Year 4 Class News

Spelling help!

Many children in the class had spelling as a target on their Learning Updates. Here’s some more information and lists of words to practice with your child.

Things you can do to help:

1. Practise the spelling list which come home each week before the Friday test.
2. Look back at lists from previous weeks and test your child on a few of these so that they’re revisiting the rules.
3. Read lots. This exposure to words will have a positive effect on spelling.
4. Keep talking about and practicing homophones. Click here for the lists.
5. Be aware of the Y3,4 National Curriculum spelling lists. Many of these will be covered in the lists across Year 3 and 4 but it’s good to have them all in one place.
6. Finally, we still have Lexia which helps with reading and spelling at KS2 as well as KS1.

Also, here is the Spelling Strategies document which gives you some different ways of practicing and learning spellings.

The Year 4 Christmas Assembly

Hello everyone,

Here it is! Our not very Christmassy, Christmas Class Assembly. We hope you enjoy it!

The Year 4s

Santa dash Friday 11 December

History: Ancient Greek legacy

We’ve been creating mini-project boards to show the lasting legacy that Ancient Greece has given us.

We have already learnt about how the Ancient Greeks have us democracy. In this learning, we’ve learnt about how they were pioneers in maths, science, philosophy, sport and theatre.

Working as a team has been a great way to work collaboratively, developing social skills. The children have also been creative in how they have presented their learning.

Science: sound travelling through a medium

This afternoon, we’ve been investigating the way that sound travels. We talked about how sound travels through different mediums.

Sound travels through the air into our ears.

Next, we observed how sound travels through water. We put a tuning fork and into a bowl of water and observed the sound waves rippling across the water from the tuning fork

After that, we investigated of sound travels trough a solid. We made string telephones and found that we could hear each other talking as sound travelled along the string. It even worked with really long string telephones!

Living and Learning: relationships

In our Living and Learning lesson this week, we were talking about our relationships with family and friends and what makes them special.

We also discussed how it can be difficult when something in our lives changes meaning that we can’t see loved ones as regularly. This resonated with the class as, due to lock down and tiers, we’re all being affected by this.

We talked about and made a list of different things we can do to show family and friends that we care about them and are thinking about them even though we may not be able to see them. We hope you find them useful!

How to show loved ones we’re still thinking of them: 

• Send a letter
• Video call: find and tell some jokes, play a game (like battleships, noughts and crosses, etc), read a book, test them on Ancient Greece, do some drawing, make some something together (bake, crafts, etc), show your school homework and talk about it, eat together, share your screen and look at some old photos, get them to test you on times tables or spellings, get active together, play a game (killer 12, etc)
• Send a funny video
• Text or email
• Send a gift – something you’ve baked or made
• Draw a picture and send it
• Write a poem or story
• Make a quiz or do a Kahoot

School menu change and Christmas meal

History: interpretations of the past

In our history learning today, we used our knowledge about the Athenian and Spartan city states to decide which one was the best!

We split into two teams to debate and within our teams split into little sub-groups responsible for debating one aspect of life in the city states.

The class did a great job at debating. They took turns well, made pertinent points, responded to opposing points and summarised. They also used openers to introduce their points and were respectful debaters throughout!

So, who was the best city state? Well, the debate was close. Athens won the categories on government and economy but Sparta won education and role of women. Tomorrow, we’ll make final points and I’ll make a decision on the winner!

Living and Learning: strong emotions

In our Living and Learning lesson today, we were talking about strong emotions and some strategies to cope with them. We decided that talking about how we were feeling was a really good way of solving a problem or feeling better about something that may be troubling us.

We then watched a BBC education video about someone who joins a new school and is desperate to make friends and fit in and ultimately makes a bad choice in order to fit in with a group of people. We discussed the emotions that the person could have been feeling and how that influenced his choices. We also discussed what they could have done differently and how they eventually solved the problems.

Virtual after-school sport club