We have been doing lots of amazing learning in Year 4 lately. Starting with maths, which has been a widespread favourite subject recently, we have been exploring fractions. We began with creating fraction houses to help us understand parts of a whole. We moved on to comparing fractions and putting amounts in order from least to greatest or vice versa. Now we are finding equivalent fractions and solving addition and subtraction problems with fractions. We have made amazing progress and are having loads of fun!

In English, we are reading Jemmy Button, exploring colonisation and the history surrounding slavery. We just finished retelling Jemmy's story through story mapping, and our illustrations are supported by recapped knowledge of prepositional phrases and fronted adverbials, and new knowledge of figurative language such as similes to compare. We are beginning to learn about narratives, and we will develop and write our own narrative next week. 

Last week was British Science Week, where we had a visit from Safari Pete and his animals and presented our recent unit of learning about states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. We covered the properties of each state of matter, example substances, and even how materials can transition from one state of matter to another! For our parent presentation experiment, we created Oobleck, a Non-Newtonian material: this means that it seems to have properties of multiple states of matter because its viscosity (how quickly it flows and moves) is impacted by how forceful we are with it. If we hold it gently, it flows quickly out of our hands. If we are forceful with Oobleck (for example, if we squeeze it tightly), it feels solid because it barely flows at all. 

We are building our communication and conversation skills by learning how to start and maintain conversations. We have learnt about the importance of asking questions, eye contact, and tone when we speak to others. In Culture we are exploring Realism, which is an art movement developed in response to Romanticism. We learned about Édouard Manet and then created some realist art of our own! In technology, we used micro:bits to practice programming, and were able to display messages on tiny computers. Lastly, we've discussed how to stay safe online, especially with online gaming. 

We have worked super hard this half term and have done some great learning; we can't wait to continue this next term!