Year 4 Blog 2024/25

 This week the children were introduced to a topographic map and its key. They then used a topographic map of the United Kingdom to identify its landscape as well as zooming into The Lake District. The children enjoyed playing games to find places on the map and identifying that the north snd west of The United Kingdom are very hilly but the east and south are mainly flat, thus, there is a bigger population there.  Using knowledge from year three, they looked at how the mountains were formed (tectonic plates) and how glaciers could have formed the u shaped valleys found in the Lake District . 

 Today in Computing we learned how to programme a sprite in Scratch to draw a shape by creating and running code. We had to think carefully about the algorithm that we chose and had to select the values that would accurately draw our chosen shape. We then used repetition to simplify the code and repeat instructions. 

Today we learnt about the Buddhist festival of Bodhi Day. This day falls in December each year and marks the day that Siddhartha Gautama reached enlightenment and became the icon we now know as Buddha. Buddhists around the world may mark this festival by meditating, spending time in prayer, eating special meals and decorating fig trees. The traditional way to decorate a fig tree for Bodhi Day is to put colored lights and strings of beads through the branches to symbolize how we are all united: from the smallest ant to the largest tree.  In acknowledgement of this unity, we made our own string of beads for our class Christmas tree, using edible ingredients. I'm sure you will agree they look amazing. 

Today was Be Internet Legends Day 2024. The children had a special online assembly to celebrate, where they learned about the importance of being kind online.  Being Internet Kind is one of the pillars of online safety and is an important part of creating a safe and valuable space online. Please use this experience to talk with your child about the importance of online safety and kindness online and to ask them what they would do if they were to experience unkindness. 

 This week in PSHE, Year 4 have been discussing stereotypes and just how common they are in society. WE mind-mapped out lots of common stereotypes we see day to day and how they can impact on others. We spoke about how certain stereotypes can have a very negative impact on how certain groups of people are seen in their daily lives.  

Running has been the key theme for Year 4 this week.  We first looked at technique needed for turning on the boards and how we need to adapt our speed in order to do this successfully.  We did also continue our use of the wheelchairs and focussed on how to pace into different spaces. Once this had been practiced, we got to work in our 4x4 and 2x2 relay groups. Take a look!

 This week the children recapped their learning from the previous week and then they played, ‘Where in the world?’. Then they looked at various photos and aerial views of the Lake District to help them identify that there are many mountains as well as rivers located there. Did you know that all the land in England that is above 910 metres is found in the Lake District? Of course, the highest mountain in England is found there; Scafell Pike.  Using maps of the Lake District the children located different mountains and rivers using their 4 grid reference numbers. The children were amazing at this so they used Ordnance Survey Maps of Cowes to see if they could find the school and its grid reference. 

In the topic all about pocket money, Year 3 revised numbers 1 - 20. They practised saying numbers to 39 , singing a numbers song to  practise further. They did a number of different activities including creating numbers with their partners using number fans. They then added different numbers.