We have been really impressed with the children's independent writing which they started last week and have been editing this week. On Thursday we started our new topic in English based on the Disney short animation Feast, which features a dog. We have loved hearing all about the children's dogs (and other pets). 

In maths we have continued to work on place value including counting in 25s, negative numbers and Roman numerals. Some of the children found these tricky so if you would like to help you could continue to practise these at home. 

In PE we have enjoyed our Interhouse Football Skills Tournament. 

Our spellings this week are the list 6 challenge words:
calendar
appear
believe
grammar
increase
interest
opposite
straight
strength
women.

We hope you all have a good weekend. Next week is Mrs Williams' last week at Appleton so we will make sure it's another good one. 

Ms Griffiths, Mrs Thornton, Mrs Price and Mrs Williams

It's been lovely talking to parents this week about how your children are settling in to Year 4. 

The children have started planning and writing their independent stories based on the Happy Prince and we have been extremely impressed with their ideas and their Steadfast Squirrel and Must Do Mole approach to their writing. We looks forward to seeing how their stories end next week!

In maths our focus has been looking at 1, 10, 100 and 1000 more or less, comparing and ordering 4 digit numbers and rounding to the nearest 1000. They have again impressed us with their tenacious approach to problem solving! 

In Geography we have been finding out about the Awa tribe of the Amazon and how life in Brazil, both urban and rural compares with life in Appleton. 

In RE we have looked at Hindu deities and their stories. In Science they did some fantastic leaf collection to look at how we might classify plants and devised their own keys. We had a spare few moments in which they opted to create their own leaf creatures!

In PE we have been learning about penthalons and the children worked fabulously in their teams to devise their own events and sequences of run, jump and throw. We love their enthusiasm for PE and everyone has worked hard to improve their own personal performance and to contribute to the success of their group. 

Well done to all those who are practising their spellings, timestables and reading regularly at home. We really can see evidence of your reading in your writing so it really helps and we value parents support with this.  Our spellings this week all have the prefix  inter- :

interact
intercity
international
interfere
interview
intercept
intercom
internet
interchange
interface

The children have been working hard on their sentence stacking for our story the Happy Prince and next week we'll be starting to plan and write their own independent stories. This week amongst other things we've looked at personification, the power of three and repetition for effect, apostrophes for possession, dialogue, noun phrases and using our senses to build our descriptions. 

In maths we've been working hard on place value including counting in thousands, partitioning 4-digit numbers and number lines to 10 000.

We had a wet PE lesson on Friday but the children showed great perseverance and steadfast squirrel attitudes with their standing triple jumps. 

Our spellings for this week have the prefix sub-:
submarine
subject
subway
submerge
subtropical
subdivide
subheading
substandard
subtitle
submit

Please help support your child's learning at home by hearing them read/reading with them, helping them learn their times tables and spellings. It was fabulous to hear a child say, "I know what this week's spellings are already because I've been practising them already on Spelling Shed." Extra practise sheets for handwriting and spelling of high frequency words can be found on our Google Classroom pages.

We look forward to seeing you virtually for parents evenings over the next two weeks. 

Our classroom is filling up with all of the children's lovely artwork from the last few weeks, including some drawing of harvest fruit and vegetables that we did on Friday so I have attached a couple of photos. 

We've had another action-packed week in Glyme Class...

The children have done really well in maths - problem solving with rounding to the nearest 10 and 100. In our writing, we have been continuing our sentence stacking about the Happy Prince, looking at alliteration, simile and contracted form e.g. will not to won't. See if your child can remember any examples of these. 

The children continue to wow us with their artwork. In Science the children produced some excellent scientific diagrams of an invertebrate. They have produced some beautiful rainforest artwork and below you will see some of their wonderful self-portraits from last week. 

Our spellings this week include the prefixes il-, im- and ir:
illegal
illegible
immature
immortal
impossible
impatient
imperfect
irregular
irrelevant
irresponsible

It's been another fabulous week of learning in Glyme Class. We did a fabulous job of rounding up our work on Here We Are with some fabulous poems and self portraits (display pictures to follow soon). In science we learned about the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates and went on a minibeast hunt for invertebrates. In PE we have completed our virtual Quad kids athletics activities. We have been extremely impressed with the determination that all of the children have shown and their support for each other. 

On Thursday we began our new text for English: The Happy Prince and the children have done a great job of getting back into their writing. In maths, we have started work on place value. 

