We have had a busy and productive half term in Literacy! The children have enjoyed exploring a range of class texts, with a specific focus on sharpening their inference skills. It has been wonderful to hear their thoughtful answers to "why" and "how" questions during our shared reading and Storytime sessions.

To strengthen our technical writing, we have been recapping spelling patterns, prepositions, and punctuation rules. The students also showed great creativity writing from different characters' perspectives. Finally, to link with International Week, the children have been working hard on creating fact files about Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest.

Maths

In maths we have learnt about shape. We recapped different 2D shapes and discussed the difference between regular and irregular shapes. Then we learnt about different types of angles. We learnt about an angle we hadn’t been taught before, a reflex angle. We then moved on our learning on to working out the perimeter and area of a 2D shape. Finally, later in the term we looked at interpreting different types of data including bar charts and pictograms. One of the most important things when reading data is to remember to look at the key.

Geography

In our geography topic, Year 4 have been learning about Rivers. We visited the River Lea at Cody Dock as a part of our geography topic on rivers. We learnt that the River Lea is a tributary river as it flows into the River Thames. During the visit, the children explored how the River Lea (and Thames) has changed over a long period of time. The children discussed the purposes of rivers and how these have evolved over time. We explored the features of a river, such as: source, meander, delta, tributaries and mouth.

In literacy we have been learning about poetry. We explored different poems and studied poetic features such as metaphors, similes and personification. We used our innovation skills to create our own poems about courage. We thought about how we could overcome fear and how showing courage can make the future brighter. Every child showed resilience while performing their poem in front of their class and each class chose a winner. Congratulations to Xavier (4O), Teigan-Lei (4S) Amara (4DLR) and Ariah (4T) who were the Year 4 winners!

Maths

In maths this half term, we have learnt about the value of decimal points. We learnt how to convert decimals and fractions and solved a range of reasoning problems involving decimals. We also recapped the four operations and progressed to adding and subtracting with decimal numbers. We have learnt how to use column multiplication to help us solve problems with 2 and 3 digit numbers. We have used the skill of ‘striving for success’ to learn our times tables. More and more children have been achieving their silver and gold awards and many children have now begun the platinum challenge!

Topic 

In our geography lessons, Year 4 has been delving into the topic of Rivers. We have covered various aspects, including:

• The water cycle
• The features of a river
• The land use in both urban and rural areas
• How rivers can transform over time

We investigated the processes of erosion, transportation, and deposition through various activities, both in the classroom and during our time at Forest School. This year, we are excited to participate in the River of Hope project, where we will focus on ways to protect our local rivers.

This term in literacy, we have been researching our local area to write a non-chronological report all about Newham. First, we learnt about the different features of non-chronological reports and then used our teamwork skills to research different aspects of Newham. We applied our knowledge about reports into our writing and then edited and improved our writing to create a final draft. Each class has also begun reading our first whole class text; Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo, Cyborg Cat: Rise of the Parsons Road Gangby Ade Adepitan, The Sleeping Sword by Michael Morpurgo, and The BFG by Roald Dahl. In our reading lessons we have been learning to read with fluency and expression, as well as practising our prediction skills and writing character descriptions.

Maths

In maths, we have been focusing on place value. This has included how to round a number to the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000, multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1,000, and finding different ways to represent numbers. We have begun to look in more depth at estimating. We used our place value knowledge to develop strategies for estimating amounts and have been having different competitions to see who can make the most accurate estimates. The times table are really important in Year 4 so we spent some time looking for patterns and making connections between the different times tables. We had to be resilient when looking at different types of challenges and questions in lessons.

Topic

During our history topic, year 4 have been studying the Romans. We have used our history skills to place key events on a timeline and come up with different questions we would like to find the answers to. We have also learned about the origins of Rome and began to look at features of Roman society. We enjoyed a Roman Theatre Show at the end of term delivered by the Freshwater Drama Company. This included a Roman show for us to watch and two workshops about what life was like in Roman Britain. In art, we looked at Roman mosaics and designed and made our own. In computing, we used our teamwork skills to create presentations about the Romans. This was done in groups with every member of the team in charge of a different slide.

In literacy this half term we have continued to read different class texts. We have focused on our inference skills this term. During literacy lessons and in Storytime we have thought about different inference questions whilst reading. In grammar we have been recapping different word class and learnt that some words, such as dance, can be different word classes depending on the sentence. In our writing lessons we have written character descriptions and diary entries based on our class texts.

Maths

In maths we have learnt about shape. We recapped different 2D shapes and discussed the difference between regular and irregular shapes. Then we learnt about different types of angles. We learnt about an angle we hadn’t been taught before, a reflex angle. Later in the term we looked at interpreting different types of data including bar charts and pictograms. One of the most important things when reading data is to remember to look at the key. Finally, we moved on to learning how to tell the time. We learnt about anal