A messy start for Year 4 – Eat, chew, poo!
In Science this term, Year 4 have been learning about the human digestive system and which organs are vital in how we process and absorb nutrients from food.
We put our scientific knowledge into practice by creating a model digestive system to show what happens to food as it travels through our body.
We used a bag to represent the stomach, where our food is turned to mush, and then we used a pair of tights and a tea towel to represent the intestines, which is where our body absorbs liquid and nutrients.
We worked through the key processes that happen when we eat and digest food, including what happens with the waste products. We got our hands messy but it was a lot of fun!

We’ve also been looking at our different types of teeth. We have learnt that incisors cut and chop, canines rip and tear and molars crush and chew food.

Next, we will be looking at how we can look after our teeth which are such a vital part of our eating process.

Science

Our work on the digestive system has focused on our teeth and specifically how we can keep them healthy and strong.

We learnt about how to ensure good dental hygiene and what the effects of certain foods are on our teeth where we simulated teeth using eggshells, soaking them in a variety of common drinks.  The results were fascinating!

Guided Reading

We are really enjoying our class text, The Land of Roar, which features a journey into a world full of fun and danger.  It’s ok though, it’s only imaginary – or is it..?

Geography has been an incredible journey into the world’s amazing rainforests.  These crucial places on earth are small in number but packed with amazing life.  We’ve learnt about where and why they exist, what life specializes in the different layers and how we can all play our part in protecting them for the future of the life that lives there and the health of the whole planet.

In Literacy we have been basing our work on a fantastic book by Lucy Forfort called In Our Hands which explores how the world changes for the worse if nobody does anything to stop it.  However, it only takes one person to start to make a difference.  We used the events in the story as a basis for our own diary entry writing, using the features we had learnt together as a class when we wrote independently.

Our learning in French has covered days of the week and describing the weather.  We have learnt to recognise and use an increasing number of words and phrases with confidence.  Luckily, the weather outside our window has given us a lot of opportunities to use this wide variety!