St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Welcome to Year 4!

We are going to be having an amazing year together and I am looking forward to teaching you all.

In the Autumn Term we are learning about the Groovy Greeks.

We are lucky to have drama this half term and a music specialist.

Below is some information for you all, as well as a link to some recommended reads for Year 4.

We have had a great start to the year!

Miss Lee

Homework

Spellings, Times table grids and Learn its will be given out every week on a Friday. We will also add them to this webpage each week. 

PE

PE days are Thursdays and Fridays, children may wear PE kit to school on these days. 

Spellings

In year 4 times tables are vital, especially in light of the year 4 national times tables test at the end of the year.

We have been and will continue to teach the times tables in a variety of ways. 

We have been using flashcards (on Powerpoints), rolling numbers and times tables rockstars. 

We have also been using songs to help us.

Here are some to help but others are avialable too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_BJjR9rdwA  (8 times table)

6 Times Table Song (Cover of Shake It Off by Taylor Swift!) - YouTube

7 Times Table Song (Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran) Laugh Along and Learn - YouTube

9 Times Table Song (Brave by Sara Bareilles) Laugh Along and Learn - YouTube

11 Times Table Song (I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas) Laugh Along and Learn - YouTube

In RE, we then looked at Joseph, Jacob's son. This was over two weeks, with looking at his relationship with his brothers and his dremas, before moving onto when he was in Egypt.

The children role played and freeze framed key parts of the story, before writing in their books. 

Year 4 are very lucky to be having drama this term with Pixie.

They've been working in groups and have developing their dramatic skills, as well as playing a range of games to support their learning. 

In RE we moved on from Abraham and Isaac and started to look at Jacob- Isaac's son. We acted out his dream and then drew our own interpretations of it. 

In maths we were working on flexible partitioning of 4 digit numbers.

4356= 4000 + 300+ 50 + 6

       = 3000 + 1300 + 30 + 26

In RE we had been learning about creation and how we are all made in the image and likeness of God. Now we've moved onto the Bible stories of Abraham to Joseph. This last week we have looked at Abraham and God's promise to him, starting from how he was named Abram and moving onto the story of Abraham and Isaac. Below are some examples of the story maps and written work by a few children on this Bible story. 
 

In October we were saying the rosary. As this is the month of Mary but also as our class prayer were the sorrowful msyteries. 

(In September we had learnt the Act of Hope and the Guardian Angel prayer.)

In Literacy as part of our grammar and sentence writing, the children worked in pairs to etend sentences using a range of conjunctions. We looked at becuase, therefore, since, so, amongst others. We moved these around from the middle to the front, and discussed the effectiveness of this. 

As we moved into our new unit of "Jesus teaches us to pray" we acted our the Bible story of Jesus in the temple at age 12. The children were in small groups acting out the story, before later we unpicked in more detail the feelings of Mary, Joseph and Jesus; as well as looking at the different ways Jesus still need to grow before he could start his ministry.

As we came closer to November 11th we designed our poppies, using a range of artistic writing, such as bubble, graffiti, bold to write key words linked to the soldiers, such as brave, hero, love. Here are just a few examples of what we did. 

This week we were looking at Hinduism. We satrted the week by recognising everyone is an unique individual, we should all be respected and treated with kindness. From this we drew images and wrote owrds inside head silhouettes, showing what is personal to us, e.g. religion, nationalities, interests, families, etc.

We were also incredibly lucky and blessed that Aadhya sang a song for us in Hindi. It was incredu=ibly brave to stand up in front of the class, and she translated the story afterwards. AMAZING! 

Over the last couple of weeks we've been adding to our corridor displays. 

In November our prayer for the month was Eternal rest, as we ware in the month of Holy Souls. From this we each created rememberance flowers, writing down the names of those in our families who have passed away. These were then laminated and added into a rememberance garden.

We've also, linked in with our liturgies been thinking about the actions, choices and words we can use to show that our "Hands do the work of the Lord" as well as following in the fotstpes of Christ. We thought and designed hands and feet to reflect this. 

