Maths homework - our Multiplication Test will happen next week - keep practising on Doodle Maths or just writing them down.

We completed our book review of the Wolf's footprint and some of us did not enjoy the reflective ending and left us wanting to rewrite the ending ourselves.

Maths has been fabulous fractions - we are adding, subtracting, changing from improper to mixed numbers and finding amounts of a whole.  The children have worked so hard on this challenging topics.

In Art. we focused our attention on gradients and changing the pressure of a pencil to create dark and light tones in a circle.

In Summer 2, we will be completing the multiplication test within the first two weeks.  Therefore, please keep practising on Doodle Maths, Hit the button or just focusing on the multiplications you are not sure about (6,7,8,9s) are the trickest.

We have been looking at our school values, "With God nothing is impossible" and we explored how this could help us reduce poverty, our Sustainable Development Goal for this half term.  

During Science week, the children used their creativity and problem-solving skills to create a circuit that lit up our light bulb.  We investigated how drag slowed down our paper aeroplanes and today we wrote some beautiful poems based on physics, chemistry or biology.

Have a great half term!

Spellings this week - circle, centaur, princess, medicine, celery, century, circus, voice, celebrate, pencil

DT - We cooked our delicious kibbeh, a Syrian recipe, to help our hero Ahmet feel at home.

Art - We learnt how to make a coil pot from clay, which required a lot of patience and practice.

English - We are about to publish the wolf's perspective of encounter with Elka and Daw in the forest.

Maths - we have been busy learning how to convert between improper fractions to mixed numbers and have started to look at equivalent fractions.

The children had an unforgettable time during their adventurous residential trip, filled with exciting activities that challenged and delighted them. They braved the high ropes course, conquering their fears and building confidence as they navigated through towering obstacles. Sailing sessions on the shimmering reservoir allowed them to learn new skills and enjoy the thrill of gliding across the water. Rock climbing tested their strength and determination, while archery sharpened their focus and precision. Engaging in bushcraft activities, they learnt vital survival skills and connected with nature. Throughout the trip, problem-solving challenges fostered teamwork and creativity, making the experience both fun and educational. Overall, it was a fantastic adventure that created lasting memories and boosted the children’s self-esteem and camaraderie.

Homework and Doodle Maths

As you may have read, the school is trialling Doodle Maths as an aid for children to recap and gain more confidence with key mathematical concepts.

As children in Year 4 are expected to complete the National Multiplication Test in June, we need to maintain the momentum of TT Rockstars (TT Rockstars Sound Checks are replicas of the test in June)

Therefore, for the Easter break and into the next term, please could Year 4 children complete 15 minutes of TT Rockstars and 30 minutes of Doodle Maths per week.

Grafham Residential - Quick reminder of items that you might not have considered for the trip:

• Pack lunch for Wednesday 31st
• Water bottle
• Toiletries - toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo etc (no aerosols)
• Hair ties
• Towels for showers
• Indoor shoes - sliders or trainers
• Shoes to get wet in - wet shoes or old trainers
• Swim suit - to wear under a wetsuit but they will not be swimming as such
• Suncream  
• Sun hat
• Coat
• Warm clothing
• Reading book or activities for quiet time

Do not bring:

• Bedding needed - this will be supplied
• Snacks
• Electronics
• Earrings / Jewellery
• Anything precious

TT Rockstars - 45 minutes per week.

We have painted Boudica, the fierce Icenian warrior queen, whom we learnt about in History.

In Maths, we are learning long multiplication - ask the children to show you!

We had the Grafham meeting this week.  The trip is aimed at growing confidence and working with other people. Having listened to some concerns, it might be useful for the children to experience a sleepover before the residential.  

Please speak or email us if you have any further questions about the residential.

Spellings: admission, concussion, confession, discussion, expression, impression, obsession, omission, permission, procession

TT Rockstars - 15 minutes x 3 times a week

We have an exciting part of the story, where Ahmet has become Mr Irons' enemy and we are about to write a newspaper article about it next week.

In Maths, we are recapped on x10, x100 dividing by 10 and dividing by 100.

Using Scratch, we programmed our initials to move and change costumes.

In Music, we used our knowledge of the type of instruments to decide which instruments were used in major film themes.

Friday 21st March - Down's Syndrome Day - Bake Sale and Odd Sock Day.  Please support Down's Syndrome Day by donating, baking or buying a cake at the Bake Sale so that we can raise funds for the Down Syndrome Association. Also, remind your child that they could also celebrate by wearing odd socks.

