- Monday 19th February - start of term 4.

Many thanks,

The Year 4 Team