Year 4

10^th January 2025

Happy New Year to you all. We hope you all had a good break over Christmas and are ready for the term ahead. Many thanks for your gifts to all the staff in Year 4 - very gratefully received and enjoyed by us all. 

We are already busy in the classroom and have started studying our new class text, The Saga of Erik the Viking by Terry Jones.  If anyone had has a copy of this book at home, please bring it to class. 

This term where we will learn about life in Britain after the Roman withdrawal in our Invasion topic.  Year 4 will investigate what attracted invaders to Britain, looking in more detail at both Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions.  Through a separate geography topic, Interconnected World, we will be learning about compass points, grid references and putting our map reading skills into practice. The children will identify physical features in the United Kingdom and learn about the National Rail and canal networks.  Our trip to Painshill on the 6th February will be an exciting opportunity to put our new found knowledge to the test for both topics.

In maths, we have started interrogating and reading graphs.  Thank you for the feedback on the word problems included in the maths homework over Christmas. We have been through the homework in the class and I hope that the children feel a little more confident in breaking down word problems and working through them with more confidence.  

Congratulations to this weeks Star of the Week, Anna Nobel-Ardelean.

Spellings:

This week’s spelling rule is ‘plural possessive apostrophes with plural words’:

• girls' / boys’ / babies’ / parents’ / teachers’ / women’s / men’s / children’s / people’s / mice’s

Homework:

Maths: Atom homework.  Please complete by Thursday 16^th January.

Comprehension: Please complete the dated comprehension exercise on Page 13  of the Comprehension Homework Books.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

19^th December 2024

What a beautiful Carol Service the children delivered last night, I hope you all agree that the children all performed brilliantly.  I thought it was a wonderful way to end this term and start the festive holidays. 

Our busy last week started with a fantastic morning baking our healthy gingerbread cookies.  I hope that some of them made it home for you to taste!  Thank you so much to Mrs Nobel-Ardelean who came in to help us with our Master Chef creations.

After finishing our class book, we have enjoyed reading Katherine Rundell’s The Christmas Wish this week to get us in the Christmas spirit.  Looking ahead to next term, our class book will be The Saga of Eric the Viking by Terry Jones.  If you have a copy at home, or you would like to purchase a copy, the children often find it helpful to follow a copy of the text as we read.

We have completed our maths topic on multiplication and division this week. The children have worked really hard to master multiplication and division of 3-digit numbers.  We have learnt that it is helpful to have a multiplication square close by to check our multiplication facts as we work so I have attached one if your children would like to have a hard copy to use at home.

Our trip to the pantomime on Tuesday was a huge success, the children (and I!) all had a brilliant time.  Thank you to all the parents who were able to come and help, it is lovely to be able to share the fun with you.

Thank you for the gifts and cards we have received. We know that you too are busy and appreciate the effort you go to on our behalf.

Spellings:

We didn’t get chance to look at last week’s spelling, so please just refresh them over the holidays ready for the start of term 3.

interest, experiment, material, minute, increase, potatoes, favourite, imagine, promise, opposite.

Homework:  I am sending home in a folder a review sheet for our multiplication and division topic we have just completed.  The children are familiar with these as we complete them at the end of every topic, but please do support them if needed.  Please return them on the first day of next term.

Congratulations to this term’s Head Teacher’s Award winners, Kitty Whitewood and Raphy Osher.

Wishing you a pleasant and peaceful Christmas.

Mrs Chapman

13^th December 2024

Only four days left before the Christmas holidays!  Year 4 are very much looking forward to our trip to the pantomime on Tuesday to see Snow White, and also our Carol Service on Wednesday.  It’s going to be a busy, but fun, festive week.

Year 4 have had a busy week learning all about the states of matter.  I have been very impressed with everyone’s enthusiasm for exploring how the arrangement of particles defines properties of a material.  We started the week looking at different materials and classifying them into the correct state of matter.  Today we ended the week with some experiments to observe how temperature can change the state of a material.  The children have recorded their findings in a data table and will create a line graph to compare their results.

