Beech Home Learning Update 5

Dear Parents/Guardians and Children,

Well, we’ve made it to May and the second week of summer term. I hope you’re keeping well and getting to enjoy the sunshine when you get a chance. I have added this update as a document below in case you would prefer to print/save it rather than log into the school website each time. Here is Beech’s home school work for this week…

Maths – Here is the link for the Whiterose Maths lessons this week.

Summer Term – Week 3 (w/c Monday 4th May)

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/year-4/

Don’t forget you can find free resources on Classroom Secrets; you just need to use the filter to find sheets for Year 4 and for specific topics/units.

https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/tag/bbc-resources/

Finally, I have set five My Maths tasks (one for each day) for those of you who prefer to work online. These are like the Whiterose lessons but are not an exact fit as the websites work in a different way and therefore the content is slightly different. Thursday’s lesson on short division may be new to some and so will require you to do the practise lesson first. This might be a good extra task for those choosing Whiterose but not something that has to be completed. Five activities a week is plenty but please just do whatever is manageable for you. If it is easier, you can just write the answers and either mark them as you go or just talk about the ones you found most difficult. If you found them all easy, then choose one and talk about how you got the answer. This may save printing/time looking at the answer sheet for all the questions, plus the discussion will promote reasoning skills.

English – Persuasive writing N.B. There are 27 pages to the document so if you are printing then be sure to only print the relevant ones.

  1. Reading – Look at the pages on the Hamilton Trust document about Polar Bears and after reading them, answer the questions on the page underneath.
  2. The information you read yesterday was about Polar Bears in the wild, but some can be found in captivity (e.g. zoos). Use this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDlGXvdVJg to watch a virtual tour of a zoo (video is approx. 10 mins long). Fill out the animal spotting sheet as you watch, jotting down things you notice. What do you think of the zoo/enclosures? Which animal did you like the most? Were there any you hadn’t seen before? How did the animals seem? List all the positives about zoos in the for section of Arguments for and against zoos.
  3. Yesterday you looked at the positives of zoos. Today I’d like you to list the negatives, then choose an animal (or two) to draw on the Animal Speech! sheet and write a mixture of positive and negative things that animal/those animals might say about zoos in the speech bubbles.
  4. Have a go at the spelling activity about prefixes (last page) and read through the examples of persuasive texts. What features do you notice? How will you use these in your own writing? Use the Twinkl checklist sheet to help, this could be written out in books it doesn’t have to be printed.
  5. Write a piece to argue reasons for and against zoos but from the animal’s point of view. Take your animal speech from lesson 3 and convert it into sentences. You could use a different animal for each side of the argument, just like people they may see things in a different way, and it might be fun to imagine talking as two different animals rather than just one.

Foundation – I put six subject projects up a couple of weeks ago so you should still have four left but if you would prefer a different subject to those here are two more suggestions. Again, these are not compulsory, simply here if you wish to take a break from Maths and English or have something different to do in the afternoon.

Music – 1. Take one of your favourite songs and rewrite the lyrics (maybe the words could be lockdown related) 2. Or create an original tune and lyrics for a song about being at home 3. Put new words to Happy Birthday to encourage people to wash their hands properly 4. Make a music video for your song 4. Design an album cover 5. Design a poster for your band to promote your new single 6. Make tickets for your concert 7. Choose some songs and see if you can list the instruments you can hear. Are there similar instruments in the same style songs? Do different genres always have different instruments? Do songs always have the same structure i.e. verse chorus verse chorus? Can you use the things we learned in Science to describe the notes (high, low, loud, quiet)? Can you draw the soundwaves for part of a song according to the volume/pitch?

Computing – Our next unit of work is looking at PowerPoints. We have already looked at how to edit things in Word e.g. cut and paste so you will be able to transfer some of these skills to making your own PowerPoint. If you have access to a device with PowerPoint or a similar programme it would be great to see you put something together to share with me via email or save it to present back at school. It can be a subject of your choice or you could take one of the projects you’ve been looking at while at home (rainforests, Anglo-Saxons, pizza boxes, Aboriginal Art). If it’s something new you may need to take an afternoon or two for some research and then you could work on 1-2 slides a day so a week’s work could be anything up to ten slides depending on how many afternoons you need for research. We haven’t talked about this in class yet so you may need some help and you should always ask an adult’s permission to work on computers and particularly when using the internet. Remember the things we’ve talked about in class about online safety. We’re staying at home to stay safe, but we must also stay safe by using the internet safely and responsibly. Aim to use at least one of each of the following: a text box, some word art, a photo/copyright free image from the internet, a transition, an animation and a new background design.

Finally, I’d like to take the chance to send birthday wishes to those celebrating whilst we’re away from school. I know it must feel strange that you can’t have fun in the ways you usually do, but I hope you all have a great time celebrating in your own unique ways during a time that you will always remember. Happy Birthday to our April and May birthdays: Faye, Eva, Sera, Peaches, Amairah, Serena and Oscar.

Please get in touch if you have any questions. I’m on email (l.eldridge@wransom.herts.sch.uk) and Twitter (@Beech_WR).

Stay home, stay safe,

Miss Eldridge