Living and Learning: What’s the matter?
As well as a science focus for the What’s the matter? topic, we’ve also been thinking about What’s the matter? from an emotional point of view.
Hopefully you got chance to find out more about this in our recent class assembly.
A focus for our writing, as we start this new term, is using conjunctions. We’ve used different pictures as a stimulus to ask What’s the matter? and in our responses we’ve been using a variety of conjunctions.
Ask your child if they can spot the conjunction that has not been highlighted.
Science in real life
As part of our What’s the matter? mini science topic, we had a real life problem to help with when we received a letter from Mr Vango.
Our first scientific enquiry skill we used was questioning. We needed to work out what was the question we needed to answer. We also considered some other questions that we might need to investigate.
Thinking about the equipment needed and the safety aspects were an important part of the method.
After making our predictions, we tested four different materials. Ask your child how we made the test fair and what we observed during the testing.
In our english lessons, we have written back to Mr Vango with our conclusions and recommendations. Ask your child which material we suggested he should use for his tents.
What’s the matter? creative homework
On Thursday, during our homework review, we enjoyed sharing and celebrating the range of homework the class had produced based around designing a house using a range of materials.
Here are some of our favourites. Presentation was important for this homework as we needed to see the materials labelled clearly. We liked these examples as they told us the materials used and we also saw some description of these materials. For example, a blue wooden door.
Materials and their properties
As part of our What’s the matter? mini science topic, we been identifying and also describing the properties of materials. There’s been lots of new words to learn. Ask your child if they can name something that might be rigid, opaque, transparency or stretchy.
In this learning, we combined science with maths to sort objects according to their properties using a venn diagram.
Ask your child what might go in the centre of the venn diagram and what might go outside the venn diagram.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, “What do you see?”
We have enjoyed retelling this story and using story maps to record a different version of the story.
Ask your child to tell you their story.
Phonics
We have begun phase 3 of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonic programme.
The purpose of this phase is to:
• teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat
• practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
• learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly
• read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
• read and write words in phrases and sentences.
Here are some examples of words your children will be reading: tail, week, right, soap, food, park, burn, cord, town, soil
Tricky words
During phase 3 the children will learn more ‘Tricky Words’. These are the words we will learn in phase 3:
he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all said
In addition, during this phase children will be expected to begin to write sentences independently.
If you have any questions please ask.
There will be further phonics mornings in February where you will be able to see how we teach the new phonemes.
Homework
Last week the children were asked to get creative and show what they know about the water cycle.
During our homework review, it was clear to see how much the children have remembered about this learning. Lots of our class members had correctly used the scientific vocabulary within their piece of work. Well done Year 4!
Please feel free to pop in and have a look at our ‘Water Cycle” display.
Computing: touch typing
This afternoon, we’ve been practising out touch typing skills using the free games on the BBC Bitesize website.
At first we found it tricky to rest our fingers in the correct place – pointing fingers on the bumps (F and J)!
Soon, we were getting the hang of it and typing with much more confidence!
Have a go at home if you can!
Can we make it rain indoors?
Many thanks to all who came to watch our assembly on Wednesday. The children showcased their learning impressively. Despite a technical hitch, the children remained calm and were able to sing their song without the backing track.
In Science, we’ve been learning more about the water cycle and some tricky scientific vocabulary. To help secure good understanding of the new words, Year 4 created their own glossaries. After putting the words into alphabetical order, the class then added definitions.
Question: How can you make it rain indoors?
This afternoon, we thought about this question and came up with some ideas of how we could go about finding out whether or not we could make it rain inside.
What You Need:
• An empty glass jar with a metal top
• Hot tap water
• Ice cubes
Tip: Be patient. It takes about 15 minutes for water drops to form.
1) First, fill a glass jar with very hot tap water.
2) Then, place a plate over the jar and fill it with ice.
3) Now, wait and watch. In about 15 minutes you will see “rain” fall inside the jar .
What will happen?
“The hot air will rise and cool down.”
“When the water vapor reaches the cold plate, I think we will see droplets of rain.”
“The hot water will turn into steam.”
“The ice will cool the steam and turn it back into a liquid.”
” This process is called condensation.”
Were we correct?
YES!
Inside the bowl, we began to see water droplets falling . 
Question your child about these images. Can they tell you what is happening using some scientific vocabulary?
We’ve “bin” to the Recycling Centre!
Sorry for the terrible joke – it was rubbish.
Here are a few snaps from our time at the Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility!
We were astounded by the size of the claw and even more so by all that rubbish! (We were on the seventh floor of the building and the pile went all the way down to ground level and 5 m below!)
We played a game where you had to throw the rubbish (a bean bag) into the correct recycling bin. It’s tricky to know what’s what, so check with Leeds City Council if you’re ever unsure.
We also made pledges to become Waste Champions and learnt all about their Living Wall; it had around 110,000 plants on it!
We learnt a lot of facts about recycling from our time at the facility. It’s good to be green!