In maths this week we have moved on from multiplication and are learning how to divide two and three digit numbers using partitioning and the ‘bus stop’ method.

The children have completed their own, original, versions of The Gingerbread Man this week.  The Gingerbread Man has overcome all kinds of challenges, and even visited the beach and the mountains!  You’ll be glad to hear that in many of the retellings, the Gingerbread Man survived and often outsmarted the greedy fox.

Spellings:

This week’s spelling words are challenge words from the statutory spelling list.

interest, experiment, material, minute, increase, potatoes, favourite, imagine, promise, opposite.

Homework:  This week there is Maths and English homework on ATOM.  As it is a short week next week, it would be great if these could be completed by Wednesday.

Congratulations to this week’s Star of the Week, Raphy Osher.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

6^th December 2024

December already!  Time is flying in Year 4.

We started our week with a fantastic online music and movement workshop with cast members from The Lion King.  The workshop, hosted by the V&A Museum, invited us to step into the world of The Lion King, imagining ourselves on the African Savannah, exploring movement, rhythm, and creativity. It was the perfect way to start our new PE topic, dance, and gave us the opportunity to connect with the magic of performance, while building confidence and characterisation skills.

This week in maths have continued to apply our multiplication skills and have learnt some impressive skills in column multiplication.

In English this week we have focused on the punctuation needed to indicate that someone is speaking in our writing, and also exploring synonyms for ‘said’ so we can tell more about the character that is speaking.  We have practiced our skills by responding to speech from the story of The Gingerbread Man, and next week will attempt to write our own versions of the classic tale.  I am expecting some exciting plot twists!

Spellings:

This week’s spelling rule is ‘words with ‘ough’ to make the long /o/, /oo/ or /or/ sound.

although, through, thought, bought, brought, though, dough, breakthrough, fought, ought.

Homework: 

This week there is maths homework on ATOM. 

This week’s English homework is to complete the first comprehension exercise in the children’s new comprehension homework books. We have looked at the books together in the classroom and so the children should be familiar with the layout and type of questions. 

Please complete all homework and return the comprehension by Thursday 12^th December.

Congratulations to this week’s Star of the Week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

29^th November 2024

This week in maths we have started our next chapter in Maths No Problem.  We are continuing to explore multiplication and division, but further develop our mastery to help us answer more complex questions.  We started this week revising the law of commutativity, can the children explain what it means to be commutative?

In English this week we have been focusing on the structure of different types of sentences, simple, compound and complex.  The children created their own superhero and used them for inspiration to write sentences to include both main and subordinate clauses.  We have also learnt some amusing acronyms to help us remember the different coordinating and subordinate conjunctions.

We have started a new topic, Fresh Food, Good Food, looking at food decay and investigating a range of ways to preserve food to keep in fresh.  Today, we discussed what makes some foods heathier than others and created some healthy snacks to share too.  Before preparing the food Year 4 revised the food hygiene rules for handling and preparing food, clean hands and workstations were top of everyone’s lists!

Congratulations to Freddie Mowat who is this weeks Star of the Week (photo to follow).

Spellings:

This week’s spelling rule is ‘words with /shun/ sound spelt with ‘cian’ (if root wood ends in ‘c’ or ‘cs)

Musician, electrician, magician, politician, technician, mathematician, dietician, statistician, clinician, beautician.  

Homework: This week there is Maths and English homework on ATOM.  Please try and complete it by Thursday 5^th December.

I’m looking forward to seeing you all at the Christmas Fair on Saturday,

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

22^nd November 2024

What a fantastic day we had at Bore Place on Wednesday.  I hope that the children have been able to share some of their stories, highlights included digging for worms, meeting the calves, creating bug hotels and discovering a badger set.  It was a chilly day, but we all enjoyed spending the day outside exploring our local ecosystems and investigating how best we can protect them.

