The children have settled really well into Year 4 and we have been so pleased with the enthusiasm they’ve demonstrated towards their learning. We’re really proud of the children and we are looking forward to seeing this continue and flourish over the year!
In History this half term, we have been focussing on the Romans. The children have enjoyed taking a look at some different Roman artefacts to decipher what they may have been used for. The children were intrigued by the different things the Romans brought to Britain. They were surprised to discover some of the things we take for granted like roads and flushing toilets, were invented by the Romans!
In Maths, we have recapped on the children’s previous knowledge of Place Value from Year 3 and then continued to learning Year 4 Place Value using a range of equipment such as Base 10, counters and place value charts to support understanding. More recently, we have started our topic on Addition and Subtraction and it is great to see how confident the children are with using the column method already. We’re looking forward to seeing this confidence grow as our topic continues.
During our Writing sessions, we have focussed on Fantasy stories followed shortly by Newspaper Reports. The children have demonstrated knowledge of past tense, fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases. We have been particular impressed with the ideas the children generated for the Roman Gladiator fight Newspaper Report. The children have loved combining our History and English topic together.
In Science, our topic has been States of Matter, the children have been very enthusiastic about the experiments and particularly enjoyed melting chocolate (even if it did make some of them hungry). They have enjoyed demonstrating their understanding of how solids, liquids and gasses move and how they can change state when heated or cooled.
For Spanish, we have been focussing on learning our numbers to 31 and the days of the week. The children have enjoyed learning the days of the week song in Spanish and have shared this as a year group in our singing assemblies. More recently, we have looked at the story of Cenicienta (Cinderella) and the children did a great job of translating brand new vocabulary into English.
This half term in Whole Class Reading we have been reading ‘Romans on the Rampage by Jeremy Strong. The children have thoroughly enjoyed Jeremy Strong’s humour throughout the book so far! Their favourite activity has been designing their own invention like the inventor in the story (Maddasbananus). When answering the questions based on the book, the children have started to use the VIPERS (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise) skills to support them.
The children have really enjoyed being able to do PE lessons inside this half term. They have enjoyed using the apparatus to create gymnastic routines, combining the skills of rotation, balance and supported balance. It has been great to see this teamwork in the classes! They have also enjoyed challenging themselves in the Real PE work outside, they have found the circuits both enjoyable and tiring.