Welcome to Year 4!
We have had a great start to the new school year, with lots of fun and interesting learning being had as well as exciting things planned for the rest of the autumn term, including a trip to Colchester Castle! We have been looking at the Romans across the curriculum including; writing, guided reading and history. We have even managed to squeeze it into our maths by looking at Roman numerals!
Year 4 Autumn 1 Weekly Spellings
Maths
In our maths sessions, we began by looking at place value. We started with three-digit numbers and used our place value charts to find out the value of each number. We then looked at different ways we could appropriately represent these numbers, such as using manipulatives and creating our own symbols/images. We have been practising using number lines and working out the sequence in which it is going up in, by working out the start and end number and how many intervals there are. After that, we moved onto rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000, with the help of a number line. It is important that when we are rounding, we are able to first identify the previous and next multiple of 10, 100 or 1000. When rounding to the nearest 10, we need to look at the value of the ones, for 100 we look at the tens and for 1000 we look at the hundreds. We came up with the rhyme; 0-4, drop to the floor, 5-9 climb the vine! This helps us to work out whether a number needs to be rounded up or down. For example, 132 has 3 tens, which means we need to ‘drop to the floor’ (round down) and so 132 rounded to the nearest 100 is 100.
Reading
We began the term by reading the non-fiction book, ‘Roman Soldiers’ by Tegen Evans, where we were able to find out what the duties of a Roman soldier may look like, the criteria they needed to fit before even being considered to join the army, the tactics they used when in battle and how the army was formed. We looked specifically at the choice of vocabulary used within the book and discussed how this can affect the meaning of words. In addition to that, we used our retrieval skills to apply this newly learned knowledge to support our writing. We have since moved onto Boudica and the, ‘Queen of Darkness’, where we will delve into how the queen became an historical figure and her link to Colchester.
Our Autumn learning in action!
Times Tables!
Children have recently completed the Summer Mock MTC on TTRS. The children have been working really hard to make progress with their times tables and are improving each day.
Please make sure that you encourage your child to complete a soundcheck each day at home!
Below you can find the key information for the Multiplication Tables Check.
Science
In science, we have been looking at sounds and how they are all made from vibrations. We talked about how they travel from the medium to the ear through the air, whilst also travelling through solids, and liquids. We recognised that sounds can get fainter the farther away they are and in turn can get louder, the closer they are. Our big questions for this half term are, How can we make loud sounds quieter? How can we soundproof? How can we muffle sound? In order to answer these questions, we are going to carry out our own practical enquiry by making our own ear defenders, considering the most appropriate materials to use. We are going to see how far we can travel before we are unable to hear the sound.