This half term, Year 4's project has been: 'WE ARE 7.7 Billion and Counting'. As part of this project we researched about the population of the world and we discovered amazing and thought-provoking facts. This led us to make a plan for colonising Mars in case the resources of Earth are stretched too thin. You can find pictures of our colony designs and some of the interesting facts we found here. Our main project outcome is based on basic human needs and how, even in Waltham Forest, these needs are not always being met. This led us to begin planning and inputting actions to help the homeless in our local community. The children decided that we could raise money by selling donated items that someone else could love.
In Maths, we have been learning a lot about fractions and written methods of calculation for addition and subtraction. The children have been able to demonstrate their understanding by writing instructions of the process for others to follow.
During English learning, we have been reading and exploring 'The Green Ship' to help us in writing our own stories based in a fictional setting. We have also delved into the poetry of James Berry, who has written a series of poems on human behaviours and life on Earth. The knowledge we have gained from this will be used to write poems connected to our project learning.
Our Learning this term
Year 4 have had a great Autumn term. We have learned a lot of new things but we have experienced even more.
We started the term with a project on Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. Our job was to be school experts so we learned all about the customs, celebrations and traditions of Diwali, as well as the legendary backstory of Rama and Sita. We then taught all the other year groups about Diwali by performing an informative assembly. Our knowledge was supplemented by the wonderful experts at a Hindu Temple in Walthamstow.
Our project on WE ARE Illustrators has been wonderful experience so far. We interviewed children from the Reception classes on what they would like to read a book about and we are in the process of writing and illustrating books for them to keep based on their responses. You can see lots of our sketch learning in our year group gallery.
In addition to the learning we have been doing in English and Maths, this term also saw the start of our Finance Fridays! We have been learning different payment types (cash, credit cards, debit cards, cheques), when and how each type of payment can be used, and keeping a record of our spending. This has all been linked to how we manage our money so we have been doing a lot of thinking into whether we WANT or NEED to purchase something. Our children are already becoming critical and thoughtful consumers and we're sure they'd be able to start helping with managing the household budget soon.
The second half of the term has been full throttle for our WE ARE Behind the Scenes
project and we have also been Cultural Collaborators when we hosted some visiting pupils from China for a week. That wonderful visit was also included in our project as part of our collaboration was on the amazing backdrops for our performance.
Thank you to everybody that attended our performance and enjoyed the hard work from the children. They put in a great deal of effort, with enthusiasm throughout, to make sure that every aspect was ready. There are some photos in our gallery.