MrJennings

We have continued our work on descriptive writing this week by extending it in two ways. First, we explored the writing of comparisons - describing two similar things and, second, by thinking about about descriptive passages in fiction writing. In this situation, we may (as authors) be trying to build tension and suspense by not giving the reader a complete overview of the object, place or person at the outset of the piece.

Our maths has involved practising computation of multiplication and division sums, reading and plotting coordinates and calculating perimeters and areas of rectangles. Our science work this week has also involved a lot of maths in that the focus of the learning has been concerned with drawing and interpreting graphs. We finished creating scatter-grams which related length of the gestation period of different animals with their average body weight to investigate whether or not their is a relationship between these measures. Then we looked at growth charts for human babies distributed to health workers by the government. (We compared the new charts with the old ones which were based on the growth of formula-fed babies and predicted weights of different sized babies after 12, 32 and 52 weeks.) Finally we created line graphs to compare the average growth rate of boys and girls up to eighteen years of age.

In addition to our RE and PE sessions, we enjoyed watching our Y3&4 Easter production this week and finished the week by starting to make bridge structures using paper and card.

Although we still have some on-going work to do on our stories in English, our main learning this week has been on a new unit of work focussing on descriptive writing. We has written descriptions of two of David Brent's "Flanimals", trying to give the reader a helpful overall impression of the creature in the opening sentences then further details in an organised way.

In maths, we have developed our problem-solving skills by practising our finding answers to questions which need more than one calculation. We have also done some more work on dealing with decimal numbers, including doubling and halving.

Friday was a special day in that we were able to experience a partial solar eclipse. This linked in well with our science topic of last term on the Earth, Sun and Moon. we were able to monitor the progress of the Moon in front of the Sun from inside the classroom using pin-hole projectors and using the internet and we also noted the relative darkness - especially around 9.30 am - and the dramatic drop in temperature when we spent a few minutes outside.

In addition to these activities, we did some more work on our writing comparing the ancient Greek agora with our modern-day market in Nottingham's Victoria Centre and we made and tested different types of beams which we made out of paper.

This week we have been continuing with our story writing in English, creating more episodes for our stories about a character with a strong personality trait. In each episode we have tried to develop the character's personality through their actions and speech and, in addition, by how other characters react towards them.

In maths we have done some calculator work and maths problems and some of us have tackled some more work on percentages and fractions (including improper fractions and mixed numbers) to embed our understanding.

We have completed our work on the frog life cycle in science and learned how to use excel to create a range of different graphs and charts.

We have started our new history topic on ancient Greece by learning about the polis and also began our new technology topic on bridge structures.

We have continued with our fiction work in English, beginning to work on the "build-up" of our stories. We have also had our weekly session on developing comprehension skills. Our main maths learning has been about percentages. This has included relating percentages to their fraction and decimal equivalents and finding fractions of numbers and quantities. Today we learned about and tried activities involving Roman numerals.

On Monday we developed our understanding of life cycles by thinking about the life cycle of the frog. Following our work on the butterfly, we did this by creating a computer presentation to show our knowledge and understanding.

In the early part of the week, we were also preparing for our visit to Southwell Minster. This was on Thursday and we had a very good day learning about both the building and some of the things that go on there. Today we followed this up with some reflection on the day and our learning.

Following our half-term break, we started a new unit of work this week which is designed to help us develop our fiction writing skills. Our task is to write a story about a character with a strong and clear personality, developing this through the build-up and events of the story to a climax which is then resolved in an interesting way. Our main work this week has concentrated on planning stories and we have done this by analysing the plot development of different stories written for children. We then started planning our own stories.

Our learning in maths has been about decimals and fractions. We have been adding decimal numbers mentally (including numbers with two decimal places) and, later in the week, we have been developing our understanding of equivalent fractions, extending this to improper fractions and mixed numbers.

Although this was a "short" week, following an INSET day for the teachers on Monday, we did some science, producing a presentation about the life-cycle of a butterfly and some RE, learning about symbolism in Hindu art before producing our own artistic interpretations of Ganesha.