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Class Blog
In Maths, we have revised our understanding of fractions.
This week, we have written our own myths following a story mountain journey.
Week 38 (w/b 5/7/21)
This week, the children in Octopus class have amazed us with their resilience and knowledge when completing their end of year assessments. We are so very proud of each and every Octopus for their accomplishments this year! We have had a really exciting end to the week, including learning all about the Olympics ready for this great sporting event.
In our English lessons, we have learnt some new vocabulary to describe the arid landscape of our own mythical writing.
In Maths, we have completed a carousel of activities proving our learning across all topics.
This week, our afternoon lessons have seen us learn all about an Olympic country. Our country is Brazil! We have completed many activities, including learning Samba dancing!
Week 27 (w/b28/6/21)
This week we have come to the end of our Science topic ‘Electricity’ and expressed everything we have learnt about this aspect of Science. The children have thoroughly enjoyed working practically with circuits and it’s been a lovely subject to teach this half term! We have also said a fond farewell to our very own Miss Rowlands who has come to the end of her time with us on her course. It’s been a pleasure, and both ourselves and the children have loved having you in our Octopus family!
In Maths, we have researched lines of symmetry around our classroom.
We have written character descriptions about mythical creatures in preparation for us writing our own mythical stories in a few weeks time.
In Science, we have learnt about the dangers of electricity and read about Jordan Banks. We discussed what we can learn from this tragic event, and whether electricity is more trouble than it’s worth.
Week 36 (w/b 28/06/21)
This week has been another great week of learning. We have began a new topic in English of myths and legends - it was fantastic to see the class acting out their mythical creatures, including hippogriffs and centaurs! Moreover, the children have taken part in yet another science experiment, this time testing materials as insulators and conductors. Octopus class love to make our learning practical, so we have seen lots of very happy, smiley faces this week :)
In Maths, we have been continuing our ready to progress curriculum by looking at fractions, including equivalent fractions, mixed and improper fractions.
For English, we have began a new topic of myths and legends. We have been learning about mythical creatures and using our acting skills to become these animals using characterisation.
In Science, we have been testing materials in our simple circuit to see if they are insulators or conductors.
Week 36 (w/b 14/6/21)
This week, we have been extremely busy. Our children have worked extremely hard and have loved our practical science lessons. It has been inspirational to watch how involved and focused they were when investigating how a circuit works and creating their own.
In English, we completed a published write of an autobiography from the queens perspective.
In Maths this week, we have consolidated our learning in place value showing we can compose and decompose numbers using standard and non-standard partitioning.
In Science, we have been investigating circuits and trying to make our bulbs light up using scientific vocabulary to explain our reasoning.
Week 34 (w/b 7/6/21)
This week we have begun our final half term in Year 4! We have delved straight back into our by revising old topics and even starting some new ones in our afternoon learning! Have a look at this weeks learning below.
In English, we have been researching the features of autobiographical writing and using them in our writing. We have also become experts in the Queen ready to write as her next week!
In Maths, we have spent the week learning about data and statistics. We have collected our data using tally charts, represented it using graphs and interpreted it using sum and difference question types.
In Science, we have began our new topic ‘Electricity’. We have learnt about the origins of electricity and the differences between static and current electricity before sorting electrical appliances under different subheadings.
Week 33 (w/b 24/5/21)
This week saw our class return to school after our isolation. We have loved being back together, and finishing the half term as one big Octopus family. After our half term, we are looking forward to ending Year 4 with a fantastic final six and a half weeks together full of learning and making memories :)
In English, we have written and published our persuasive letters to Boris Johnson, persuading him to open the borders and let Ahmet's parents into the country. This was based upon our class text, The Boy at the Back of the Class.
In Maths, we have been using our prior knowledge of time to convert between analogue and digital clocks.
For Art week, we used oil pastels to practice the skills of stippling, blending and scumbling. We then produced landscape pieces relating to our topic ‘Rivers and Mountains’.
