Today we focused on learning and applying the 9 times table. We learnt some amazing ‘magic’ tricks that we can use to remember our 9’s, make sure children you are showing these off at home! Particularly the hand trick! We had a carousel of activities which we used to apply our learning, including Bingo, multiplication races, fortune tellers and even a 9 times table board game. We also used the iPads to play ‘hit the button’ which is a fantastic way to practice times tables….. All children proudly passed through 9 times table boot camp! 

The sun was out so Year 4 took the opportunity to practice some measurement in the playground. We’ll let the rest of the school figure out what was going on at lunchtime.

Today, 4RF ttravelled back to the year 1516 and held an Aztec market selling all sorts of produce familiar to the Aztecs but as yet unknown to Europeans. How could they not know what a potato or tomato was?

We practiced lots of maths, learnt about Aztec life and really got into our roles of market traders – there are some budding Del Boys out there…

Our current focus value, perseverance, was put to the test today as we were challenged to solve a series of mathematical problems in order to escape the castle.  Each step provided a completely different challenge and had to be solved in order to start the next.

Did we give up? No we didn’t!

This week we’ve been learning about fractions. On Wednesday we were given a collection of objects which we had to find three-quarters of. The four counters and the square of paper were simple enough but then we had to start to think… Surely Dr Fishwick didn’t expect us to cut up a 20p piece?   We found lots of different ways of making three-quarters, sometimes we even had different ways of dividing up the same objects.

This week we’ve been learning about fractions. On Wednesday we were given a collection of objects which we had to find three-quarters of. The four counters and the square of paper were simple enough but then we had to start to think… Surely Dr Fishwick didn’t expect us to cut up a 20p piece?

We found lots of different ways of making three-quarters, sometimes we even had different ways of dividing up the same objects.

This week we returned to exploring spirolaterals – patterns formed by repeating simple mathematical rules. The first time we looked at these patterns we worked with pencil and paper. This time we used our understanding of coding to program a computer character to do the drawing for us…

Dr Fishwick had five coins in his pocket but he didn’t tell us which coins they were. So how much money might he have? It had to be at least 5p but it could be as much as £10.

We worked systematically to see what amounts were possible. After a while we shared the task around the class so that we could find more answers before the end of the lesson. At the end we could make every amount from 5p up to 57p and had also found £1-£1.17, £1.50-£1.61 and £2-£2.10. Who knew five coins could give so many different answers?

In maths today, 4RJ were exploring the classroom to find different angles (and not angels!).  We learned the different names and the measurement in degrees for acute, obtuse and reflex. Here are our photos.  Ask your child to find different angles around the home.

We’ve been exploring spirolaterals – patterns formed by repeating simple mathematical rules. We explored different numbers of steps while turning through right-angles. A spirolateral of order 5, for example, follows these rules:

• Forward 1cm then turn
• Forward 2cm then turn
• Forward 3cm then turn
• Forward 4cm then turn
• Forward 5cm then turn
• Repeat

Each turn was 90° clockwise. We then used triangular paper to look at turns of 60°!