Poplar (Yr4)

Week ending 17th January

It has been an interesting week for Year 4 as Mr Milum has moved to Year 6 and Mr Selby has taken on Poplar Class for the time being.

We have been working on our History topic on The Anglo Saxons and explored the rather gruesome world of their justice and punishment system. HOT NEWS: you should receive a letter over the next day or two about a planned workshop for the children in school on Monday 3rd February. 

In science we discovered that the gas in fizzy drinks weighs something through very rigorous stirring, and on Friday the two classes had a joint lesson in the hall which combined music with French; there are some very talented singers in the year group!

Work in English focused on Explanation texts and linked with the Anglo-Saxon theme, while in Maths we continued working on developing multiplication skills.

Homework has been sent home - please don't hesitate to speak with us if you have any queries about this.

Reminders: 

• Please don't forget how cold the weather is - all the children need to come to school with an appropriate coat for these conditions
• The children all know which times table they are working on - this is a major focus for the whole school, so please help them by spending some time on them at home

Week ending Friday 10th January 2020:

English 

During this past week, we have reflected on the learning from last term, consolidating and deepening our understanding of writing a diary entry with particular focus on the basics (handwriting, spelling and punctuation) and a quick revisit of dialogue within a narrative. Year 4 worked hard to create an accurately punctuated piece of dialogue by popping our speech bubbles and pinching the speech out and placing into a sentence with inverted commas (speech marks). Year 4 made sure they used synonyms (other words for) said.

Maths

Year 4 have continued to develop their understanding of multiplication and applied their understanding to a range of reasoning questions. This week, Year 4 explored how partitioning a two or three digit number can help to multiply numbers like.
 

History

Year 4 will begin their study of the Anglo-Saxons this half-term. We spent our first History session exploring when the Anglo-Saxons fitted onto a Historic chronological timeline. Children researched the dates for the Historical periods that they had previously studied (Romans, WW1, Great fire of London, StoneAge) and plotted in chronological order onto a timeline.

We began to look at what happened within the Anglo-Saxon era and will continue exploring specific aspects of the period over the coming five weeks.

Worship Assembly

Our worship assembly this week began our study of the PRAISE values. Perseverance was explored in a variety of context and demonstrated by children playing games where frustration may set in, however the reward of persevering and reaching the goal was well worth the effort.  

Week ending Friday 20^th December 2019:

English 

During this week, children learnt about a variety of Poetry.

On the first day of Poetry Week, Year 4 gave to me, a beautiful piece of Haiku Poetry.

On the second day of Poetry Week, Year 4 gave to me, 2 Christmas cards full (haiku and Tanka) and a beautiful piece of Haiku Poetry.

On the third day of poem week, Year 4 gave to me, 3 Christmas stanzas, 2 Christmas cards full (haiku and Tanka) and a beautiful piece of Haiku Poetry.

On the fourth day of poem week, Year 4 gave to me 4 published poems (Haiku, Tanka, Cinquain and Acrostic), 3 Christmas stanzas, 2 Christmas cards full (haiku and Tanka) and a beautiful piece of Haiku Poetry.

Sparkle Day

Pupils enjoyed visiting different classes in mixed year group classes. We were very proud of Year 4 and the job they did as role models for the younger children. Children created some amazing Christmassy crafts that would make anyone feel the festive spirit.

Worship Church Service

KS2 visited St John the Evangelist on Thursday morning for our Christmas Service lead by Reverend Dan. Churchfield Voices performed some fantastic music as well as all KS2 children singing songs learnt during our singing worship assembly.

Week ending Friday 13^th December 2019:

English 

During this past week, we have written and published our independent Narrative story opener of a Pirate themed fantasy story. Children have worked hard to correctly punctuate dialogue and use commas to demarcate their fronted adverbials.

Maths

Year 4 have continued to develop their understanding of multiplication and applied their understanding to a range of reasoning questions. This week, the 6, 9 and 7 multiplication facts have been applied – we would like children to continue practising these in their homework.

