On Monday, we started to look at the relationships between characters in Charlotte’s Web. This involved searching for evidence in the book which helps us to build a picture of how Charlotte, Wilber and Fern feel about each other. We gathered evidence in groups and recorded quotes from the book. Today, we explored features of poetry. We looked at several poems and found examples of poetic features, such as alliteration, personification, similes and repetition. The children will move on to planning and writing their own poems based on friendships.

In Maths we had another lesson carrying out a mental arithmetic exercise. The children had 25 minutes to answer questions and we then worked through the answers altogether, paying close attention to how we arrived at our answers and the different methods used.

I have found another fun game that I think will help improve times tables skills – click here to play!

Today, some children spent time revising written subtraction methods and also applying their skills to problems solving exercises. Some children completed an activity where they had to record costs of items from a garden centre and total up the costs using the column addition method.

In PE today, we used different parts of our bodies to mark out numbers and letters. For example, we used our elbows, knees, hips and feet to mark out the letters in our names on the floor. This was done to music and the children had to create a really smooth sequence to demonstrate to others.

French involved revising the vocabulary for items in the classroom. The children were set the task of creating signs for different objects such as pens, books, paper etc. The children are making good progress in their pronunciation of vocabulary.

This afternoon, we continued our art work from last week. The children added watercolour paints to their sketches of the barn from Charlotte’s Web. We made sure we thought hard about techniques such as adding a small amount of water to the paper before adding colour and using light strokes.

The class have been reading Chapters 7, 8 and 9 of Charlotte’s Web so far this week. It is lovely to see so many children keen to read on in the story and to find out more about the story each week.

Well done Class 4 – you have all worked very hard.

See you next week,

Mrs Conde

On Monday, the children in Class 4 started the day by reading along and listening to Chapter 6 of Charlotte’s Web. The children thought really hard about things that Wilbur could see, hear and smell in his barn. They worked together to record ideas and were asked to use powerful adjectives and interesting nouns. This work has been used today to plan a descriptive piece of writing about the barn. We explored features of descriptive writing, such as the use of powerful adjectives, interesting verbs, personification, alliteration and similes. Some children also used metaphors to write descriptive sentences. The children will move on to using their plan to draft their first piece of descriptive writing tomorrow.

In Maths, we have been revising the compact written method to carry out addition. Some children revisited their understanding of place value to carry out the expanded method of addition, partitioning numbers into Hundreds, Tens and Units and combining them to make a total. Examples of the methods can be found in our Calculations Policy under the heading ‘Current Subject plans’. Today, children were given Reasoning and Problem Solving challenges to give them the opportunity to show their understanding and apply their skills within a context.

In Music this week, the Year 4 children progressed in the unit of work surrounding ‘Ten Pieces – No Place Like’, by modern composer Kerry Andrews. The children focussed on 5 sounds they heard on a sound walk last week. They had to decide how to represent the sound using body and voice percussion. This is called creating a music motif. These were then placed within a soundscape for the children to follow and perform. The children did really well and performed their piece of music at the end of the session.

In Art this week, we found out about techniques used when painting a watercolour scene. The lesson was linked to our Novel Study unit ‘Descriptive Writing’. The children spent time reflecting on their work in English and used their ideas to sketch a scene of the barn, ready to paint with watercolours next week.

In French we explored vocabulary for different items within the classroom. Some of the vocabulary we covered can be found in this game here . 

The children have also continued to progress through our Computing unit of work. They have been experimenting with Scratch Junior and controlling a sprite (a character on the screen) and writing programmes to make the sprite move around the screen and perform different actions. Information on this App can be found here.

Well done Class 4! See you next week!

Mrs Conde  

So far this week, Class 4 have been role playing a dramatic extract from Charlotte’s Web. The children had to take on the role of a character and role play Wilbur’s great escape. The children needed to consider using emotive vocabulary and plenty of expression. On Tuesday, the children explored features of a Diary entry. They had to read a diary extract and pick out several features, such as use of the past tense, first person, colloquial language, punctuation for effect and more.

The Year 5 enjoyed another session of Brass in the hall. Year 4 children created a ‘soundscape’ after being absolutely quiet for 1 minute and recording sounds they could hear. Their partner then ‘read’ their soundscape and ‘played’ the sounds that had been recorded. The children also revised high, low, soft and loud sounds.

In Maths, the children used their place value knowledge to add and subtract numbers up to 1000 to a 4-digit number. On Tuesday, the class visited multiplication methods, including the grid method. Children worked confidently multiplying TUxU and TUxTU, clearly showing their calculations in their books. Some children worked on interactive games to revise the use of arrays to understand the concept of multiplication.

During Class worship, the focus was on how we are sometimes given hard ‘jobs’ by God, similar to how Noah was given the job of building his Ark. Noah had to persevere for a long time to build the Ark. Sometime we have to persevere at a job, whether it be helping a friend, working something out in a lesson, building something in school or at home, working hard at friendships etc.

In French, the children had a go at asking each other how old they are. The children also revised the numbers 1-31. Lots of children became really confident at asking ‘Quel âge as-tu?’ and responding by saying ‘J’ai huit/neuf ans’. The children also carried out a maths activity, writing the answers in words in French.

In PE, the children explored different body movements. They played a game where the children stood in a queue and the person at the back had to move to the front. However, the children in the queue created many different body shapes and movements to make it really difficult for the person at the back to move to the front of the queue! This was done to music. The children really enjoyed it.

The children continued to explore Stone Age art and craft work. They made sketches of examples they could find in books and online. They also had a go at creating marks with natural tools, such as sticks, leaves, pine cones, bark etc by dipping them into a charcoal and oil paste. This was good fun!

Well done Class 4.