This week the children have used their scientific knowledge about human digestive system to write some outstanding narratives imagining themselves as a piece of food on its journey.  As you can imagine there have been some very interesting tales about the terror of being sliced and chomped in the mouth and travels through the oesophagus.  I have been impressed by the children’s imagination and their use of descriptive language.

In maths we are continuing to look at division, exploring different ways that we can create, and use, our knowledge of the inverse to understand multiplication and division problems.  The children have enjoyed creating multiplication fact families; maybe they could share some with you?

Year 4 turned into scientists this week, planning, carrying out and writing up their own experiments to investigate the effectiveness of toothpaste in preventing tooth decay. They have used to represent teeth because their shells are made from a similar material and vinegar to model the effect of acid on tooth enamel.  I hope that the children can share some of their findings with you over the weekend.

Congratulations to this week’s Star of Week, Emily Robinson, and also to Bodie Wilkinson who was last week’s Star of the Week.  Huge congratulations also go to Charlotte, Victoria and Freddie C who all were commended for their fantastic collage portraits!

Spellings: Words with /shun/ sound spelt with ‘tion’ (if root word ends in ‘te’, ‘t’, or has no definitive root).

Intervention, action, question, position, solution

Injection, mention, attraction, translation, devotion

Homework: This week there is Maths homework on Atom.

                    Comprehension homework: I am also sending a comprehension home in the children’s school comprehension books.  This is a one off as we have some comprehension homework books arriving soon that will be used for homework.  Please ensure that the comprehension books are returned to school by Tuesday 26^th November at the latest.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

15^th November 2024

It was lovely to see so many of you on Wednesday evening for parent consultations.  I am looking forward to seeing more of you next week.   Next Wednesday (20^th) we will be visiting Bore Place, please check the email from the school office for the details.

We started our week with a special service of remembrance in the church.  The children were interested to learn more about the importance of Remembrance Day and wrote some very moving prayers in reflection.

The children have researched and written some Fact Files on ecosystems, looking at climate, landscape, habitats and food chains.  They included some careful scientific conclusions about the potential impacts of both human and natural events.  We chose to create our fact files on laptops in Word and I have been very impressed by the children’s computing skills.

We have started looking at the human digestive system following a piece of food through the human body learning about the function of each organ, and the processes that take place within them. Next week we will be exploring this further, imagining ourselves as a piece of food and writing a story about our journey through the human body, I’m expecting some interesting tales!

This afternoon, we have looked in detail at the importance of looking after our teeth.  I’m sure that your children can tell you all about our experiment, but I will attach some photographs below for you to share our fun!

We were having so much fun brushing our teeth we ran out of time to announce our Star of Week, I promise to present it on Monday.

Spellings: Words with /shun/ sound spelt with ‘sion’ (if root word ends in ‘se’, ‘de’, or ‘d’).

discussion, confession, admission, profession, impression

Expression, permission, transmission, possession, depression

Homework: This week there is Maths and Science homework on Atom. 

Times Tables: This weeks musical times table practice was accompanied by Taylor Swift! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rYbk9PNuM.  Do encourage your children to keep up with the general practice on TTRS please.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

8^th November 2024

Welcome to Term 2!  The children have all settled back into the classroom with enthusiasm this week, I have really enjoyed hearing about their adventures over half term.  Thank you for everyone’s portraits, they are fabulous.  I may be biased, but I think the Year 4 gallery is definitely the best!

We started this week with an exciting visit from the Bishop Luzineth from Bondeni, our partner school in Tanzania.  The Bishop explained to us how the money raised by Chiddingstone School is making a difference to the children at Bondeni School, and even delivered some letters from the students.

In maths this week we have started a new chapter and are concentrating on multiplication and division.  We have revised some of the vocabulary used in multiplication, and delved into multiples of 6 and 7.  This morning we practiced our 7 times tables with a little help from The Jungle Book - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbObO-BkUY !

