Week 4 – Supertato
This week our focus book is Supertato! We have been learning more about different fruits and vegetables and how they can help us to follow a healthy diet. We really enjoyed listening to the story and then adding actions for the different characters. In the classroom evil pea had been busy and had trapped lots of different fruit and vegetables onto our writing table. We wrote speech bubbles so they could get some help.
We decided that we would like to create our own Supertato. We carefully choose different materials and thought carefully about how we could make them stick to a potato!
The evil pea was causing so much trouble in the classroom we decided to build some traps so we could catch the pea! It was a tough job but we worked together and made some amazing traps.
This week we have learnt more about primary and secondary colours. We investigated what happened when you mixed two primary colours together.
Dates for your diary:
Friday 3 February – funky fingers stay & play. We hope you can all join us in the classroom to discover more about how we build muscle strength in out hands.
W/B 6 February – early years writing zoom. A pre recorded zoom presentation will be sent out to all families discussing writing in the early years setting.
As always please keep reading at home. The children love sharing their e-books with you all.
Mrs Payne
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help.
This half-term, we have been regularly talking about who we can go to for help/advice. We have also discussed some potential reasons why someone may seek help, as pupils can sometimes be unaware of whether they should seek support.
To recap our learning, here’s the list of people that we came up with to go to if we need help:
- A trusted adult – This could be a teacher, a safeguarding officer, a parent or someone else at home.
- A friend – It’s always ok to ask a good friend for advice if you need to.
- Childline 0800 11 11 – If you struggle to express your concerns in person, you can call ChildLine at any time, day or night, and have a conversation on the phone.
- Write it down and post it in a worry box at school – This is a good way of expressing your concerns/worries if you are uncomfortable speaking out.
Help at home:
Please give your child opportunity to discuss any worries or concerns they may have. Children have the opportunity to do this in our Circle Time sessions at school, which they enjoy and benefit from.
Amazing Writing
Wow! Year 3 have been doing some writing to be proud of this week! We continued with our recount learning and imagined we had experienced a volcanic eruption! Our R2S were, fronted adverbials, conjunctions and expanded noun phrases.
I’m sure you will agree the results were impressive!
Maths: What is perimeter?
Today, in maths, we’ve learned about perimeter.
We firstly experimented using Magformers to create rectilinear shapes (shapes shaped like a rectangle) and counted the distance around the edge in squares. We then took our learning up a level and created more complicated shapes.
Ashton, Noah, James, Kamile and Summer were especially brilliant at working out the area by counting the squares but the whole class did a super job too!
Take a look at some of the children’s reflections the children noted at the end of our maths lesson…
It’s a dragon!
This week our focus story has been Zog by Julia Donaldson. The children have enjoyed exploring our Zog themed provision, here’s what we have been getting up to!
We did our first science experiment! The foaming dragon. The children watched how the baking soda reacted with the vinegar to create a fizzing foam.
It exploded out of the dragons mouth-Gracie
Red dragon- Hunter
It’s got circles and triangles, the circle is the dragons head- Cora
It’s got lots of spikes- George
Zog wanted to help the princess be a doctor-Austin
Here is a link so you can enjoy watching Zog at home with your child/children ….
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip
Next week is all about DINOSAURS, so make sure you bring your stomping feet! RAHHH
Miss Ward
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help.
Over the last two weeks in Living and Learning with Mrs Bald, we’ve been learning how to keep safe by assessing our risks and seeking help from someone we trust.
In the first lesson, we thought about lots of different risks in our homes and we discussed solutions to stay safe in high risk situations. Have a look at our fantastic ideas here!
In our second lesson, we thought about who might be able to help us stay safe. We talked about our trusted adults being able to keep us safe at home and in school. We also talked about Childline, a service for children and young people when support or advice is needed. We memorised their number 0800 1111 using actions.
Geography: Mount Vesuvius
Today, we’ve learned about yet another volcano – Italy’s Mount Vesuvius…
…but it’s not the geography learning I was massively impressed by (although the geography learning was fab, too!).
I’ve been blown away by the children’s HANDWRITING! It’s been great tracking back to September to see how much we’ve all improved.
We often think that handwriting is something to only think about when we first learn to write but now it’s more about our general presentation, formation of letters and personal style that’s at the forefront.
Some children are coming home with a copy of their handwriting to show off at home! Great job, Year 4!
Living and Learning: I know how to seek help.
This week in our living and learning session, we have been thinking about knowing how to seek help.
We listened to an NSPCC assembly learning all about the work they do and we learnt actions to help us remember the Childline phone number. (08001111)
We thought about the word seek and practised our seeking skills – looking for the shapes that Buddy (the speechmark character from our NSPCC assembly) had lost.
We thought about who could turn to if we needed help. We discussed who could turn to if we needed help and who our safe adults were both at home and at school.
Science: waterproof or absorbent?
In our Science lessons, we’ve been exploring everyday materials such as wood, metal, plastic and fabric. This week, we’ve thought about paper and the ability to soak up water.
We performed a simple test, pouring some water onto different types of paper. If the paper soaked up water, this means that it is absorbent. If the paper didn’t soak up water, it was waterproof.
We found out that kitchen roll is absorbent, which is why it is good for cleaning up mess! We also found out that the greaseproof paper was waterproof, which is why it is good for cooking.
We talked about the wrapping paper being waterproof. However, Miss Kay had brought in three different types of wrapping paper to share. We found out that not all wrapping paper is waterproof!
Multiplying in Maths
By the end of Year 4, children are expected to know all multiplication tables
to 12 x 12 and recall the corresponding division facts. Using knowledge of
multiplication calculations, children will begin to use formal written methods to record their work, including the use of arrays. At home, you can support your child by practising reciting multiplication tables, ensuring your child can recall them and the corresponding division facts.
Today, some children used place value counters to help to multiply a two digit number by a one digit number.
34 x 4 =
4 lots of 34 =
Once the counters were in the correct place value rows, we looked to see whether we could exchange 10 ones for 1 ten and 10 tens for 1 hundred. Finally, we added up the total and wrote the answer. Can your child explain this to you?
Recently, the class have been exploring how to multiply by 10, 100 and 1,000. When multiplying by 10, children need to be able to visualise making a number 10 times the size and understand that “10 times the size” is the same as “multiply by 10”.
Key questions
• What do you notice when multiplying by 10?
• What is a placeholder? When do you use placeholders?
• What happens to the digits in a number when you multiply
by 10?
• What is multiplied by 10?
• What is 10 lots of ?
Help, to multiply by 10, at home by using this example changing the numbers each time.
7 × 10 = 70
10 × 7 = 70
70 is 10 times the size of 7
Is the statement always true, sometimes true or never true?
If you write a whole number in a place value chart and multiply it
by 10, all the digits move one column to the left.
Discuss this with your child. Can they recall the learning done in class?
