Autumn Term Highlights from Year 4

Maths

In Maths, we have been looking at addition, subtraction, and multiplication. When learning about addition and subtraction, we used the column method and exchanged ones for tens, tens for hundreds and hundreds for thousands. In multiplication we used different strategies to work out different multiplications and extended our maths knowledge by looking at the relationship of multiplication and division. There has been progress in our timetables results. Keep going Year 4! Please continue to practice daily on our favourite site - ttrockstars.com. You can also access urbrainy.com/ mtc.

Writing

We have been looking Biographies, Explanations, Narrative, and Instruction texts this term. We wrote biographies about Michael Morpurgo. We found out how chocolate is made, and we wrote an explanation of this. There have been exciting Narrative stories written about Theseus and the Minotaur – Greek Myths! Year 4 have done an excellent job in writing stories with speech and description. For our Instruction text, we looked at features like rhetorical questions, and imperative verbs to help with our Instruction writing. Year 4, inspired by the film ‘How to Train your Dragon’, produced some fantastic Instruction writing on “How to care for your pet dragon’’. Well done everyone!

Science

Our topics this term was sound and states of matter. In sound we thought about pitch and volume and experimented to find out how the length and thickness of a string can change pitch. We even made our own guitars that produced different sounds. When learning about states of matter we began by looking at different solids, liquids and gases and their properties. We also looked at some challenging solids that could be poured and some liquids that flowed slowly. We have thought about changing states of matter and the water cycle. Did you know that we are drinking the same water that dinosaurs drank? We have also thought about evaporation and condensation and planned and carried out and evaluated a fair test experiment to see how heat affects evaporation.

Geography

This term we ventured into the rainforest. We used maps to find out where rainforests are located across the world, explored the different vegetation of the rainforest, investigated the different climate of the rainforest, researched people and settlements in the rainforest and looked at threats to the rainforest and measures taken to reduce risk to the rainforest.

Music

This term we have reviewed and appraised some famous Beatles songs, including Blackbird, Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude. We learnt and sang Blackbird as a class and then played the recorder to accompany the song. Our teacher thinks we have wonderful singing voices.

History

We found ourselves in Greece this term, comparing Sparta or Athens and debating which were the best cities to live in. This sparked great debates in the classroom. We covered the types of governments that were ruled by the Ancient Greeks and decided that the democracy government was the fairest government of them all. We looked closely at the daily lives of an ancient Greek.