Hello Year 4,
This week’s project theme is about the rainforest. We should be experts at this because we learnt about it before Christmas. Can you remember the different layers? We also learnt about some plants and animals which live in the different layers.
We wrote a persuasive text about the rainforest too. Which techniques have I used in these sentences?
Surely, you remember watching this Greenpeace advert about what is happening to the animals’ habitats due to deforestation. Clearly, deforestation causes a devastating loss to animal and plant life. This is leading to many animal and plant species becoming endangered or extinct. Can you really imagine a world without certain species of animals?
I have found an old key! Here are some questions I thought of when I found it. Using the answers to the questions, could you write a descriptive paragraph about the key?
Whatever you decide to do try to tweet school @eastbierleyPS because we would all love to see what you have been up to. You can also email school at year4@eastbierleyprimary.com.
Keep yourselves safe and look after the people around you. We are missing you lots and look forward to seeing you back at school soon!
Mr Booth, Mrs Blakeley and Mrs Dent
Any learning that you do at home, please take a picture and email it to us at year4@eastbierleyprimary.com or tweet us @eastbierleyPS
Weekly Maths Tasks
 Ask your child to draw your own fraction wall and then use this to find equivalent fractions. I have created a basic one in this photograph. In class, we made a fraction wall out of strips of paper. All of the paper strips have to be the same size though to represent a whole and its equal parts. |
| Get your child some skittles, smarties or different coloured sweets. Empty them out onto a plate and write down what fraction are red, what fraction are yellow, etc. The denominator is the total number of sweets and the numerators are the different colours. You could use coloured buttons, Lego, fruit etc. |
| Get a square piece of paper or a post-it note and ask your child to investigate how many ways they can make ¼, ½ , ⅓ etc. |
| Ask your child to practise adding and subtracting fractions on this game. Then play this rainforest coordinates game (theme). |
| Encourage your child to research and compare temperatures and rainfall in the Amazon Rainforest and the UK month on month. Can they display their findings in a bar chart or table? Can they compare the yearly totals?
Kahoot! Game Pins 07675199 Year 4 Mental Maths 07112330 Year 4 Multiplication 09147962 Year 4 Fractions |
Weekly Reading Tasks
| Can your child create a rainforest canopy to curl up with a book under? This could be made from paper, bed sheets or anything else that’s suitable. |
| Read online together about rainforests. Ask your child to take a look at these facts about rainforests to get started! Can they create a rainforest quiz? |
| Ask your child to find a recipe involving chocolate and encourage them to make it. They can learn about where chocolate derives here. |
| Ask your child to read food labels and identify any foods in the kitchen that contain: bananas, cocoa, chocolate, cinnamon or black pepper. |
| Visit Authorfy.com and register for free. Your child can listen to Katherine Rundell’s masterclass on her book The Explorer, based in the Amazon rainforest.
Kahoot! Game pins 04767278 – Year 4 Guided Reading 1 06002397 – Year 4 Guided Reading 2 06105638 – Year 4 Guided Reading 3 |
Weekly Spelling Tasks
| Ask your child to mind map words associated with the rainforest. They can then put these words into alphabetical order. |
| Practise spelling these words: young, touch, double, trouble, country. Can your child identify the spelling rule? The ‘u’ sound spelt ‘ou’. |
| Your child could be a Crystal Explorer and improve their spelling. Can they list synonyms (words with the same meanings) for practised words? |
| Picture this. Choose 5 Common Exception words and draw a picture to represent each word, write the word underneath and use it in a sentence. |
| Choose 10 new topic words related to the rainforest and learn to spell them. Write the definitions to form a rainforest glossary.
