Welcome back to Term 3! The Year 4 children have returned from the Christmas break with a fantastic attitude and are raring to go with their learning. We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and we would like to wish you all a happy new year and all the best for 2024.

A message just for Team Cyan – Mr Oxley will be teaching Year 2 this term but he will be back with us in Term 4. Miss Kirtley will be teaching the children on Fridays so if you need to message about Team Cyan on a Friday, please email Miss Kirtley.

English

In English this week, we have started to read our new text called ‘Fly Eagle Fly’. This is an African traditional tale retold by the author Christopher Gregorowski. This week, we have been clarifying some of the vocabulary from the book such as riverbed, gully, cattle tracks and wispy. Our first writing focus for the book has been describing the settings where the story takes place in Africa. The children have learnt to use expanded noun phrases and chosen interesting adjectives to describe the settings, such as arid, dry, dusty ground or tall, slender, scorched reeds. We have also learnt to use prepositions to show where the things are in the setting, such as; high up above, below, in the distance, next to, behind, amongst.

Next week, we will be continuing to read some more of the story and learning how to describe characters in the story – the farmer, his friend and the eagle.

In spelling this week, we have been recapping the words that begin with the prefixes in-, un-, mis- and dis-. Here are the children practising spelling the words using post it notes...

Maths

This week we have been learning how to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000 and about negative numbers. We have found out that numbers do not finish at zero, and that we can continue to count backwards through zero like this, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6 etc. We discovered that -1 is actually a higher number than -6, even though it is a smaller number!

We have learnt that to round numbers to the nearest 10 means finding the multiple of ten that is closest to the number e.g. 58 roundest to the nearest ten is 60. We need to remember that if the 'ones' digit is a 5, we round up to the next multiple of ten. 735 rounded to the nearest ten is 740.

We also learnt to round to the nearest 100 or the nearest 1000. 735 rounded to the nearest 100 is 700. 4830 rounded to the nearest 1000 is 5000.

Next week in maths, we will be learning to add and subtract mentally, adding ones, tens or hundreds to 3-digit numbers.

PSHE and our School Values

This week we have been learning about our school value of courage. The children have learnt about a courageous young woman named Yusra Mardini. Yusra was born in Syria and was training to be a professional swimmer whilst living there. Her dream was to take part in the Olympic games. Yusra had to flee Syria due to the civil war and embark on a scary, long journey to Germany, where she now lives. Whilst crossing the Aegean Sea, the boat that Yusra and some others were using began to take on water and Yusra, her sister and 3 others, had to use their swimming skills to push and pull the boat for 3 hours to get to safety. Yusra never gave up on her dreams, despite all of the hard things she has had to go through. We discussed how Yusra can teach us a lot about perseverance, resilience and courage. Yusra went on to win a medal in the Olympic Games. After learning about Yusra, we thought about how she could inspire us to set goals for ourselves that would need us to be brave to achieve.

Next week, we will be beginning our new topic called ‘Cracking the Earth’s Core’. We will be finding out about the structure of the Earth, how a volcano forms, about volcanic eruptions and finally about earthquakes and what causes them.

Love to Learn 

This week’s Love to Learn task is to find out about the recent earthquake in Japan and write a newspaper report about it. Remember, a news report should be written in the past tense and could include quotes from people at the scene. Use the 5 Ws to help you structure your report - Who has been effected? What has happened? Where did it happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen? You can include photos or draw pictures if you would like to. We look forward to reading your reports. This task is due in by Wednesday 10th January.

The MyOn Reading Challenge is still on until 11th January. There are two books about volcanoes to read and enjoy. The children who have already read them have said that they really enjoyed them. 

The children log on to Myon using their AR username and password (all passwords are Viking23)

Link to Myon - https://www.myon.co.uk/login/index.html 

Spellings

Words to practice for a spelling test on Weds 10th January: illegal, illogical, illegible, antique, unique, mosque, technique, grammar, group, guard

Challenge words for the test (optional to learn): picturesque, grotesque, possession

 

Many thanks,

The Year 4 Team