Parent Information

Fire Service Visit

This week in Year 4, we have had the fire service come to visit us! We spoke about fire safety and prevention, spotting hazards in a typical home and learned about the fire triangle – three things a fire needs to burn. We learned how to check smoke alarms and why it can be dangerous to overload plugs. Looking ahead to Halloween and Bonfire Night, we spoke about how to keep safe around flammable materials.

We also spoke about our aspirations and learned about many other jobs within the fire service, not just firefighters!

Geography

We have been geographers this week! In our geography lessons, we have been learning about our region and comparing it to a region in Italy – Campania. This week, we have been using atlases, looking at our continent, Europe. In our teams, we named some countries around Europe and their capital cities.

Literacy

In literacy this week, we have been planning and writing our first piece of independent writing. This first piece of writing was a setting description about certain regions within Campania, in Italy. We worked hard to think about the structure of our writing and the audience we were writing for, we are very proud of our first piece of independent work!

LYFTA

As part of our comparison study of Campania and our region, we have been learning about the tectonic plates that make up our earth. Using LYFTA, we met two people, Carlos from Guatemala, who is from Guatemala and Pedro, a volcanologist from Spain. We were able to see how volcanoes are formed and how science and technology can keep people safe when living close to active volcanoes. Carlos showed how extreme weather affected his community. We spoke about different cultures and the similarities and differences between our home and theirs and how we might feel if we were in a situation like Carlos.

Science

In Science, we have been learning about the human digestive system. After studying the system and looking at different teeth and their functions, we have set up a scientific enquiry to see the damage that sugar can have on our teeth, placing hard-boiled eggs into various liquids. Eggs shells have a similar structure to our teeth and the enamel that protects them. We will make observations over next week to come up with a conclusion to our investigation.

PE and Team-building

This week we have focused on team-building. During P.E, Sapphire and Royal played dodgeball against each other, working in our classes to develop our perseverance and teamwork skills.

In PSHE, working in our house team groups, we were given the challenge to construct the highest tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. This allowed us to work collaboratively and communicate effectively with each other.

Art and PSHE

Welcome to Year 4, we hope everyone had a restful summer! For the first week back, we have been getting to know each other by discussing and learning about families, friends and our mental and physical health in PSHE. We have also been learning about citizenship and being able to vote, choosing out class representatives for our school council.

We have started our art unit for this half term, based around plants. We looked at the work of famous artists who have been inspired by nature, used observational skills to create botanical sketches and started to explore printing techniques.