Year 4 News

We’ve come to the end of a half term filled with skipping, dragons, Anglo-Saxons, digestion, multiplication, Mamma-Mia and much more!

The Digestive System

With the excitement of our trips to Murton Park last week, we didn’t get round to sharing these pictures of our very fun, slightly disgusting science investigation all about how the human digestive system works.

We began by simulating the process of chewing food by breaking a biscuit and a banana into small chunks. These were then placed in a plastic bag that represented the stomach. After washing it down with a bit of orange juice, the children had to replicate the digestion of the stomach, contracting and squeezing the muscles of the stomach to break down the food.

Once the food was all broken down, we transferred it into our “intestines”. This allowed us to recreate the intestines’ jobs of drawing out the water and nutrients and absorbing them into the body. Since we didn’t have a simulated body, we collected the liquids in a separate container. This left only the remnants of the food that our bodies don’t need.

All that was left to do was to squash the remnants together to make a stool. Once this was done, we could squeeze it through a hole in the bottom of the tights to simulate the removal of the waste from our bodies. This, as you can imagine, got a little messy!

It was great to see lots of children getting stuck in and having fun, although some found it a little gruesome!

History

In history, we examined photos of artefacts found at the Sutton Hoo burial site and tried to work out who might have been buried there. The children were encouraged to talk about their ideas and give reasons for their opinions.

English

We have been busy planning and writing our own stories inspired by How to Train Your Dragon this week. It has been lovely seeing the children so enthusiastic to write! We look forward to sharing some of these with you once we have finished editing them after half term. Here are some photos from 4SN a couple of weeks ago, unpicking the writing style of Cressida Cowell and moving around the room to share their ideas with their peers.

Mamma Mia!

We have really enjoyed listening to different songs by Abba this half term, learning to sing Mamma Mia, playing the glockenspiel or recorder and even making our own compositions. Here are 4SN with their final performance.

Skipping Festival

Some children have been chosen to represent Farfield at a skipping festival coming up after half term. Those children have brought home a letter with details about the event and a permission slip. Please could these be returned as soon as possible after half term. It has been so wonderful seeing all the children develop their skipping skills over the last six weeks and we would have loved to have taken them all with us, but unfortunately we were not able to choose everyone. A big thank you to those children who are doing one of the big rope events, as I know that was not everyone’s first choice. We are very lucky to have such a hard-working and talented team of skippers!

Homework

There is no homework this week, but children should be practising their times tables whenever possible. Perhaps pick one set of tables you find trickier (the 8s perhaps?) to master over the half term holiday!

Wishing you all a lovely half term.

Mrs Sykes, Miss Levett and Mrs Newsome