Dodgeball

In music the children have been using a range of percussion instruments to devise small group pieces reflecting a painting as inspiration. The children were in split into 6 groups and given different parts of the painting to translate into music. They were inspired by the circular shapes, the colours and/or mood their part invoked to them as a group. Below are their first compositions. 

As part of national bullying week, we had Odd Socks Day. We used the morning to understand what is bullying and how we must speak up about it, if it's happening to us or we witness it. The class completed different activities; such as: sorting statements about it, what we can do, who we can trust and turn to; as well as an activity to remind us to stop and think before we speak and the importance of kindness. 

In Geography the class has been learning about earthquakes, how they are caused and what happens. 

The children learnt about the Bible story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. They acted it out focusing on what this taught us about Jesus and the emotions of the disciples throughout. 

Attached below is the Powerpoint (saved as a pdf) about the multiplication check that will take place in June. This is for parents who attended or were unable to attend to have some information, plus links to websites to support your children.

●Children can also continue to use Times Table Rockstars to help with this. https://ttrockstars.com/

●MTC Test – URBrainy

●https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check

-https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/

-https://talkingtimestables.uk/y4_ks2_mtc_practice_tests_multiplication_tables_check.php

We learnt more about the faith of Islam. We learnt about Muslim's main beliefs, the pillars and then our focus was on their holy book the Qur'an. We descigned our own front covers and learnt about its importance to Muslims. On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have an imam visitor as part of Key stage 2- to ask questions to develop our understanding. 

We started our new book The Matchbox diary, which tells the story of a great garndfather sharing all the tiny treasures he kept in matchboxes to remember significant or even every day moments in his life. As this was set in the past we analysed photos of upper and lower class people - comparing clothes and discussing how their lives would have been differently, especially on the transatlantic voyage to America from Italy. 

Every Friday we are joining in with the Lenten walk with the whole school, linked with our parish and school Lenten support of CAFOD. This has happened every week this half term including today with World Book day

In science the children have been learning about the different states of matter and also about materials. They carried out various investigations and even preteneded to be different types of particles. 

We had number day where the children were thinking about being safe, numbers in different ways and online safety. They had a go at completing some different number challenges throughout the day. They also came in dressed with numbers on them, some had sports shirts, others had drawn on their clothes different numbers. Very creative

Some of the photos of the children in World Book Day. The children took part in a design the door competition, with the class' door being the BFG. The children worked together to make different parts of the BFG. They also had a go at matching the photo of the staff (as children and babies) to their favourite book. We will find out the results on Monday.

On Thursday Year 4 took part in a national virtual science lesson Factory of the Future with an engineer Matt and his robot, hosted by Stem Learning.  As part of the lesson the children learnt about engineering, vocabulary such as automation and took parts in votes to create a 100% net zero factory (such as by using insulation). They receive an online certificate for their participation.

The children learnt more about the digestive system. They acted out the different body parts, such as  the small intestine – when this is called out, they lay in a long line, head-to-feet. They were the large intestine by making a bridge with a partner and stand in a row with the rest of the class (to make a long, wide tunnel). For sotomach they stood still and madea bubbly movement to show the gases and acid working to break-up the food. Finally, oesophagus they stoodt up straight, and a ball was dropped.

Monday afternoons are now PE and computing. In PE we are working on our ball skills and teacm work, using a rnage of throws and movements to pass the ball. In computing, we are looking at computational thinking, using the programme scratch to break down instructions to create a computer game. 

On Wednesday Julie from Reading Football club came to visit the children. She was explaining about hoe Reading football club has changed over the years, the moving of its location from Elm Park to its current location (and reasons why). She shared her knowledge and directed them children on different activities, including a mini competition.

On Friday the children participated in Stations of the Cross. They went around to each station, heard what happened at each point and had a quiet reflection and prayer time, before moving on. Candles were extinguished at each point until all were off for the end. The children took their booklets, as well as the blessed palm crosses from church that day. 

Please find attached below the Powerpoint and the kit list for Ufton Court. 

If any changes occur, I will update you.