wb 11.9.23
Date: 15th Sep 2023 @ 4:18pm
And just like that, our first complete week is over!
It all began with an assembly led by Mrs Mclean and Year 6 regarding one of our core school values- Respect. As we begin our new year of learning, we felt as a class that it is not only important to respect each other but also our learning opportunities. Throughout this week, Year 4 have shown that respect which has been a joy to see.
At present, our overarching theme is dominated by whales. Our current Guided Reading unit is looking at the factual and beautifully illustrated book, The World of Whales, in which we are learning all kinds of things about these mammoth sea creatures, from their relationship with us humans to how they evolved and why. This will inform our English writing as we continue our Immerse and Analyse phases of writing a setting using our picture book, The Whale.
In our English lessons, we have already begun our Year 4 quest for the perfect fronted adverbial! Throughout this year, we will be developing our sentence structure skills, arranging phrases in different orders to create an effect. Moving an adverb to the beginning of a sentence to create a fronted adverbial is a key Year 4 skill. Today, we began writing our setting for our quest- setting the scene with some stormy seas, menacing clouds and a beacon of hope in a lighthouse.
In Maths, we have been reminding ourselves of 4-digit numbers and how to partition them. We have also been considering that if we can't have 2 digits in one column then what would 37 hundreds look like on a place value grid. We have begun practising our times tables for rapid recall, writing them out in different ways: 2, 4, 6, 8… or 2x1=2, 2x2=4, etc. We will continue this next week with the beginning of our 144 club.
The afternoon sessions this week have included Science with Mr Cotton where the children began looking at Living Things and Their Habitats. Computing looked at how a computer network works, relying on a server as its central communication point. In Music, we began finding out about our 3 key instruments this year: the violin, the viola and the cello. These are all members of the Strings family of an orchestra. In PE the key skill was catching a bouncing ball.
This morning, several children presented their speeches to the class, expressing their reasons to be voted onto the School Council. Congratulations to Hazel and Ephram who are now representing the class.
As the week drew to a close, we reflected on key lessons of the week and the skills we used to make them a success. Some lessons we have rehearsed, some we have worked in teams, some we have been using researching skills and all have taken perseverence and dedication.
We are all beginning to settle in to life Year 4-style and are ready for a well-earned weekend rest. I hope you have a peaceful weekend. See you all for more learning next week.
Mrs Tice.