Week 32 (w/b 17/5/21)
We have had another fantastic week of home learning, and I am so very proud of those children who have logged in to Teams every single day and completed all of their work as they would at school. Thank you to those parents and siblings who have helped too - it has really had an impact on the children's learning, and it is fantastic to have your support. This week, we have completed so many exciting activities through online learning, including holding our own debate! It was so wonderful to see you all giving your opinion on whether we should open the borders to all refugees (linked to our book 'Boy at the Back of the Class'); you have really grown in confidence these past few days and it is fantastic to see. I cannot wait to have you all back in school on Monday - we've missed you all so much. Pat yourselves on the back for being superstar home learners and have a good rest this weekend ready for our final week in school before half term :)
In Writing, we have magpied the features of persuasive writing before applying them to our own writing. We enjoyed learning about what makes writing persuasive and discussing what effect it has on the reader.
Our Maths lessons have revolved around perimeter and area. We have revisited this aspect of the curriculum from earlier in the year, making sure that our skill is embedded before we move on to reasoning and problem solving questions to apply our knowledge.
Our question this week for Encompass is, 'why do people live near mountains?' We have researched the life of the Kumaoni people before comparing it with our own. On Friday, we finished our topic by expressing our learning through creating a PowerPoint presentation or lapbook at home!
Week 31 (w/b 10/5/21)
This week has seen our learning take place at home as we have began our isolation. I can honestly say that those children who have been taking part in our online, live learning on Teams have shown maturity and resilience beyond their years. I couldn't be more proud :) As we continue our isolation into next week, I hope that all my Octopus continue with their positive attitudes as we smash our final week at home!
In English, we have Published our third person narrative of a refugee's journey from Syria. The children have really thought about their descriptive vocabulary this week, and how to paint the picture of the scene in Syria.
Our Maths lessons have focused on ensuring we have a strong understanding of converting units of measure. We have then applied our knowledge to answering problem solving questions which include finding fractions of amounts.
Take a look at some of our fantastic afternoon home learning below - including work for our Encompass topic 'Rivers and Mountains', and learning about why Muslims celebrate Eid.
Take a look at some of our fantastic afternoon home learning below - including work for our Encompass topic 'Rivers and Mountains'.
Week 30 (w/b 3/5/21)
This week we have began our narrative writing based upon our class text, The Boy at the Back of the Class. We are writing a third person narrative about a refugee, and their fight for survival. The children have enjoyed using new vocabulary such as 'eerie' and 'deserted' to describe the scene in Syria.
In Maths, we have revisited our understanding of fractions and decimals. We have embedded our knowledge of equivalent fractions and the link between decimals and fractions, including tenths and hundredths. This will help us with our learning next week when we apply it to units of measure.
In Encompass, we have been learning about the world's greatest rivers. We completed a carousel of activities, including attempting to match up river names with their lengths and locations.
For NSPCC Number day, we took part in a Smarties investigation involving many Year 4 skills including fractions, estimation and representing data! Our favourite part was getting to eat the smarties though! :)
Week 29 (w/b 26/4/21)
This week has been full of excitement as we begin our new Encompass topic, Rivers and Mountains. We have made our afternoon learning much more practical, including using maps and atlases to find geographical points and including ICT in our research. We have also impressed our teachers with our fantastic first person narratives in English this week, really showing that we are becoming national standard writers!
On Monday in Encompass we learnt about different features of a river and used them to label images. In Thursdays lesson we made salt dough and used it to create our own mountains and rivers.
This week in English we have been writing a first person narrative as Ahmet a character from our book The Boy at the Back of the Class.
In Maths we have been learning about negative numbers and using a number line to plot them.
week 28 (w/b 19/04/21)
It’s been so wonderful to have each and every Octopus back in school this week! We have celebrated by spending an entire week focusing on our of our school values - inspiration. We have completed many activities including a P4C, Art and Express task. As well as this, we have continued with our morning learning. In Maths, our work on symmetry has proved challenging but we have continued to show determination to work hard in our lessons. In our writing lessons, we have began to read our new class text ‘The boy at the Back of the Class’. We have spent lots of time discussing the plot of the story and how the character Ahmet might feel, ready for our first person narrative writing next week.
In writing, we have been reading our new text and planning writing for our narrative.
In Maths, we have been completing symmetric shapes and finding lines of symmetry.
Our afternoons have consisted of learning about our school value of inspiration. We have created a display of all our inspirational work.
Week 27 (w/b 29/03/21)
What a fantastic end to the half term! We have finished off our topics, and taken part in end of term assessments to prove our learning - our results have really impressed our teachers! We cannot wait to welcome you back to school on Tuesday 20th April to start our final full term of learning together. Enjoy the break and see you soon Octopus :)
In maths this week we have focused on 2D shapes.
