Following our research into the British Empire last week, we utilized our knowledge of the era this week in English by starting a story about the British invasion of India in the 17th century, focusing on one character’s journey.
Many of you may have witnessed excited children at the start of the week as the beheld an assortment of interesting items set up in their classrooms when they came in on Monday morning. As well as the classrooms being draped in cloth and other colourful material, the tables also held spices, Rangoli patterns, materials and a range of other objects associated with an Indian market of the time. The children were immersed into the world of a 17th-century Indian market, and used their senses to describe what they could see, hear, touch and smell. This came together to create the setting of their stories.
The children then developed their character, who was then put into a “story map” to depict the character’s journey in their story.
Our grammar focus in English was Possessive Apostrophes. Possessive Apostrophes are used to tell us that something belongs to someone. For example, if you were talking about a football belonging to Ben, you would say ‘Ben’s football’.
More information on Possessive Apostrophes can be found here.
We continued with multiplication in maths, focusing on our times tables this week: 3s, 6s and 7s. Our worksheets you can find below:
And here are some useful links to supporting your child with learning their timestables.
We will also be getting a subsctiption to Timestables Rockstars after Christmas, so watch this space!
In Forest School, we did some art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy https://www.livingyourwildcreativity.com/art-gallery-1-mitchell-1 and put the skills we have been learning to the test by creating Christmas reindeers and dream catchers.
In Art, we finished our elephants and designed patterns inspired by Indian art.
Special Notices:
- The Youth Sports Trust is running after school online clubs every weekday at 5pm until the end of term (18th December). These are an opportunity for all children and young people to do some sport, develop skills and, most importantly, have fun! You can find further details here.
PE challenge:
Next week:
- English: we will be continuing with our narrative about life in India before and after the British Empire.
- Maths: Continuing with multiplication, division and times tables.
- Guided Reading: we will be exploring the story of the Three Brothers from the book Illustrated Stories from India. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustrated-Stories-Collections-Klauss-2015-11-01/dp/B017PNUOQY
- Handwriting & Spelling: Our spelling words for next week are: forwards, backwards, fruit, grammar, group, guard, guide, hurt, heart.
- Science: Continuing with states of matter: solids, liquids and gases.
- Computing: Continuing with our new coding project, WeeBee.
- RE: Buddhism is our R.E. focus for this half term. We will be exploring it through the question: Is it possible for everyone to be happy?
Key information for Year 4:
- Amazon: Forest School on Wednesdays, PE on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
- Nile: Forest School on Tuesdays, PE on Mondays or Wednesdays.
- Thames: Forest School on Thursdays, PE on Wednesdays or Fridays.
- Children must bring in a coat to school.
- Children must bring in a PE kit for PE lessons and appropriate clothes for forest school.
- Children in KS2 may bring in a healthy snack that contains no nuts.