Take a look below at this weeks blog to see all the fantastic learning that has taken place this week.

On Monday, we didn't have a Grammar lesson as this was our opportunity to edit and revise our independent writes. I was beyond impressed with the standard of writing from Y4 Manatees and their enjoyment of this type of Writing was clear to see. A huge well done Manatees! On Tuesday, we were introduced to our next independent write which will be a narrative. On Tuesday's lesson we worked in groups to re-familiarise ourselves with the text so far to help develop a better understanding of the events. We considered 'When? Who? What? Why? How? and Where?' when looking at each part of the story. On Wednesday, we looked at the first paragraph in which we shall be retelling when Tiro and Naledi first arrive in Jo-burg. The focus of this lesson was vocabulary and it was great to see Y4 using some high-level vocabulary in their writing such as 'metropolitan' and 'prosperous, young city'. On Thursday, we had a Grammar lesson based on correctly punctuating direct speech. This was a very quick lesson, however it helped us to recap the correct way of punctuating speech in writing. 

Arithmetic

In Arithmetic this week, we have consolidated our understanding of adding and subtracting fractions to build up our fluency from last week. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we focused on subtracting fractions and then for the rest of the week we shall focus on adding fractions. We have really built our fluency in this area which is fantastic as it is a particularly tricky part of fractions, so well done Manatees!

Maths

In Maths this week, we have continued with our Y4 topic of statistics. On Tuesday, we looked again at bar charts and pictograms to see what data we could extract from them. For the rest of the week we shall be focusing on line graphs. On Wednesday, we were introduced to line graphs and learnt how to read them. Line graphs can be quite tricky as they are a brand new type of graph introduced in Y4. On Thursday, we then learnt how to interpret line graphs using our previously learnt knowledge of calculating 'sum' and 'difference'. On Friday, we then plotted data on line graphs with scales of varying difficulty. 

Science

In Science this week, we continued with our topic entitled 'States of Matter'. This week we delved deeper into gases by exploring some key misconceptions people have. We investigated the questions: 'Do gases have a weight?' 'Are all gases invisible?' and 'How are gases used in our everyday lives?'. I was beyond impressed with the quality of work from this lesson and we were all able to answer these questions confidently. We found that gases do have a weight through watching a video of someone weighing an unopened cola can and then re-weighing it once he had opened it. We learnt that the can was lighter after it was opened as some carbon dioxide gas had escaped from the can. We also found that not all gases are invisible and that they have many everyday uses in real life. For example, scuba divers use tanks of oxygen to help them to breathe under water and gas can also be used in cooking!

History

In History this week we continued with our topic entitled 'The Roman Empire'. This week we learnt all about the Jewish-Roman War. We learnt that the Jewish people and Romans engaged in conflict because of different beliefs they had surrounding religion. We learnt how the emperor Titus sent his legions to Judea to try and control the rebellion. However, this effort to control led to some cruel ways of enforcing authority. We learnt that the Romans burnt down a Jewish temple and took sacred objects as trophies of war and that any Jewish people that were captured were enslaved or sent to work all over the Roman Empire. Y4 Manatees approached this lesson with maturity and we had some super discussions surrounding some key issues that were raised. 

Geography

In Geography this week we continued with our topic entitled 'Rhine and Mediterranean'. This week we delved deeper into the Mediterranean Sea. We learnt all about the Strait of Gibraltar that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. We also learnt about the location of the Mediterranean Sea and how it is next to three continents (Asia, Europe and Africa) and how peninsulas such as Italy and Spain are almost completely surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea.

On Friday afternoon, we even had a super fun lesson with Mrs Burns learning all about some Easter Eggs we can use in Google to do some cool tricks to our screens! Y4 Manatees were truly amazed by these screen tricks! We even learnt how to play Pacman on Google!

Thank you for taking the time to read this week's blog, enjoy your weekend and we shall see you all next week!