The final week of our first Spring term has arrived! This has been an extra special week as we have had our Y4 Science trip to ThinkTank in Birmingham. We had such a lovely day, exploring the museum and developing a curiosity about Science. Take a look at some of the photos we took on Class Dojo!
Writing
In Writing this week we continued to prepare for our independent write which will be an alternative retell. On Monday, we focused on using conjunctions in our writing to add detail and stretch sentences. Conjunctions is something we do a lot of work on in Y4, especially when it comes to using a wider range in writing. It was great to see Y4 now effectively using conjunctions such as 'although', 'since' and 'until'. On Wednesday, we planned for our independent write. This was a really great lesson as we considered lots of high-level vocabulary we could use in each paragraph and then how to use these in Y4 standard sentences. As we had completed our planning lesson, this meant that on Thursday and Friday we were now ready to complete and then edit and revise our independent writes. I can't wait to read these as I know how hard Y4 have worked to produce lovely writing. Well done Y4!
Arithmetic
In Arithmetic this week, we have focused upon multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100. On Monday and Tuesday, we focused on multiplying by 10 and 100, before later on the week focusing on dividing by 10 and 100. These are really useful skills that will help us massively with our decimals learning in Maths.
Maths
In Maths this week, we have finally begun our greatly anticipated Y4 topic of 'Decimals'. On Tuesday, we first recapped tenths as fractions, before then moving onto tenths as decimals on Thursday. It is really important that we learn about decimals in small steps to help us develop a really secure understanding of them. As we have a really good understanding of place value in Y4, so far the work surrounding decimals has been fantastic and I can't wait to delve deeper into decimals after half term.
Science
This week's Science learning was slightly different to normal. We didn't have an in class Science lesson, but instead we visited the ThinkTank Museum in which we explored lots of different Science topics. We also spotted a machine that linked to our States of Matter learning. This machine, melted plastic to form a liquid and then this liquid was then cooled again to create a plastic duck! This was truly fascinating to see. We spotted a lot of cool things at ThinkTank, take a look at Class Dojo to see some of the cool things we saw!
History
In History this week we completed an assessment type task to showcase our knowledge about 'The Roman Empire'. The main question we considered was: 'What can sources reveal about Roman ways of life?'. We then considered the following 4 questions that come under the main umbrella question: 'What do stone carvings tell us about the Roman Army?', 'What clues about Roman beliefs and stories can you find on this statue of Augustus?', 'Why was the excavation of Pompei so important for archaeologists and historians?' and finally 'What evidence for how Romans lived can we find in Pliny's letter?'. I was so impressed with what Y4 Manatees had remembered about 'The Roman Empire' and how well they were able to articulate this in their written responses to the questions. Well done Manatees!
Geography
In Geography this week we had our final lesson in the topic entitled 'The Rhine and the Mediterranean'. This week we learnt all about the Suez Canal. We learnt that the Suez Canal is a very famous waterway made by humans. Before the Suez Canal was built, ships who wanted to sail from Singapore in Asia to Europe had to go the long way round, however the Suez Canal was built to create a route which was much quicker, simpler and safer than this. We even learnt all about a famous bridge called the 'Friendship Bridge' that connects the continents of Africa and Asia.
We hope that everyone has a safe and relaxing half term and we shall see you all soon!
Miss Selman and Miss Marsh