We have started one of our new topics looking at ecosystems, food chains and food webs.  The children have done some fantastic research and have been asking themselves some complex scientific questions about the impact of human and natural activities on various ecosystems.  I have planned to take Year 4 on a school trip to Bore Place on Wednesday 20^th November to explore some local ecosystems and animal habitats.  You will receive an email with all the details.

Congratulations to this weeks Star of the Week, Bella Bolton.

Spellings: Words with /shun/ sound spelt with ‘sion’ (if root word ends in ‘se’, ‘de’, or ‘d’).

extension, comprehension, tension, supervision, conclusion

expansion, corrosion, fusion, persuasion, suspension

Homework: There will be no Atom homework this week. 

The children have been given some practice sheets for their 7 times tables.  I would like the children to have a go and return the worksheets by Wednesday 13^th November please. Copies have also been attached.

Times Tables: Keep up with the practice on TTRS please!  It’s definitely paying off.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

18^th October 2024

This week brings us to the end of a busy first term in Year 4, well done to all the children.  I am so happy with the way everyone has settled into Year 4, and am pleased with all the hard work and commitment everyone has shown.

We have celebrated our final week of term 1 with our fantastic Forest School session with Mrs Woodhouse.  The children built their own looms out of natural materials, and created some decorative weaving.  Some looms were a little longer lasting than others, but we all learnt about the importance of creating a strong structure! 

This week the children have completed their narrative writing task, creating their own myths around their own mythical creatures.  Every single child has worked incredibly hard, and the quality of the writing produced is fantastic.  I extremely proud of all of them.  Today we have shared our myths with our classmates and Mrs Haysom popped in to hear them too.

Next term we move onto our new topics, Food and the Digestion System, States of Matter and Fresh Food, Good Food.  We will be delving into the world of science to discover more about our digestion system, healthy food choices, food preservation and characteristic properties of different materials.

Our class book for next term will be The Great (Food) Bank Heist by Onjali Q. Rauf. This book gives a child’s-eye view of the increasing problem of food poverty, and of course a mystery for the main characters to solve.  If anyone has a copy of the book, or would like to purchase a copy, please do send them in with your child (named) so they can follow the story as we read.

Congratulations to this terms Headteacher Award winners, Josie and Georgie.

Spellings: Year 3 and 4 Statutory Spellings

Please take some time over the holiday to look at the Year 3 and 4 Statutory Spellings.  I have attached the list for your information.

Homework: There will be no Atom homework over half term.  I would like the children to practice using a dictionary to create their own glossary for one of our new topics, Food and the Digestion System.  The children have been given a hard copy of the homework sheet, but I will also attach it at the bottom of this update just in case. 

Times Tables: When we return after the holidays, we will be completing the next TTRS ‘Gig’.  Please do not complete this at home, but do encourage your children to keep practicing their times tables.  Other good online games include:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button and https://www.topmarks.co.uk/times-tables/coconut-multiples .

Half Term Art Competition: Create your own self-portrait in collage with newspaper print! All the details are in this weeks newsletter.

I hope everyone has a restful half term,

Mrs Chapman

11^th October 2024

We have had a busy week in Year 4! 

The children have written some fantastic instructions for rescuing Helen of Troy using all our instructional writing techniques that we learnt last week.  I have been hugely impressed by the challenging vocabulary the children included.  We have started our task, creating our own mythical creatures that will feature in our own myths.

In Maths we have continue to look at the addition of numbers up to 10,000.  The children are growing in confidence in column addition, and this week we have started to look at using our number bonds to 10, 100 and 100 to help us answer some addition problems using some mental maths.

Mr Miles returned on Tuesday and showed us how to complete our labyrinths in Scratch.  The children then used their coding skills to move an animal around their labyrinths next week!

I have been so impressed with everyone’s weaving. We appear to have a class full of expert weavers!   As we had to cancel this week’s planned weaving forest school session, this will now happen next Tuesday.