Spellings this week are 'in-' words:
inactive
incorrect
invisible
insecure
inflexible
indefinite
inelegant
incurable
inability
inadequate
​ 

We've had a lovely week and a half back at school. We have been enjoying immersing ourselves in our Here We Are work and we have all been very impressed with the children's thoughtfulness in their discussions across a broad range of topics. Last week they chose a favourite memory of a special person or pet and then wrote some very heartfelt letters to their chosen subject. They have also been thinking about how to continue some of the environmental benefits that occurred during lockdown and have produced public health information posters on how to help keep safe and reduce the spread of coronavirus. Yesterday we had some thought provoking discussions about Black Lives Matter. 

We're done some fantastic science: extracting DNA from strawberries last week and this week we were looking at the characteristics of living things which included had a special visit from MRS GREN to teach us all about the 7 life processes. Ask your child if they can remember what they are.

In PE we are practising our technique in athletics. Last week the children took part in various hopscotch challenges and designed their own hopscotch grid for others to try to practise our jumping skills. This week we have been working on our sprint technique and trying to improve our standing long jumps. 

The children's homework this week is to read (daily if possible but at least 3 times a week), to practise their timestables using TTRockstars and to use Spelling Shed to practise their spellings. Their weekly spellings are homophones, which we have discussed in class: 

peace
piece
not
knot
whether 
weather
except 
accept
plane
plain

Spellings will be tested on Wednesdays. 

Some photos below of the children striking some poses in the manner in which they would like Oliver Jeffers to draw them.

​We hope you all have a lovely weekend. 

It has been lovely having the children back in school and they have been settling in really well to the new routines in Year 4. I was having a few technical hitches last week but photos of last week's DNA science and hopscotch PE will be posted later this week. 

Here is our welcome letter and presentation. Long term planning for the year can be found on our class web page (please note, this may be subject to change) appleton.oxon.sch.uk/glyme-year-4.html. This is also where class updates will be posted. 

We are looking forward to the year ahead! 

Welcome letter

Welcome presentation








​

As we were unable to take part in our annual Sports Evening this year due to Lockdown, we continued with our physical activity at home. We took part in National School Sports Week where there were lots of different challenges to try which were organised by the Youth Sport Trust and Sky Sports. Children and families across the country took part and it was great to see so many of our school community getting involved. Well done to each and every one of you for showing excellent commitment to being physically active and supporting our work as an Active School. Take a look at some of the photos from the challenges:

This week we've been busy rehearsing for our play 'Pirates vs Mermaids'. We've been very impressed with how well the children are doing with learning their lines and song lyrics. 

The class seem to be really embracing Times Table Rockstars, which is fantastic. All this additional times table enthusiasm will hopefully help us with our fluency in maths. This week and last week we have been working on division using partitioning to help us and moving onto bus stop method of division. We also looked at correspondence problems, for example, if an ice cream seller has 4 different types of ice cream and 3 different sauces, how many different combinations could they make? Ask your child if they can teach you how to use the bus stop method. 

We have been planning and writing our own stories in English based on the Great Chocoplot. Next week we will be editing these. We've also been working on our use of paragraphs and apostrophes to show possession. 

In PE we've been practising our basketball skills - following on from our session with Danny Taylor last week looking at ball handling, this week we focused on passing using chest and bounce passes. 

On World Book Day we enjoyed sharing our books with year 1 and 2 and some time together in the library. 

In RE we have been learning about the last supper and thinking about why Jesus washed his disciples feet.

Our spellings this week are using the 'au' digraph making an /aw/ sound:
naughty
caught
fraught
automatic
astronaut
cause
author
applaud
taught
audience

 

This week we have been hard on multiplication looking at efficient strategies and using different written methods for multiplying 2 by 1 digit numbers. We have been using place value charts, expanded written multiplication and short multiplication. 
 
In English our focus has been on use of colons to write lists, developing dialogue and using questions to write a cliffhanger. 

We have begun rehearsals for our play 'Pirates verses Mermaids' and have even been using our samba moves from PE to choreograph a dance for the play. In RE we have continued to think about pilgrimage and in PSHE we have been writing our hopes and dreams. 

In science we have been investigating the speed at which sounds travels. 

Our spellings this week are:
serious
obvious
curious
hideous
spontaneous
courteous
furious
various
victorious
gaseous

We hope you all have a happy and safe half term holiday and we look forward to seeing you next term.