Summer Term 2018

W.C. 18th June

In Maths this week, we took our post test for Statistics (which everyone did incredibly well at!) and we began our new and final topic of Shape by completing our pre-tests! I'm impressed by what the children already know! We also completed some World Cup maths challenges using all the skills we have learnt over the year including: drawing bar charts, solving worded problems and multi step problems using a range of calculations!

In English, we drafted, edited and wrote up our big writes! Some of the children wrote some very persuasive adverts which included exaggeration (through the use of superlatives), rhetorical questions, paired adjectives and adverbials too! It's great to see them using the skills we've learnt.

As it has been World Cup week, we have been busy focusing on the four countries we picked in our school sweepstake! We have completed fact files for the countries, created world cup trophies using clay, located the different countries that take part in the World Cup using atlases, collaged flags and even did a quiz on the flags!

This week we finally got to go to the Lincolnshire Show and present our project to the judges! We had so much fun! We displayed our project for everyone to see and to showcase all of the ideas we have had on how to create a healthy snack for our school. For the project, we showed how we could design a product for a specific group, measure accurately and combine them precisely. We also got to compare our products with those of other schools! We were split over two days but got to enjoy lots of fun activities! We all went rockclimbing, caving and even practiced some first aid! It was really exciting to see all of the different stalls and events that were happening. The group that went on Wednesday got to have a picture with a footballer from Lincoln City and on Thursday, there was a chance to have a photo with a BMXer who will be in the 2020 Olympic Games!

Next week is move up week for the children where they will be spending time with their new teacher. They will get to learn all about what is expected of them in Year Five and have lots of fun activities with Mr Barratt!

W.C. 11th June

In English this week, we have continued to explore persuasive writing. We explored the features of different persuasive adverts and were able to explain what they each were and identify them. We read a little further on into our novel and discovered that James has been given some 'Little Green Things' by an old man who said they will make his life less miserable. I wonder how! We also explored how we could advertise a peach by discussing its taste, smell, feel and what it looked like. On Thursday, we looked at superlatives and how they could be used in our writing to exaggerate what we are trying to sell! Then on Friday, we got ready for our next big write by planning how we could advertise the Little Green Things! This included looking at slogans and catching names!

In Maths, we have continued to look at statistics. This week we have explored how we can find differences, sums of totals and comparing data using a range of representations. We could easily calculate the differences but must make sure we are reading the question carefully so that we are answering the correct question! We also explored line graphs and compared them to bar charts. We found that these can show us continuous data meaning we can use decimals numbers too! We even drew our own ones. Plotting of the points was a bit tricky but we all got there!

In R.E, we looked at what we could find inside a mosque. We saw that mosques don't have lots of pictures or statues, instead they are full of prayer mats which all face the direction of Mecca (the holy city). We discovered that Muslims must clean themselves before prayer as well as how they are called to prayer by a sort of singing from the minaret. Did you know that Muslims have to pray 5 times a day?

For the last week of preparation before our Lincolnshire Show, we have been busy practicing our scripts for our presentation. We made sure to all take turns so that we can have a chance to explain what we have been doing. We also made posters to advertise our delicious treats to the audience. We can't wait for Wednesday and Thursday to showcase all our hard work!

In ICT, we have been busy becoming weather forecasters! We first looked at how weather reporters use green screens to show their reports and looked at the symbols. In pairs, we used PowerPoint to experiment with slide transitions and animations to make our own forecasts. We will be practicing our scripts along with our timings!

Reminder:

Next week is our Lincolnshire Show trip. Your child will either be going on Wednesday or Thursday (if you're unsure of which day, ask me!). They will need to be at school before 8 as we will be leaving then. We are planning to return for 5. Children need a packed lunch and at least 2 drinks.

W.C. 4th June

I cannot believe that we are in the last term alread, this year has just zoomed by!