Spellings: Words with /shun/ endings spelt with ‘sion’ (if root word ends in ‘se’, ‘de’ or ‘d’)

Spelling test: division, erosion, invasion, television, explosion

Challenge words: confusion, decision, collision, revision, inclusion

Homework: Maths and English homework has been set on Atom Learning.

If anyone is having problems logging into, or accessing the Atom homework please let me know.

Times Tables: The children did brilliantly completing their times table grids today.  Keep up the hard work with TTRS, and ask the children would to share today’s song with you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCSKln_Gzc!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

4^th October 2024

What a fantastic Harvest celebration we had at the start of the week, thank you for all of your generous donations and to the children for the creative envelope designs.

In English this week we have looked at what literacy techniques we can use to help us write effective instructions. This week’s English homework will allow us to try out some of these before we write some of our instructions next week.  The children enjoyed testing how a story might change over time with our own game of ‘Chinese Whispers’, I’m sure they will enjoy telling you how it went!

In Maths we have started exploring addition of numbers up to 10,000.  The children started with exploring the vocabulary we might see that tells us that we are looking at an addition question.  We have also been using bar models and place value counters to show how we add larger numbers together.

Mr Miles has helped us start to create a labyrinth in Scratch during our computing lessons this week, we are looking forward to seeing if we can move around our labyrinths next week!

Finally, this week we have started our Warp and Weft topic.  The children have enjoyed learning about the importance of weaving over different periods of history and put their new skills into practice today (I have attached some images below).  Next Tuesday we will head out into the woods to use our new weaving skills in a forest school session with Mrs Woodhouse.

Spellings: Homophones and near homophones

Spelling test: missed/mist, scene/seen, which/witch

Challenge words: medal/meddle, board/bored

Homework: Maths and English homework has been set on Atom Learning.

Well done to everyone for having a go at last weeks homework!

Times Tables: Keep up the hard work on TTRS!  I can see that lots of you have been playing the Garage game and your scores are fabulous.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

27^th September 2024

This week in English we have been exploring a poem about daydreaming, imagining ourselves as Greek Gods.  The children have written some fantastic poems describing the features and attributes of different Greek Gods.  This afternoon the children have enjoyed presenting their poems to their classmates.

In maths we have now finished our chapter exploring numbers to 10,000, and investigating different ways to round and estimate. Next week we will be starting to explore addition and subtraction within 10,000.

The children did brilliantly in our times table grids this morning, everyone has been working hard to master the times tables they are unsure of.  After our grid we showed off our rapping skills with McGrammar to practise our 4 times tables – here is the link if the children would like to show off their new talents to you!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL-vLcjVj5o

We have been looking at the importance of pottery in Ancient Greece, investigating images of Greek plates, pots and patterns to understand the designs.  The children used pencils to make sketches of their own pots including meanders and scenes from myths and legends covered during the project.

Spellings: Adding the prefix il- (before a root word starting with ‘l’) and the prefix ir- (before a root word starting with ‘r’)

Spelling test: illegal, illegible, irregular, irresponsible, irrational

Challenge words: illogical, illiterate, illicit, irrelevant, irresistible

Homework: Maths and English homework has been set on Atom Learning.

Well done to everyone for having a go at last weeks homework!

Times Tables: Keep up the hard work on TTRS!  I can see that lots of you have been playing the Garage game and your scores are fabulous.

PE will be on Wednesday next week instead of Thursday, so please bring in PE kit on Wednesday.  I look forward to seeing those of you who can make it at the Harvest Festival on Tuesday.

Well done to this weeks Stars of the Week, Theo and Lyla.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

20^th September 2024

Year 4 have had a busy week in the classroom and enjoying the lovely autumn weather we have had.  We have continued to explore what life may have been in in Ancient Greece and used our knowledge of famous philosophers to create our own game of Famous Ancient Greeks Top Trumps!  To round off the week we have explored the Greek Alphabet, looking for recognisable sounds, letters and words, and even writing our own names in Greek.