Thursday 27th March - Grafham Residential Meeting after school.  Children attending the residential are also welcome to the meeting.

Wednesday 30th April - Friday 2nd May - Grafham Residential trip

Spellings - injection, invention, migration, stagnation, action, hesitation, completion, nomination, selection, communication, where

We have been pushing on with learning our multiplication sheets - please ask us any of the timetables to help us practise.

We  met some new characters in our CLPE English book and met the mysterious new boy.  

In Maths, we have learnt how to find factor pairs and how to use this information to calculate more difficult multiplications. 24 x 3 = 12 x 2 x 3 = 12 x 6

Spellings: automatic, August, launch, haul, astronaut, cause, author, applaud, autumn, audience, their

TT Rockstars 15 mins 3 times weekly

Reading - please record on Reading Records

We have started our new CLPE English book - 'The Boy at the back of the Classroom' and the children have already drawn some brilliant images for each of the characters. 

In Maths, we are learning short division, bus stop method.  Please ask your child how to find the quotient of 972 divided by 3.

We created our own images to describe the timeline of the 'big story' of Christianity - see the image above.

Spellings: automatic, cause, August, author, launch, applaud, haul, autumn, astronaut, audience, their

Reading - Reading 15 minutes per day.

TT Rockstars - daily practice

Maths - children have been given Maths revision sheets - they do not have to bring these back but they will get a house point if these are brought back after half-term.

3-minute chats  - After half term, the children will be presenting their 3-minute talks.  These talks can be about anything the children want, their hobbies, clubs or trips.  They can bring in items or create a Powepoint slide or simply chat.

The dates of these will be sent in an email.

Future dates:

ISP meetings - Tuesday / Wednesday 25th/26th Feb

Parent meetings - Tuesday / Wednesday 4th/5th March

Grafham Meeting after school - Thursday 27th March

Grafham trip Wed 30th Arpil to Friday 2nd May

Reading: please remind your child to write in their Reading Records after they have read a book or magazine.

During Art, we completed our weaves of water using recycled materials. We took inspiration from Hokusai's great wave to represent water using different colours.

Our river walk was postponed until next Friday 7th February due to weather and water levels of the river.  

We discussed why the Romans invaded Britain and how they used the resources they found.

 Mood Meter: some parents have been asking about the mood meter we look at in school.  We use it in class to talk about our emotions; it also improves the children's vocabulary.

TT Rockstars: 3 lots of 15 minutes

Reading: to be recorded in Reading Diary which will be checked on Mondays

English - we have been preserving with our creative English writing about how Oliver will rescue his parents.

Maths - we are learning about perimeter and how to count the sides of a shape to find the perimeter.  

Science - today we had fun learning about the water cycle - look out for the song on Go Noodle.

Please get plenty of rest in readiness for our quizzes next week - we want to prove to ourselves how much more we have learnt already!

Have a good weekend.

We hope you like our little rhyme to remember how to round up in Maths 

We have been busy this week and dived straight back into starting a brand new English text book and we already we are meeting some very strange characters.

In Maths, we are starting to recap our time.  We now know how to tell the time to 5 minutes and next week we will be looking at 12 and 24 hour clock.

We have edited photos and found how ease it was to manipulate images using Powerpoint.

Spellings: outrageous, courageous, ridiculous, disadvantageous, nervous, carnivorous, famous, rapturous, adventurous, torturous. 

Reading:  Book records signed on Monday

TT Rockstars: 15 minutes x 3 times per week

TT Rockstars – 15 mins practice 3 times a week.

The children have been given their Maths assessments that they completed in September.  We have gone through some of the questions in class and they are excited to share their knowledge with you and how much they have learnt since September.

Thank you all for your support during this half term.  

Merry Christmas

Spellings: favourite, continue, February, material, knowledge, complete, experiment, naughty, famous, remember.   

Please remind your child to write a sentence using their spelling words on the back of the spelling sheet.

TT Rockstars - 3 lots of 15 minutes slots per week to ensure fluency for the June test.

Art - This week, we visited St Mary's church to sketch our images in readiness for our Christmas cards.  

Maths - We are delving deeper into multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000s.

Geography - We have learnt that lines of latitude are varying degrees away from the Equator.  Lines on longitude are varying degrees away from the Prime Meridian. 

Spellings: chef, chalet, machine, brochure, parachute, chaperone, chute, quiche, chandelier, crochet.

Please remind your child to practise their TT Rockstars (45 mins) and complete their spelling sheet.  