Kahoot! Game pins 05382907 – Year 4 Spag 1 0604168 – Year 4 Spag 2 03818880 – Year 4 Prefixes |
Weekly Writing Tasks
| Visit the Literacy Shed for this wonderful resource on The Alchemist’s Letter or write an acrostic poem using the letters: R A I N F O R E S T. |
| Ask your child to research how humans are destroying the rainforest. Get them to write an information report about this. Can they include maps that demonstrate how large the rainforests were compared to now? Include an introduction, 3 or 4 ways that rainforests are being destroyed and a conclusion. |
| Your child can look at images of the rainforest then write a setting description. Encourage them to start at the top of the image and work down. |
| Task your child with writing a ‘Defeating the Monster’ tale. The monster could be a rainforest predator such as a crocodile or boa constrictor. |
| Your child could create their own tourist leaflet about rainforests. What could a tourist expect to see and do? How should they dress and what should they bring? Ask them to include illustrations of unusual living things!
Kahoot! Game Pins 09214255 – Year 4 Word Classes 04377250 - Apostrophes |
Learning Project - to be completed through the week
The project this week aims to provide opportunities for your child to learn more about the world’s rainforests. Learning may focus on the plants, animals and insects that inhabit the rainforest, food that originates there and weather patterns. It could look at plants and animals that can be found in the garden too.
Amazing Animals- Ask your child to think about the following: How many different types of animals live in rainforests? Can they name any? What is their diet like? How do they hunt for their prey or hide from predators? Look at these 11 amazing rainforest animals. Encourage your child to choose one of the animals and create a poster all about them.
Layers of the Rainforest- Take a look at this information with your child, all about the layers of the rainforest. Ask your child to try creating their own diagram showing the layers of the rainforest and the animals you can find in each layer. Your child could cut and stick pictures, paint or draw! Can your child categorise the animals?
Roar!- Have a go at this forest themed GoNoodle! Finished? Ask your child to try making up their own rainforest-themed dance routine to the same song - they could pretend to be a different animal for each dance move! Recommendation at least 2 hours of exercise a week.
One Step at a Time- Talk to family members about the deforestation of rainforests and think about how we could help by taking small steps at home. This article should help get them started! Can your child record their very own advert encouraging people to reduce, reuse, recycle? Encourage them to think about the impact on the environment, animals and their habitats, global warming and the tribes that occupy the rainforests. Alternatively, they could write a jingle about the benefits of recycling and perform this to the family. Share these at #TheLearningProjects.
The Problem with Palm Oil- Take a look at the Greenpeace website and find out about the effects of palm oil on our planet. Discuss with your child how this affects animals around the world. Ask your child to identify all of the foods in the kitchen that contain palm oil. Can they suggest alternatives for your next shop? Task your child with planning an imaginary charity event to raise funds for The Orangutan Foundation.
STEM Learning Opportunities
Rainforest Resources
Watch this video.
The rainforest is made up of several layers, forest floor, shrub layer, canopy and emergent trees. Look at the Sumatra animal cards here. Where in the forest do you think each of these animals live?
Kahoot! game pins
057877 – 1980s Britain – What can you remember from our topic?
04714485 – Anglo Saxons
05366989 – The Water Cycle
05366989 – The Holy Trinity
04302887 – Y4 RE Islam
Additional Learning Resources
BBC Bitesize - Lots of videos and learning opportunities for all subjects.
Classroom Secrets Learning Packs - Reading, writing and maths activities for different ages.
Twinkl - Click on the link and sign up using your email address and creating a password. Use the offer code UKTWINKLHELPS.
White Rose Maths online maths lessons. Watch a lesson video and complete the worksheet (can be downloaded and completed digitally).
Times Table Rockstars and Numbots. Your child can access both of these programmes with their school logins. On Times Table Rockstars, children should aim to play Soundcheck for 20 minutes daily.
IXL online. Click here for Year 4. There are interactive games to play and guides for parents.
Mastery Mathematics Learning Packs. Take a look at the mastery mathematics home learning packs with a range of different activities and lessons
Y4 Talk for Writing Home-school Booklets are an excellent resource to support your child’s speaking and listening, reading and writing skills