We reflected on previous learning and used dienes blocks to represent three and four digit numbers.
 

Science week

Year 4 Scientists learnt about the water cycle to solve our pirate related problem – Pirates often ran their drinking water supply dry which was torturous when surrounded by sea water.

Year 4 children applied their knowledge of the water cycle to use a distilling experiment (quickly heating and speeding up the water cycle) to evaporate the water and leaving the salt behind, the water vapour then condensed and dripped pure drinking water into a new jar. 

Pupils wrote instructions for pirates to complete this experiment so they would never run out of drinking water again!

Worship Assembly

Our worship assembly this week continued the Christmas Nativity story. Clergy spoke about the length of time that the wise men spent travelling and that they were led by their faith in the new king. Next week concludes the Nativity story.  

Week ending Friday 6^th December 2019:

English 

During this past week, we have planned our independent Narrative story opener of a Pirate themed fantasy story. Children applied their knowledge of an effective story opener, including fronted adverbials, and inverted commas to punctuate dialogue. We look forward to reading the published story openers!

Maths

Year 4 have continued to develop their understanding of multiplication and applied their understanding to a range of reasoning questions. This week, the 6 and 9 multiplication facts have been applied – we would like children to continue practising these in their homework.
 

History

In History, Year 4 applied their knowledge of character descriptions to plan a wanted poster for an Historic pirate. Next week, children will gather the historical facts to further develop this piece of work which will combine vivid descriptions of the famous pirate (from the Golden Age of Piracy) and key facts about them.

D&T

Pupils have continued to design their Treasure chest in this week’s Design and Technology session. Children continued developing their design to achieve the brief of designing a water tight treasure chest that will be appropriate for the Churchfield Pirates. Some design features to overcome are waterproofing, hinges that will be water resistant and ease of transport.

Worship Assembly

Our worship assembly this week began by looking at the start of the Christmas Nativity story. Children were encouraged to think about the Three Wise Men and their journey and faith in the new King.

Week ending Friday 29^th November 2019:

English 

During this past week, we have written a shared Narrative story opener of a Pirate themed fantasy story. Children focussed on what made an effective story opener, paying attention to the language and grammatical features authors use when describing the character or setting.
 

Maths

Year 4 continued to learn and explore multiplication. Children spent time consolidating their conceptualisation of multiplying and dividing by one, ten or zero. Pupils used a variety of concrete and visual representations to demonstrate the multiplication of these numbers.
 

History

In History, Year 4 continued studying life on-board a pirate ship. Pupils can articulate the various part and features of a pirate ship, including the purpose and necessity of some of the rooms on-board. We applied our knowledge of setting descriptions to create a description of the childrens’ chosen room on-board the galleon.

Week ending Friday 22^nd November 2019:

English 

During this last week, Year 4 completed their independent writing of a diary entry from the point of view of a Pirate on board a pirate ship. Children focussed on including preposition, commas in a list and expanded noun phrases to create a wonderful description of the setting.
 

Maths

Year 4 began working on multiplication. We first focussed on the place value of each digit before multiplying each digit. We used the language ‘lots of’ to describe the multiplication of each digit. Children used dienes blocks to represent the multiplication of these numbers.
 

History

In History, Year 4 began looking at life on-board a pirate ship. Year 4 can now explain the various jobs on board a ship and how life would have been working in one of these job roles. We applied our knowledge of diary writing to create an entry from their chosen job on-board.

Weekly homework

Each week in Year 3/4, the children are expected to complete the following homework:

- Reading at least 5 times a week. Each week should be recorded in your reading record book. Remember that this can be any reading you choose to do - your school book, your favourite magazine, a sports' website or anything else you are interested in.

- Practising your times tables - learning our tables to 12 x 12 is really important. Each child has a times table book. They should complete one page of practise each week ready for a test on Friday. There are 5 boxes on each page, so practise once a day to keep your times table knowledge fresh.

- Practising your spellings. Every week we have a spelling test - please practise your spellings ready for their test on Friday.

Please see your child's teacher if you have any questions about the homework.