Last half term in year 4 our topic was ‘Our Local Area’, throughout this topic we learnt about how Calderdale has changed over the years and thought about what it must have been like for those children in Calderdale who used to work in factories. They had to work really log days and some even lost their fingers whilst trying to fix machines! We also looked at the different things there is to do in and around Calderdale and created our own leaflets.
In science we looked at sound. Each week we carried out a different experiment looking at the different aspects of sound. We created our own string telephones to see how sound changes over distance.
We looked at how the pitch of a sound can be changed and investigated how different instruments produce high and low sounds. Using what we had learnt we then made our own panpipes using straws. We cut the straws to different lengths and found that the shorter straws made a higher sound and the longer straws made a low sound.
We also found out about soundproofing and tested a variety of materials to see which absorbed the most sound. Using a decibel reader we placed a speaker in a box and covered the box in different materials, we then measured the sound and recorded it in decibels.
In numeracy we have been looking at and working with fractions. We learnt how to find a fraction of an amount or number, and used this knowledge to solve a number of different problems including word problems. We also looked at adding and subtracting fractions with common denominators, and finding families of equivalent fractions.
In literacy our book was Charlotte’s Web. We had a look at the features of persuasive writing and had a go at writing a few of our own persuasive letters. We wrote a letter from Fern to her dad convincing him to let her keep Wilbur (the letters worked); we also then wrote a letter from Wilbur’s point of view convincing Mr Arable to let him survive. We also looked at the language used by the author and wrote setting and character descriptions in the same style.