Today, we celebrated the Festival of Lights.  The Year 4 festival was Loh Krathong festival in Thailand.  We have folded an origami lotus and made a lantern out of card. 

In our class reader, we have read up to a cliff hanger and our main protagonist has stolen the King's elephant!

In Maths, we are trying to multiply 3 digit by 1 digit numbers!

TT Rockstars - 45 minutes a week.

We are so excited to perform for you all next week.  Thank you for your support in arranging the fabulous costumes.  Please could you help your child to practise their lines this weekend.

Toby in Y4 is arranging a toy donation for Buckden Towers for families who are struggling during Christmas time.  If you are having a sort out and have any clean, useable toys that you no longer need that you would like to donate, please could you bring them into school by 6th December.  Many thanks for your support!

TT Rockstars - 15 minutes three times a week.

Science - we have started our investigation into how different liquids affect our teeth.  We are using eggs in our experiment as they are made of a similar material to our teeth.

RE - we visited  St Mary's Church where Father David explained the incarnation to us and showed us various items around the church that explained the incarnation.

English - we are enjoying our book, but the main protagonist's friend has just been taken to jail, and we are keen to find out what happens to him next.

Maths - we had fun solving some multiplication problem-solving questions today.

TT Rockstars - 6 times table focus and Soundchecks.

Reading - you are charging through your AR quizzes. Keep going.

English - we started a brilliant new Class reader 'The girl who stole an elephant'.  Please tell you adults at home what we know about the protagonist so far!

Maths - we now know how to work out the area of a shape by counting the squares.

Science - we are investigating different types of teeth, incisors, canines and molar.  Please tell your adults at home why we have different types of teeth.

Firstly, thank you to all of you for supporting us on our museum trip today, the children thoroughly enjoyed looking at the artefacts in the MAA and holding the skeletons in the Zoology museum. 

Over the half term, practise on Soundcheck on TT Rockstars will help children practise their speed and fluency.  The children have also been given a multiplication sheet (6 times table), a heat map that shows their progress on TT Rockstars and a spelling sheet. To ensure that they maintain their momentum in their learning please could all the completed sheets be brought back to school after half-term.  

Spellings: information, sensation, preparation, vibration, decoration, donation, duration, registration, population, determination, our.

Hope you all have a pleasant half-term.

We have researched how to make reverse motion linkage in DT, investigated our local habitat and created a tally chart to list the living things we found and practised our songs for our performance.

We have a busy week next week:

Wednesday - Inter-house Rugby in the afternoon

Thursday - our museum trip (school uniform with packed lunch + snacks x2 + water bottle).  Drop off and pick up times will be the same as a normal school day.

Friday -  Non-school uniform just for Year 4, please bring in a donation for the Christmas Hamper.  Koinonia will be happening in the afternoon.

Have a great weekend.

We enjoyed learning co-ordinates outdoors by playing tick tac toe and connection four.  This helped us to learn co-ordinates in Geography.

In Maths, we are practising additions up to 4 digit numbers.

We explored our emotions in PSHE when we talked about what makes us angry and what makes us calm.

Have a nice weekend!

We have been rounding in class, a useful skill when we want to make the numbers easier to remember.  We practised round to 10 by underlining the digit in the 10's column and then looking at its neighbour to find out if we let the 'leaf' fly up or stay the same.

In English, we have written conversations, with inverted commas, between Wangari and the ladies who come to her with their dilemmas.

We also enjoyed: our drama sketches of the conversation between Mama Miti and the ladies; learning the irregular and regular plurals - mice and sheep; in PE  for tag rugby where we played the 'foxes and chicken' game and in Geography where we coloured the rainforests and adding in the names of the oceans.

TT Rockstars: 15 minutes, three times a week.

This week, we have been exploring more of the number line and our column addition calculations.  We know that the answer of an addition is a sum.

In English, we have practised how to use inverted commas and where to insert the relevant punctuation.

In Science, we have been grouping items together and finding out how to ask factual Yes / No questions in readiness for classification next week.

We practised side passes in Rugby and chest passes in Netball.

Have a super weekend!

Spelling test will occur on Mondays and spelling homework should also be handed in on Mondays.

TT Rockstar homework- practise for 15 minutes, three times a week.  (Sound Check is similar to the Y4 test occurring in June).

We have started our CLPE English book and starting to discover more details about our main character.

In Maths, we have become familiar with ten thousands.

We learnt that all living things have the following processes and these are summarised to MRS GREN.  Explain to your family what MRS GREN means.  

Have a good weekend