For our last term in English, we are reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. We will be exploring this story alongside persuasive writing. To start with, we created character profiles about the two aunts. We found out that they were very different in appearance but very similiar in their horrible personalities! Next, we began to explore what persuasion is. We understood that it is trying to get someone to think the same as us and convince us to do something. The children wrote some very persuasive pieces about who I should give 40 dojos too! After that, we explored modal verbs, rhetorical questions and adjectives and found how they are important in persuasive adverts.

In Maths, we have started our topic of statistics. We have begun by exploring pictograms and bar charts. Firstly, we interpreted them and were able to read the data that was shown on them in a range of contexts. We then worked hard at representing data ourselves on bar charts. We looked at how the scales used needed to be appropriate as well as remembering to accurately position the data and label the axis!

In Science, we explored the digestive system of humans! We looked at how food goes into our bodies and also how it comes out! We understood some very tricky names of the organs that are used in our bodies to digest the food that we eat and begun to understand why each part is important to the process. We even drew the organs ready for our display!

In History, we drew our own hieroglyphics! We created cartouches that represented our names by carefully drawing the symbols that corresponded to the letters. We even created codes for our partners using the hieroglyphics. The children created some very tricky ones for me to decode too!

W.C. 14th May 

In English this week we have been extremely busy getting to grips with more balanced argument. First, we continued our work on causal conjunctions and were able to identify them and use them correctly within our own work. Then, we started to understand more about what the words 'for' and 'against' means. We know that for is the yes side of the argument and against is the no side. We were then able to read different discussion texts, find the arguments and sort them appropriately. Next, we explored the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. We did a comprehension all about the discovery and learnt some new and interesting words (such as excavate!). This all led up to our debate on whether Howard Carter should have entered the tomb or not. The children came up with some really interesting ideas about each side of the argument. Finally, the children planned their balanced arguments ready for their big writes next week!

In Maths, we have continued to learn lots about time This week we have practicised converting to 24 hour clocks! This was a bit different for us as we weren't allowed to use AM or PM because the time already told us if it was the morning or afternoon! Then, we began to recap how to convert between different measurements (weight, length, capacity). To end the week, we did some work on converting from grams to kilograms and back!

In Science, we looked at food chains. We know that the arrows show us the direction the energy from the living things is being passed. We had to understand some key terminology such as producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer and tertiary consumer in order for our food chains to make sense. We also had to understand the meanings of carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. To finish, we had to create our own food chain thinking carefully about the role each living thing played. 

In History, we took our understanding of mummification and put them into instructions ready for an Egyptian Priest to do the task! We thought carefully about how we could use the skills we've learnt in English to make the instructions as clear as possible by using adverbials, embedded clauses, subordinating conjuctions and figurative language. Great work!

For our Lincolnshire show project, we have been busy doing some more taste testing this week! This time, we chose cereals to taste as we will be creating our own cereal bars! We then designed our own meal which we though would be appropriate for a child at our school. We made sure it included each of the 5 food categories in order for it be balanced but also tasty too!

In PSHE, we explored different relationships that we have. We learnt that we all have connections to one another whether we are friends, best friends or just acquaintances. We also discussed the relationships we have with our families.

W.C. 7th May

Where is this term going?! We've only got 2 more weeks until our next break, but the children are showing no signs of slowing down!

In English this week, we first looked at how Simon Cheshire's chapter 3 was similar or different to the ones we wrote by looking at a comprehension before we moved onto our next unit of work. On Wednesday, we begun to explore balanced arguments. We found that for a balanced argument to be fair, both opinions must be shown equally. In order for the children to really get to grips with what this was, we had our own mini debate where we looked at both sides. The question we explored was 'should homework be banned?' Lots of the children were very good at explaining reasons for and against homework. We finally worked out that homework is helpful in reminding us of what we have learnt but also that we need time for other things too! We continued the week by exploring the key features of a balanced argument and then begun to look at causal conjunctions. I wonder if the children will be able to remember these for our work on Monday!

