Year 4 Blogs
Friday 9th May
After our wonderful residential the week before, Year 4 settled back into the classroom with renewed vigour and camaraderie. We had plenty to learn this week, not least our hard work in English as we continue our stories inspired by The Journey by Frenci Sanna. Throughout the week, we looked at how to develop drama and tension in our sentence writing, developing the structure of the sentence using fronted adverbials and conjunctions. We saw that the choice of conjunction can be very useful when wanting to alter the atmosphere of a paragraph, for example using conjunctions such as until and but. By the end of the week, we had written our first paragraph which describes the serenity of life in a seaside village. That is until the soldiers arrived. Next week, we will begin our journey to escape and find safety.
We completed our work on decimals which led on nicely to our next unit of Money. This of course uses our previous unit to two decimal points (£2.99). We are looking at coins and notes and will be completing word problems during next week's lessons.
High on our agenda is the Multiplication Tables Check which will begin from the 2nd June. We are practising hard to answer the questions within the 6 seconds allowed. In class, we are aiming for a time of between 4-5 seconds to build confidence. On TTRS, please focus practice on Garage and Soundcheck. I have set each child their own challenges on these games. Some children have asked for an alternative to TTRS. Here are links pages that have fewer distractions and are more like the test itself.
https://talkingtimestables.uk/y4_ks2_mtc_practice_tests_multiplication_tables_check.php
https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check
https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/
Our trip to York provided us with our RE writing this week. Our current topic is What Makes a Church? As we had such an inspirational day at York Minster, this provided many subjects for us to write about: the architecture, the history as well as our own reactions to the immense size of the building.
We finished our exploration through the poems of Where Zebras Go- a book the children have loved. We were able to share some of the riddles during our Learning Exhibition on Tuesday. Did you work out the creature being described in Who?
In Computing, we are using weather statistics to explore the properties of Excel spreadsheets. This week, we learnt how to input data and then sort from smallest to largest or vice versa. These computing sessions are also used for some TTRS practice until after our MTC.
The children had a super session with Mrs Forrester to celebrate VE Day on Thursday, looking at the history and important events as well as enjoying some art activities and some time outside in the sun listening to music of the era.
Our certificate this week goes to a very worthy winner- Arlo. His maturity, sense of fun and caring nature shone brightly during our time in York and all adults felt this was worthy to celebrate. Well done Arlo!
Finally, a very warm welcome to Mrs Harrison who has joined us in Year 4. It's great to have you with us!
Miss Porteous, Miss Gadsby and Mrs Harrison
Friday 2nd May
Here we are at Murton Park. It’s our final day and we are about to begin our Viking experience.
We have had an incredible time. The weather has been glorious, just right for walking and visiting this great city.
After the fabulous architecture and workshop of the Minster, Thursday’s trip was quite different.
At first we visited the DIG. This interactive museum has three sessions. The first is called Battle Tactics. Here, a historian dressed as a Viking explains the hierarchy and motivations of the Vikings, leading them to travel and explore in order to increase their wealth. He explained the innovative approach to weapons they had and how they used different skills and characters to invade and settle. This interactive session saw many of the children acting parts to reenact the tactics.
Then on to the archaeological sessions- first a fossil history and then the actual dig.
After lunch, we marched off to the Yorvik Centre to experience the real village and a see a reconstruction of Yorvik (the Viking name for York).
By this time, we were all a bit tired. So we strolled back to Stableside via a trundle through the countryside beside the racecourse.
Our evening was a relaxed affair- either at the nearby playground or relaxing back at our accommodation.
Mr Cotton completed his room inspection. Well done to Jack F, Joe, Ronaele, Isabella and Elinor who won the tidy room competition!
Thank you to everyone in Year 4 for a fabulous few days. I think they will sleep well tonight.
And thank you to Mrs Marshfield, Miss Gatsby, Mrs Cotton and Mrs Forrester. What an absolutely wonderful team!
See you all next Tuesday.
Miss Porteous
