What an amazing week we have had in Year 4. We have been been learning lots about our new topic, ‘Ancient Greece’, and have been blown away by the children’s enthusiasm. We have Art with Ms Smith this half term and have been creating sculptures based on the school values to be displayed.
In English, we have been learning about the Odyssey. We started by learning about the story of Odysseus and the Cyclopes. We used active story telling to sequence the story and then focused on how the writer used vocabulary to create imagery around the characters. We have been thinking about authorial choices and how we can translate this into our own writing over the next few weeks. We then began to look at Sirens. We created our own sirens and explored descriptions using expanded noun phrases. In out writing journal we have been focusing on using different sentence openers, it was brilliant to see so many children including this learning in their writing as well.
In Maths, we have been exploring the composition of one thousand. We have been linking this with place value and have been thinking about what 1000 really represents. We have explored this through a range of resources and it has been wonderful to see the children exploring their mathematical reasoning to explain their ideas. Please see attached maths sheets Maths
In Humanities, we began learning about life in Ancient Greece. We have started to explore what life was like during the period and began to think about how this is different from life today. To help us envision life during Ancient Greece, we created a Year 4 Agora in the hall. We then used this space to share our newly learnt knowledge with each other (just like the Ancient Greeks would have done!). It was wonderful to see the everyone so engaged with our new topic and sharing their learning with peers in the other classes!
In STEM, we have been learning about the digestive system. We have been learning about the role of the key digestive organs and looking a the journey the food we eat takes through our bodies. We explored this by doing an experiment- I am sure the children would love to share this with you (it got a little bit messy!).
In Spelling, we have been focusing on the <e> sound and the different ways of spelling this. We then moved on to Polysyaballic words, focusing on syllable identification and thinking about how we can use this to spell longer words.
PE FOUCS
Next week:
In English, we are continuing learning about the Odyssey. We are going to continue exploring the story of the Sirens and use this as a stimulus to focus on comparisons in our writing.
In Maths we are are focusing on bridging 1000. We will be looking at different methods that we can use to help us with this.
In STEM, to further our knowledge of the digestive system, we are going to explore the roles of vitamins and minerals in our food. We are going to look at their use in the body and explore the role of digestion in this.
In Guided reading, we are going to continue reading our book, ‘Cogheart’. We are are going to be focusing on the characters journey and thinking about how information can be extracted and linking this to authorial choices. Please see the attached chapter here Guided Reading – Chapter 2
In Humanities, we are going to continue to explore the Ancient Greek time period.
Notices:
- Please can all children ensure that they have full PE kit. This is part of our uniform.
- We are in the process of sorting out reading books for all children. We are setting up the new library so that children can take books home. These will be sent home in the next few weeks – thank you in advance for your patience with this. In the meantime, children are encouraged to use their class library and can bring in books from home.