As we approach the final week of the term, the children have had amazing week despite being tired.  Our phonics focus has been the following: We would like to thank you for your continued support with the Phonics Book. In Maths, we are using a counting stick to begin each lesson. We focus on accurate counting forward and backward, counting on from a given number and describing where in the number line we can find a certain number. Our focus this week has been on the Number 4. We have explored how 4 can be represented in many arrangements. The children use spatial language to describe how it is made, such as 2 blocks on the bottom and 2 blocks on top. We then used multilink in pairs to make our own representations and describe it using taught vocabulary. Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg has been our focus text for the week. The children recited the story as the skeletons went through the dark dark street, to the dark dark park and onto the dark dark swings! We chose Dem B...

 It's been all go here! We've explored food chains, written Japanese poetry, started a new maths section and had a jelly earthquake. Our Haikus Recapping subtraction and place value Our state of the art Earthquake simulator and seismograph station testing the structural integrity of spaghetti and play dough. The Year 4 Team :)

This afternoon in Year 4, we had great fun talking about the power of earthquakes. We spoke about and looked at different structures linked to earthquakes. Then, we had a go at building our own using different materials. We tested these using jelly! It was great fun!

 Please find attached the first 100 high frequency words that you can practise for spellings at home. We will be testing these regularly with the children, so any additional practise will be of great benefit. Thank you :)

  LO: To add two-digit numbers to two-digit numbers (with exchange- Concrete and Pictorial) Today we have been building on our understanding of addition with exchanging by moving from concrete resources to pictorial representations . We began by using place value counters to represent two-digit addition calculations, carefully exchanging 10 ones for 1 ten when needed. This helped us to deepen our understanding of the value of each digit and why exchanging works. We then took our learning a step further by representing our calculations on our whiteboards. We drew either place value counters or base ten to show the tens and ones in each number, using our drawings to help us calculate the answers accurately. Throughout the lesson, we used our stem sentence to explain our thinking: “10 ones are equal to 1 ten.”

 Please find attached a useful maths websites that you could use at home with your children. Polypad is particularly useful for using the 10 frames to work on fact families. This has been a focus for us this week. Here is an example of a fact family. 14 + 6 = 20 6 + 14 = 20 20 - 14 = 6 20 - 6 = 14 20 = 14 + 6 20 = 6 + 14 You could work together to make the numbers on the 10 frame and then write down the fact families. You could also use the base 10 stickers to show the tens and ones in a number. For example: This number has 2 tens and 3 ones. The number is 23. Polypad

In geography, we worked collaboratively in groups to design and draw maps of our dream schools. We thought carefully about the different features we would like to include and where to place them on our maps. This helped us develop our map-making skills, practise describing locations and work together to share our ideas and create our ideal school environment.