Year 4 are enjoying their new topics and books and have continued to work hard in all aspects of the curriculum over the last two weeks.

Year 4 are continuing to use  the book, Food around the world by Moira Butterfield and Izzi Howell as a starting point for our learning. We are preparing to write a newspaper article about a World Food Festival which would benefit global world hunger charities.We  have been exploring the features of a newspaper report, practising using alliteration to make interesting headline and using reported and direct speech. We have interviewed key characters in the event and thought about what their responses would be. Next, we are going to plan and write our newspaper report.  

In Reading, we have continued creading The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan. This book focuses on what happens when it is announced that a great prophecy predicts that all chocolate will disappear for ever in six days. We have used our prediction and inference skills to answer questions about our book. |We have also practised these skills in a short story about the twelve labours of Hercules. 

In Maths, we have finished our unit on fractions. This is another unit where our times tables can really aid us so remember to keep practising them. We have explored subtracting fractions with the same denominator and using our fraction knowledge in word problems. We have used poly pad to help us to visualise the fractions  and the numbers we have been using. We can also split and rename groups of fractions to aid our exploration. We have then moved onto our next chapter, decimals. We have applied our fraction knowledge to create tenths and hundredths as fractions and explore what happens to one and two digit numbers when we divide by ten and  one hundred, using our knowledge of place value to help record the answers as decimals.

In Science, we have continued our topic, States of Matter and have conducted experiments to see how temperature affects the rate an ice cube melt and have discovered how water can change state through heating.  As part of our topic we received a visit from Anna at SES Water who lead us through a workshop showing how our water is cleaned for consumption and ways we can save water at home.  The children were even given a timer to help them use their shower for only 4 minutes to save water. 

We have continued our Geography topic, Where does our food come from? We have been exploring the journey of a cacoa bean from the plant in Cote d'Ivoire to the shelves of our shops. We have looked at where some of our food is grown and produced and measured the distance it travels to get to our shops. 

In Art , we have explored the work of a range of contemporary still life artists and used our sketchbook to make visual notes about their works and styles they use. We then created colours for our still life by mixing acrylic paint. 

We also received a visit from Jo at The Dog's Trust who helped us explore how dogs use their senses and how each of their senses might be better or worse than our senses. We looked at how important it is to let dogs sniff and how many dogs will eat anything as their sense of taste is not as good as ours so lots of unexpected things taste good to them. 

We also received a visit from Jo at The Dog's Trust who helped us explore how dogs use their senses and how each of their senses might be better or worse than our senses. We looked at how important it is to let dogs sniff and how many dogs will eat anything as their sense of taste is not as good as ours so lots of unexpected things taste good to them. 

PE days are Monday and Friday for Topaz and Monday and Tuesday for Amethyst.

A reminder of weekly homework:

• Reading each day

• Spellings -given out on Friday and tested the following Friday

• 15 minutes on TTRS (Soundcheck)

• Century (set on Thursdays)