In Maths, we are continuing our topic of measurement by looking at time! Firstly, we looked at how we can convert between seconds, minutes and hours by using our division and multiplication skills. Next, we used these skills to convert between days, weeks and years! It was a bit tricky trying to remember what we times and divide by but we worked super hard to get there! On Thursday and Friday, we finished the week by recapping our reading of time and then started to convert it onto 12 hour digital clocks! We had to remember that all times on a digital clock should have 4 digits and that these answers need an AM or PM depending on the time of day it was!

In Science this week, we explored classification keys. We know that these are scientific ways to separate different living things (including plants). Some of the questions we had to think of had to be quite specific so that we could correctly place the living things in their correct categories. 

In Topic, we explored the gruesome topic of mummification! We learnt about the steps that the mummifiers would have to take in order to make sure a person (or animal) was properly mummified. They had to mash up a person's brain so that it was liquid enough to come out of their nose - ewww! Ask your children about the other steps - we are going to be writing our own instructions on them next week!

We have also done some food tasting this week. We were very lucky to have been given some chicken samples from Moy Park to help us with our Lincolnshire Show entry. We got to taste 3 different kinds of chicken and evaluate them on their taste and smell. I was really proud of the children for trying something new, especially those who weren't keen on trying the chicken at all! We will be doing some more tasting next week before we decide on the food we will be sharing with children at our school.

W.C. 30th April

This week has been so fun! 

In English, we have been busy writing our story for the next chapter of Jeremy and Patsy's adventure! They were in the museum exploring and they suddenly found Psidesalad II's sarcophagus! The children have shown that they  have great imaginations with their descriptions and have worked so hard to understand the key skills (including subordinating conjunctions) which they have also managed to fit in their work. I was really exciting to read them and all of them left me wanting to read the next part!

In Maths, we have been busy looking at money. We know what money is and how to use it. We were very clever and were able to use our knowledge of decimals to help us write money down accurately. We know that the pence side must always have a digit in the tenths and hundredths column even if it's just a zero! We were able to look at money and work out how much we had both in pounds and pence by coverting using our division and multiplication skills. We also spent a little while comparing amounts of money too. Fantastic work by everyone!

In Science, we have continued to look at how we can group living things. This week we looked at venn diagrams and how we can use them to show which groups animals fit into. We have understood that animals can have many different characteristics but for them to fit into the venn diagram they must be in the right places!

In History, we have explored the Egyptian Gods! We found out that there were over 2,000 Egyptian Gods that the people believed in. We discussed which ones were our favourites and why and then produced a fact sheet based on the one we found the most interesting. The children drew some beautifully detailed pictures of their gods!

In Art, we have begun to construct our own Egyptian mummy sacophagi! Thanks for all of your donations of empty 2 litre bottles - we have been able to use these to start papiermache on them! Some of them are already beginning to look like a real sarcophagus! On Friday, we started to design the outside of our sarcophagi. We made sure to choose appropriate colours and designs to make them as realistic as possible!

W.C. 23rd April

This week we have worked super hard and have made some great progress!

In English, we have continued to explore our Egyptian themed book Jeremy Brown and the Mummy's Curse. We began by writing up a description of an Egyptian museum by thinking carefully about the 5 senses. To make it more challenging, the children were given a criteria of features that they had to include in each sentence - most of them could include all of these! After this, we explored how we can improve character descriptions. The children had the task of improving a very badly written description of Patsy by adding adverbs, adjectives and a range of sentence openers. On Wednesday, we did a little more practice with our sentence structures. We explored how we can make complex sentences and change them by altering where we put our subordinating conjunctions. We are really great at identifying these conjunctions and also rearranging sentences so they continue to make sense! For the last part of this week, we started to plan our own mystery story which follows Jeremy and Patsy as they venture into the museum! From the looks of the plans, these are going to be great!

