Year 4 have had another excellent week and have especially been enjoying their suspense writing in English. Read on to find out what we have been up to…

English

In English this week we have started our new writing unit of suspense stories. We have begun reading our new book called ‘The Watertower’ by Gary Crew, which is a spooky Sci-Fi story and is perfect to help us learn about stories set in imaginary worlds. The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning the first skills needed to create suspense in a story. They have learnt to use certain fronted adverbials that create suspense, such as ‘Without warning… Barely able to breathe…. Out of the blue… and All of a sudden…’ They have learnt that choosing certain powerful verbs and adverbs can add to the suspense, such as tip-toed, edged, clung, spun, clambered, froze and nervously, cautiously, slowly, apprehensively, carefully, suddenly. The children also learnt to use the character’s reactions to SHOW they are scared rather than TELL us they are scared; this is called show don’t tell e.g. sweat dripped down his forehead, Spike felt goosebumps spread over his body, his knees trembled, his hands shook like a leaf. We finished off the week learning that rhetorical questions can be used in suspense writing to increase the tension e.g. What was that? What was happening? Is that you? Etc.

Next week we will be learning about dramatic punctuation and then planning and writing our ‘Showpiece’ to show off all of the skills we have learnt in this writing unit about suspense writing.

Maths

This week in maths we have been learning to multiply decimals using the written column method – they were very confident and accurate with this. See below for an example.

The children have also learnt what prime and square numbers are and practised writing factors of given numbers, e.g. the factors of 28 are 1, 28, 2, 14, 4 and 7. The children have also learnt to connect fractions, decimals and measures using a number line.

Next week, in maths we learning about position and direction. The children will be learning how to translate a point on a 2D grid and then how to translate a 2D shape on a 2D grid.

Thematic

In our themed learning this week ‘Water World’, we have been learning about how geographers collect and measure rainfall using rain gauges. We then presented some rainfall data in a line graph which links back to our maths learning. We also learnt about acid rain this week and how this erodes rocks.

Home Learning

This week, we would love you to write your own spooky story full of suspense! Use all of the skills you have learnt so far (see the English paragraph above for a reminder). We can’t wait for you to scare us!

Please could this home learning challenge be handed in by Wednesday 22^nd May.

There are no spellings to learn this week.

Dates to remember  

• Tuesday 21st May - Year 3 and 4 Viking Games at Upton Junior School - Children to wear their PE kit to school. They may wear a T-shirt the colour of their house if they wish but a plain white T=shirt is also fine. Please bring a packed lunch (unless having a packed lunch provided by the school), water, sunhat and suncream if the weather is warm.

• Thursday 23rd May - Year 4 trip to Marlowe Theatre - Children to wear school uniform and bring a packed lunch (unless having a packed lunch provided by the school) and a small snack for during the performance.

• Friday 24th May - Dress to Express day and Be here, be you, belong parade at 2.15pm on school field

• Friday 24th May - Last day of term

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

The Year 4 Team