What an exciting week in Year 4! From mummifying tomatoes and deciphering hieroglyphics to writing scary suspense pieces in English, we’ve been very busy this week!  Here is what we have been up to…

Maths

In maths this week we finished our learning on fractions and then spent the rest of the week learning about shape. We learnt how to find fractions of numbers. For example, what is 3/5 of 55? We learnt to divide the number by the denominator so 55 ÷ 5 = 11. And then, if the numerator is greater than 1, multiply by the numerator, so 11 X 3 = 33. So 3/5 of 55 = 33.

In our shape work, we learnt to name and describe the properties of 3D shapes. We described their edges, faces and vertices (corners). The shapes we looked at are below.

On Friday, we learnt about different types of quadrilaterals:

Next week we will be learning about different types of triangles and then moving on to learn about statistics.

English

In English this week we have thoroughly enjoyed a week learning how to write suspenseful writing. We are learning how to write a 5-part story and this week taught us how to write the build up section. We built up our suspense toolkit learning skills such as using short, snappy sentences and certain sentence openers for dramatic effect, and also how to use rhetorical questions to build the tension. We learnt to ‘show, not tell’ the characters fear using phrases such as ‘he could feel the blood pumping in his veins’, ‘sweat dripped down his forehead’ or ‘a shiver went up his spine’. We also use ellipsis (…) and exclamation marks throughout the week.

Next week, we will plan and write our showpiece – a 5-part story of our own!

Thematic

In our ‘Walk like an Egyptian’ themed learning this week, we have learnt about the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians and found out that they believed in over 2000 Gods and Goddesses, each one responsible for something e.g. Ra the God of the sun and Anubis the God of mummification. In our next lesson, we learnt about the details of the gruesome mummification process and had a great time mummifying a tomato! Here we are doing this…

We also learnt about primary and secondary sources of historical evidence. We found out the different between the two and also discussed what makes a historical source of information reliable or not reliable. In this lesson, we found out about the Ancient Egyptian way of writing called hieroglyphics.

Next week, we will be going on our trip to Maidstone Museum to see a real life Ancient Egytpian mummy and also learning about how the Ancient Egyptians made a huge contribution to architecture and art.

Spellings

Mr Oxley, Miss Stephens and Mr Keam groups:

veil, rein, beige, vein, reindeer, grey, prey, greyhound, extreme, famous, favourite

Mrs Cousins’ group:

snowman    blow    crow    grown     know   own    flown    would   could   should

Challenge words: yellow    below

Love to Learn

This week’s task is to find out about Howard Carter. What did he do in 1922? Why is he famous? Where did he work? You can use the internet to find out about him or visit the library to look for books about him.

You can show us what you find out in any way that you would like. You might like to write about what you find out and draw pictures. You could make a poster about them. Or you can come up with your own ideas, it is up to you! We look forward to seeing your home learning! Please could this challenge be handed in by Wednesday 27^th November.

Other news

Accelerated Reader and TTRS

A reminder to please quiz with her child on Accelerated Reader when they finish each book. Login details were handed out – if you need a reminder of these please don’t hesitate to ask.

Please could the children play on TTRS at home as often as possible – 10-15 minutes 4 times a week would be most advantageous.

We thank you for your support with your child’s reading and times tables practice.

Dates to remember

27th November – Year 4 trip to Maidstone Museum – We will be leaving on the coach at 9.00am so please make sure that you arrive promptly that day, many thanks.

11th December – Chilton Christmas Fair from 3.15 – 4.30

13th December – Year 2 and 4 Come Dine with Me

17th December – Year 3 and 4 Church performance at 2pm

19th December – Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 Christmas party day (party clothes to be worn)

20th December – Christmas jumper day (children can wear usual school uniform with a Christmas jumper)

20th December – School Christmas dinner

20th December – Last day of school; School finishes at 2pm; No after school club on this day

Many thanks

We hope you have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cousins, Mr Oxley and Mrs Tammaro