St Joseph'sCatholic Primary & Nursery School
Spring Term
English
This half term in English, we are exploring the fictional story 'Mark of the Cyclops'. We will discover what life was like in Ancient Greece, as well as improving our writing skills. We will do this by focusing on our expanded noun phrases with prepositional phrases, fronted adverbials and subordinating conjunctions.
We are now beginning to write an additional quest for our main characters, Thrax and Niko, to go on together. We have explored the features of a play script, and when completing our big write, we will need to follow these rules:
- Use acts and scenes to break up our script
- Include a cast list
- Use setting descriptions to describe where each scene is taking place
- Put the character's name first, followed by a colon, and then the dialogue
- No speech marks
- Stage directions (in brackets!)
Maths
In maths, we have improved our knowledge on multiplication and division. We have used factors and multiples, and learnt how to multiply a 3 digit number by a 1 digit number, as well as dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000.
We are now going to start our new unit of fractions, where we will be adding and subtracting fractions, exploring mixed numbers and improper fractions, and improving our understanding of equivalent fractions.
Humanities
After really enjoying our last topic on the Romans, we are now moving on to the Anglo-Saxons. We will discover how and why they came to Britain, what they were like, how they lived, the religion they followed, the changes they made to our country and how their legacy continues today.
RE
In RE, we are currently working on the topic of Revelation. We have learnt all about the Presentation of Jesus at the temple, and have written diary entries pretending to be Simeon, exploring what emotions he would have felt and how that would have strengthened his relationship with God.
We have also looked at the Transfiguration story, and have recently explored different artistic interpretations, analysing each painting and explaining how that shows the Transfiguration through pictures, rather than words.
We have also been working really hard to improve our independent use of the Bible to make links to scripture in our writing, as well as using key terminology whilst answering our Big Questions.
Stations of the Cross, delivered by Year 6
Saxons WOW day with Clive Pig! We learnt so much today through incredible performances and workshops; all about how the Saxons arrived in Britain, why they came here, how they changed our country from Roman rule and the legend of Beowulf. We are Saxons experts now!
World Book Day! We have seen some amazing costumes in Year 4, including Wednesday, Cruella, Hermione, Dorothy and Alice in Wonderland, alongside some footballers and others in their pjs! Take a look at us reading for pleasure, getting comfy on top of and under our desks!
Dance with PE specialist Mr Irish!
Theatre in Year 4 - Before half term, we finished writing our wonderful play scripts. Our writing was to such a high standard that today, we turned our classroom into a theatre and acted them out in front of our classmates! We used our wonderful prosody skills to speak out loud clearly, as well as considering how we should move across the stage. We had a fantastic time celebrating our work, and even had some tasty treats when we were in the audience!
RE - to finish our work on Revelation, we used our team work skills to work as groups to create our wonderful posters! We explained the stories of the Presentation and Transfiguration, how Jesus was revealed to be the light of the world, what message is shared through scripture and how Christians can be lights of the world today. We are so proud of our finished posters!
Safer Internet Day: in Year 4, we began by writing our top tips for younger internet users to stay safe online. They were: Listen to adults' advice; turn off anything that makes you feel uncomfortable and tell a trusted adult; don't share personal information; look at game rating before playing something new; don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in 'real life' We then went on to look at 'technology in the future' The children loved this and we had a long discussion about how tech could be improved to become more helpful. The children then designed their own ideas of what tech might look like in the future.
1.2.24 - A visit from an author! The fantastic children's author, Steve Camden, hosted an online call for schools around the country to join. We learnt all about how he comes up with his amazing ideas, what inspired him to be an author, and why he loves his job. We even came up with a story together, voting on a poll to contribute to his story writing!
RE with Year 6! Students from Year 6 came in to Year 4, and taught us all about their RE work, exploring the Pope and Bishops in the Catholic Church. They talked us through their amazing writing and artwork. We learnt so much, thank you Year 6!
Science - electricity. We have built working electrical circuit with a switch