In maths, the children have worked hard to understand how we round 4-digit numbers to 10, 100 and 100 to help us estimate. 

In English, we have been recapping our comprehension skills using VIPERS (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequence or summarise).   Year 4 have put these skills into practice to help investigate Greek philosophers, and explore another myth, Pandora’s Box.

It was lovey to see so many of you at this week’s curriculum meeting.  I hope you all found it useful.  I have attached the presentation and a short handout which gives some additional information about the English and Maths curriculum.  If you have any questions, please get in touch via the office or speak to me at the end of the day.

Spellings: ‘words with the prefix ‘im’ before a root word starting with ‘m’ or ‘p’.

Spelling test: impossible, important, immature, impolite, immortal

Challenge words: immeasurable, imperfect, impatient, immovable, improper

Homework: Maths and English homework has been set on Atom Learning.

(Log in details for the children are as per last year).

Times Tables: There have been some fantastic efforts with times tables on TTRS, please do keep this up.  The Garage game is a fantastic way to increase confidence with times table facts.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

13^th September 2024

Y4 have had a busy first full week in the classroom, and everyone is making fantastic progress.  The children have really enjoyed exploring the Greek Myth, Daedalus and Icarus.  We have created storyboards to recount the myth and have put ourselves in Daedalus’s shoes to write some moving diary entries about his imprisonment.

In topic work, the children have used a range of maps to investigate the geography of Ancient Greece.  I have been very impressed by the children’s knowledge of global geography, Greece and its many islands.  Today, we have used our historical investigation skills to gather information about what life may have been like in Ancient Greece.  I’m sure the children will be able to tell you some of the interesting facts they discovered!

In maths, we have continued to build confidence in place value to five digits and have been exploring different ways to represent a number, recording it pictorially, in numerals and in words.  With their newfound confidence, the children have looked at comparing and ordering, and investigating patterns.

We have enjoyed the start of our class text, Helping Hercules, meeting the main characters Susan and Hercules himself.  The children have all received a yellow reading diary to record their own reading, please also use this to record any reading you do with them at home.

Spellings - This week’s spelling rule is ‘words with the prefix ‘in’, meaning ‘not’ or ‘into’.

Spelling test: incomplete, incorrect, inactive, infinite, insecure

Challenge words: inaccurate, indefinite, inedible, inability, indecisive

Times Tables - Today Yr4 have reminded themselves how to log onto, and use, Times Table Rock Stars (TTRS).  All the children have the same login details as last year.  We have stuck them into reading diaries for safekeeping.  Please encourage your child to spend some time practising their times tables this week on their school TTRS account as we will be using TTRS throughout the year to support our learning.

Date for the diary - Curriculum Meeting, Wednesday 18^th September at 3.00pm.  The meeting will be held at school, but we will send out a zoom link for those who cannot attend in person.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman

6th September 2024

A very warm welcome to Year 4.  It has been an absolute pleasure to welcome the children into the classroom this week.  I have been incredibly impressed with how well everyone has settled in, getting used to our new classroom and routines.

We have started our new topic ‘Gods and Mortals’ with a review of where Ancient Greece falls in world history and drawing connections between this topic and the children’s knowledge about the Romans.  The children have enjoyed learning about some of the Greek Gods, I have been very impressed by their existing knowledge.

In maths this week we have started working with five-digit numbers in place value.  We have been recalling how to count on in 1’s 10’s, 25’s, 100’s and 1000’s, checking our place value knowledge and explaining our understanding in our maths journals.

Today we have looked at this week’s spelling rule, words with /aw/ spelt with augh and au.  There will be a short spelling dictation test on Tuesday on the first five spelling words, the remaining words are to stretch the children who need a challenge.

• caught, naughty, taught, cause, author
• daughter, autumn, clause, astronaut, applaud

Date for the diary, our curriculum meeting will be Wednesday 18^th September 2024 at 3pm.  More details to follow.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chapman