Weekly News 01.03.24

English

In English this week, we have continued reading ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’. In it, we learnt that Ahmet is a refugee and so we started our week learning more about what ‘refugee’ means and why it is different to someone leaving their home simply because they want to. We then learnt about writing formal letters; their structure, formal language and how to use paragraphs properly. We had a lot of fun speaking as Kings and Queens do and we all did fantastically writing out formal letters!

Next week, we will be learning to write arguments.

Maths

This week we have been learning about the money and the four operations. We have learnt about converting between pounds and pence and how to calculate the best deals of certain items. For instance, if I can by one cookie for 40p or 4 cookies for £2, which is the better deal?
In a world where cash is seen less and less often, we had a chance to use money to mimic shopping and increase our familiarity with all the British coins.

Next week in maths, we will be staying on the four operations but without money. We will be looking to improve our mental maths by practicing related facts, double and halves and adding 3 numbers together in our heads.

Art

This term we will be drawing in art and this week we are looking at negative space. This is the space around an object and by learning about negative space, we will gain more insight into how an artist’s mind works and how they can draw more complex shapes quickly by seeing the form in the negative space instead.

Thematic

This week we have been looking at the Golden Age of Islam and how influential it was to modern day societies. While Europe was going through the Dark Ages, the middle east was a hub of knowledge and innovation. They created the first flushing toilets (thank goodness!), the first flying machine, the elephant clock, astrolabes and so much more.

One of the inventors we learnt about was Ibn Al Haytham who pioneered our understanding of how the human eye works which, in turn, laid the path for our cameras today. In class, we made models of pinhole cameras to begin to see how cameras function. Check us out below:

We also had a special visitor come in called Miss Smith. Miss Smith is a scientist and taught us all about electrical circuits. She showed us how we can make a circuit by all holding hands, and then we completed our circuit by holding on to her special device, it lit up and made sounds. She then showed us that when someone let go and broke our circuit, the lights stopped.

Afterwards, she gave us all batteries, bulbs and switches and we experimented with what different amount of cells and bulbs do. Miss Smith taught us to think like scientists and that we can find out the answers to our questions by tinkering with our circuits and discovering the answers ourselves.

Love to Learn 

This week’s Love to Learn is a maths one. We want you to imagine you had £20 to spend and find 5 things that you could buy that add up to less than £20.

You can take pictures of them, draw pictures of them, look for things online, stick in receipts from your adults’ shopping and highlight the item you choose. Get as creative as you like! Then add up what the total price is and calculate how much money you would have left over.

As a challenge, can you find 10 different things that you could buy for EXACTLY £50.

Please could this Love to Learn challenge be handed in by Weds 6^th March.

Spellings

We really want the children to be confident in their Year 3 and 4 red words, so the words to practice for a spelling test on Weds 6^th March are: favourite, certain, century, caught, address, different, actually, believe, extreme

Challenge words for the test (optional to learn): accidentally, experience, possession.

Other News 

World Book Day Thursday 7^th March 2024

This year's World Book Day theme will be bedtime stories / reading for pleasure.  We invite children to share their favourite bedtime story book on this day and if they wish, come to school dressed in their bedtime clothing!  Children are invited to dress up as their favourite character from a book if they prefer another option.  We would like to remind families that there is no expectation for you to spend money on costumes.  An enjoyment of reading and sharing a story is our main aim for World Book Day this year.  

The Chilton Masked Reader

This year, we will share Chilton Masked Reader videos for World Book Day.  These videos will be created by our talented members of staff who will read a story without revealing their faces.  We hope our Chilton families will enjoy the stories and guess who the masked readers are! Links to these videos will be available on all school Blogs. 

Book Fayre

The Chilton Book Fayre will arrive on Monday 11^th March and run until Friday 15^th March outside the Year 5 classrooms. World Book Day book vouchers can be spent at the fayre. Cash and online payments are also available and a percentage of monies raised will go towards funding more books for Chilton children. 

Mrs Rowland-Hill - English Lead/KS2 Lead. 

- Year 4 will have PE in the afternoon on World Book Day so please can they bring their PE kit in in a named bag to get changed into after lunch. If your child does not wish to dress up for Book Day, they are welcome to come to school wearing their PE kit as usual.

Dates to remember  

• Saturday 2^nd March – KS2 Cross Country at Quex

• Thursday 7^th March – World Book Day (Year 4 have PE in afternoon - please bring PE kit in a named bag to change into)

• Thursday 7^th March – Autism workshop in school hall 9:00

• Thursday 14^th March – Year 4 Assembly 9:00 – Parents invited

• Monday 11^th March - Science day (More information to follow)

• Monday 11^th – Thursday 14^th March – Book Fair in school

• Friday 15^th March – Red Nose Day - Wear something funny for money

• Friday 15^th March – Parent Book Look 3:15 for Parent-Teacher Consultations

• Monday 18^th – Thursday 21^st March – Parent-Teacher Consultations – dates and times coming soon

• Thursday 21^st March – Rock Your Socks Day in support of Down Syndrome Awareness

• Friday 22^nd March – The Speaker Finals at Royal Harbour Academy

• Tuesday 26^th March – Come Dine With Me for Years 1, 4 & 5

• Thursday 28^th March – Easter Egg Hunts

• Thursday 28^th March – Term 4 ends (normal time @3:15)

• Friday 29^th March – Good Friday

• Monday 15^th March - Term 5 begins

Many thanks,

The Year 4 Team