In Maths, we have completed perimeter and area! To start the week, we spent a little more time calculating the perimeter of rectilinear shapes. It was really important that with these more intricate shapes that we still followed the rules of parallel lines in rectangular shape being equal lengths. This helped us to calculate the missing value and then we could find the total perimeter. Next, we explored what area was. For this, we had a few challenges to solve! First, we had to explain why area is calculated in squares and not circles (see if you can work out why!). Next, we were given a stack of post-it notes and were tasked with finding the area of our desks. It took 128 post it notes to cover them! On Thursday, we used our knowledge to find the area of different shapes by counting squares - some of these were half squares which made it a little trickier but we still managed! We ended the week by comparing area. Most of us can confidently explain which area is bigger and how we know, even drawing on our previous place value work to explain this fully!

In Science, we have begun our new topic of classification. To start this, we explored the 5 main animal kingdoms of mammals, fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles. We were able to explain, using each groups characteristics, what kingdoms different animals fit into. For example, we know that a cat is a mammal because it has fur, feeds its young with its own milk, gives birth to live young and is warm blooded. Can you work out what a dolphin is?

This week, we also finished our questionnaires and sent them around the school to get our results of what children like to eat to help us with our Lincolnshire Show Project. Don't forget to bring back your permission slips for this trip!

On Friday, we were also lucky enough to enjoy a film afternoon because of all of our hard work raising awareness for the homeless at Sleaford Larder. Thank you so much to all of you that helped Year Four win with a total of 146 pieces to donate to the Larder; this will benefit lots of people in Sleaford who are less fortunate.

If possible, please can you bring in a 2 litre bottle and some newspapers so we can begin to create our own Egyptian sarcophagi on Tuesday 1st May. Thanks!

W.C. 16th April

Welcome back! I hope you all had a very enjoyable and restful Easter. This week, Year Four have come back with more determination to impress than ever!

In English, we have started to read a new book called 'Jeremy Brown and the Mummy's Curse' by Simon Cheshire. It is all about a mysterious disappearance which has happened in Egypt and a missing mummy is thought to be responsible! To begin with, we read the first chapter and the completed comprehension questions on them - I was so pleased to see the children using all the skills that we work so hard on in Guided Reading in their work. Next, we wrote a character description of Jeremy Brown. We were able to make sure we were using all the language features that we knew to keep it interesting. Because we are writing stories this term, we did a little more practice on how to punctuate speech correctly and the children did extremely well. We also made some predictions on what we thought might happen next. On Friday, we used some Ancient Egyptain replicas to help us to plan a setting description; we got to look at Egyptian amulets, sarcophaguses and hieroglyphics!

In Maths, we have begun our next topic of measurement. We started by completing a pre-test to see what we already knew and next we went on to looking at how we measure length using millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres. We now know that milli and kilo mean 1000 and that cent means 100. We will continue working on this when we look at measuring weight using both litres and grams. We took a break from this and began to look at perimeter. We understood that perimeter is the lengths of a 2D shape added together (we imagined it like a fence around a field). First, we looked at how to calculate this using squares and then moved onto what would happen if we only had a few measurements! We knew that a square had 4 equal sides so we could multiply the one measurement by 4!

In History, we have started to explore Ancient Egypt. To start our topic, we looked at chronology of events. We understood that Ancient Egypt began around 5,000 years ago and lasted for around 3,500 years! We then looked at some important events and were able to place them in the correct order (even though the dates were in BC!) The children discussed what they would like to learn more about and what they already knew too.

In Topic, we have continued to work out our Lincolnshire Show Project in which we are creating a Healthy Meal or Snack for the children at our school. This week, we thought about ways that we might find out what children like to eat - we found out the best way to do this was through creating a questionnaire. In pairs, the children created 10 questions that they thought would get important information from the other pupils in the school and made their own questionnaires using Microsoft Word. We will be getting ready to share these with the school in the coming weeks!

Our PE day has changed to Thursday and Swimming will continue until the end of this term. Please make sure children have the appropriate clothes for both.