During Encompass this week we compared Greece and Italy.
In Science this week explored how we impact the environment and discussed the topic of deforestation.
Week 26 (w/b 22.03.21)
This week we have had a jam-packed week to ensure we use every second of learning time as we come to the end of our topics. We have worked on factual writing both in our mornings and afternoons, to prove our knowledge of our current curriculum. You can see the hard work we have been putting in, in the pictures below. As we move into next week, let’s finish the term strong ready for a well deserved break!
In maths today we used multiplication to solve correspondence questions.
We researched a marine animal in preparation for our non-chronological report about an animal, linked to our book Flotsam,
In Science this week we created classification grids to classify living things.
For Encompass, we took notes for creating a blog all about modern Greece!
Week 25 (w/b 15/3/21)
We have had another busy week in Octopus class. We have completed scientific investigations, written postcards from other countries and written our own adventure story finding a mysterious object! Have a look at this week’s learning below. We finished the week by celebrating Red Nose Day, and learning about such an important charity.
Today we have completed a published write based on our class book Flotsam.
In Maths we have learnt about co-ordinates, including completing and describing translations.
We went on a bug hunt as part of our science lesson classifying invertebrates and vertebrates.
In science we have been learning how to classify different animals.
In Encompass we have discussed the climate and landscape of Greece before writing a postcard to our families!
Week 24 (w/b 08/03/21)
It has been lovely to have almost all of Octopus class back in school this week. Although we are missing our few classmates still at home, it is fantastic to bring our learning back into the classroom. This week, we have shown our resilience and determination to rise to the challenge of returning to school and back to the Waterside way, and this will continue to be our focus next week.
In Maths we have been solving two step problems involving addition and subtraction.
In English this week we have been writing our re-tell of the picture book Flotsam.
We have engaged in craft activities in preparation for a very special celebration at the weekend.
This week we have been celebrating British Science Week. We have engaged in a range of activities as part of our STEMterprise topic.
In English, we completed a narrative retell of the beginning of the Flotsam story, adding our own ideas and creativity. Our published writes have really impressed our teachers, and we are showing an increasing amount of Year 4 standards in our work. Well done!
In Science, we have been classifying animals according to their features.
In Encompass this week we compared the climate in Greece and the United Kingdom. We created line graphs to visualise the difference.
Week 22 (w/b 22/02/21)
We have had a lovely first week back after half term. In Octopus class, we have begun our new topics, showing great interest in discovering new knowledge and concepts. Have a look at our amazing learning below. We have also had the amazing news that we will be welcoming all of our Octopus back to school in two weeks' time. We cannot wait to see you all, and be back together as one big, eight-legged family!
In English lessons, we have looked at our new class book Flotsam. We have magpied vocabulary and discussed the feelings of characters at different parts of the story.
In Maths we have been recapping our learning so far in year 4, proving our knowledge of place value.
In Encompass we practiced our map reading skills by finding different locations in our atlases and creating our own picture collages.
In Science, we explained what we already knew about living things and their habitats. We then went on to learn about MRS GREN and the features that all living things have in common.
Week 21 (w/b 8/02/21)
We have come to the end of another busy half term. Despite us being apart due to a second lockdown, this hasn’t stopped our Octopus shining in their achievements both at home and school. We can’t wait to come back after half term and continue our amazing year together.
This week in English we wrote a newspaper report about one of the events in Charlotte’s Web. We included the features of journalistic writing which we identified at the start of the week, including direct speech.
In our Maths lessons this week we have proved our understanding of decimals to a number of problems, including estimation.
In science we have been showing what we have learned this half term with a range of activities.
In Encompass, we consolidated some of our learning this term and showed off what we had learned.
We continued our first aid topic in PSHE by learning how to put someone into the recovery position.
Our amazing home learning, including our published write, Reading Skills and Maths problem solving using decimals
Week 20 (w/b 1/2/21)
We have started February in style with another week of outstanding learning. We have continued to make our lessons available to our home learners whilst keeping our lessons just as fun and exciting in school too. Have a look at our learning below.
In Maths, we have applied our knowledge of decimals to a range of question types including money problems.
This week we have began to look at journalistic writing in our English lessons. We have magpied the features and sought out new vocabulary. We then used this new vocabulary in sentences including formal language.
