4JL

In Science this week, we were looking at classification keys and the children worked well as a team to produce these keys, using closed questions, to sort different pond and sea life animals.

This week has been Science week at QHA and in Year 4 we have were looking at the different ways animals and plants produce the next generation. The children have really enjoyed looking and experimenting with the wonderful world of nature. They learnt about the asexual reproduction of plants and as well and the sexual reproduction of plants. They dissected a flower and starting growing plats from cuttings.

We have an amazing day on Wednesday celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Along with a visit from the Queen herself, whilst we were eating our lunch outside, we designed and decorated our own commemorative plates.

Our pavilions are beginning to take shape, the children have drawn the aerial view on their base mats and are now starting to work on the frames of their structure. We had fun using PVA glue and lolly-sticks to create the basic structure. We are all at different stages in this process but are looking forward to continuing with this on Tuesday.

During our Science lesson, we investigated the mechanical and the chemical processes that occur in the digestive system. We all had a lot of fun using different equipment to replicate our bodies.

This term in DT we are learning about structures - pavilions. Today was our first lesson of this topic and we explored different pavilions and their purposes. Then we experimented as groups to create our very own pavilions using play doh and straws! As you can see it was a challenge but a success as the children figured out why they didn’t stand and how they could improve next time. Well done 4JL!

This week in 4JL, we have exploring pitch within our Science lesson. We moved from table to table, discovering how pitch changed depending on the length, thickness of a string or a pipe or the level water in the milk bottles. We had a lot of fun discovering the pitch became higher the shorter the string and deeper/lower the longer the string.

Lucy, Edmund, Mr. Tumnus and the White Witch have their day in court!

As part of character immersion, Year 4 have been reading and role playing 'The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by CS Lewis.

In the story, Mr. Tumnus was arrested by the White Witch's guards for letting Lucy go and not bringing her to the palace. Today, the children attended 'court' to see the trials of Lucy, Mr. Tumnus, Edmund and the White Witch for a variety of alleged crimes. The jury found both Edmund and the White Witch guilty as charged and sentenced them to 2 years and 10 years imprisonment, respectively.

Lucy and Mr. Tumnus were found not guilty and were free to go.

Year 4 are having a lot of fun in their English lessons this week! 🙂

Our Science topic for this half-term is 'Sound'. We have enjoyed learning about how sound travels from its source, in sound waves using the energy generated by vibrating air molecules, to the ear. This week we compared different materials to see which ones would make good sound insulators if we wanted to block out sound.

What a fantastic start to the week - the sweets were out in Maths! 😍

This week we are learning about data handling and we started with how to transfer data to a graph. We created a tally chart of the sweet colours, before drawing up a bar chart to display our findings. Cannot wait to develop our knowledge as the week progresses.

Wow, what a day we had on Monday, discovering more about the day to day living of the Anglo Saxons.

Following our History topic from last half term, we had the opportunity to immerse ourselves into the lives of the Anglo Saxons through various activities. We explored artefacts, learned how animal skins were used, looked at materials, cooking utensils, food and weapons. 

Did you know that they wore clay jewellery? During the afternoon, we made our own jewellery from clay and finished the day role-playing spear throwing - watch out, our aim was quite good!😮 

We have started a new topic in DT for this spring half term, learning about 'seasonal' foods. 

This week we discussed the benefits and problems of having all foods available in supermarkets all year round and discovered that, whilst it is great to have the choice of ALL our favourite foods ALL the time, it is costly to our environment, food quality and our pockets!

We made Non- Bake Flapjacks, using British ingredients that are available all year round and particularly enjoyed the 'Quality-control test' part of the task... eating them! 😋👩‍🍳🤤

To celebrate and enhance our learning, year 4 had an enrichment day on Thursday. We spent the day looking at how the Anglo-Saxons lived; then, we created our own villages. Then after that, we looked at the weapons as they spent a lot of time fighting. We made shields and used our knowledge of runes to write messages on our shields too. To finish off the day, the children tried some Anglo-Saxon pottage (a vegetable stew) and although they all said that we would eat it because it looked disgusting and smelt awful, they all tried it and many of them really enjoyed it asking for seconds, thirds and even fourths.

Week Commencing 24th January 2022

Although I may not have been teaching the children in person this week, I have enjoyed teaching Year 4 virtually. They have been working really hard and have behaved beautifully! I am so proud of all of them!
This week there has been a lot of writing but the work they have produced has been amazing. Their stories, in Science, about the water cycle and the innovation of the their 3 little pigs story this week have been fantastic.
Well done Year 4!

In Science this week , 4JL have been looking at the water cycle we were able to remember the key facts and recreate the water cycle with our partners. These were completed using one of our best methods-match mind – we are only allowed to look at the image for a minute and then draw what we remembered. We worked hard with our partner to complete the image, taking it in turns to remember and draw the cycle using all the correct scientific words.

This week in History we have looked at Anglo-Saxon Runes and tried to use their 33 letter alphabet.

​The word RUNE means secret or mystery. Runes were used in religious ceremonies. They were a charm or a spell, as well as a way of writing messages.

That is why...

To spell (to put down the right letters in the correct order)

And...

A spell (a magic spell)... 

Are the same word in English.

Did you know that even our words READ and WRITE relate to runes?

The Anglo-Saxon word 'writan' means to carve runes and 'ridan' means to interpret or know what the runes mean.

Above are some examples of our names written in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet.

In 4JL, we are starting to look at the Anglo-Saxons.

This week, we looked at some artefacts and talked about things we already knew about the Anglo-Saxons. This then got us thinking about all the things we still want to find out and things we were curious about after considering the artefacts.
We gathered our questions to find the answers to over the course of the topic.

Hola, this week we had an exciting Friday for our enrichment day as we explored many aspects of Spanish culture such as food, architecture, climate, and traditional dance.  The children enjoyed it so much that they asked if we could do this every day! Please enjoy the video of the children dancing together at the end of their enrichment day above.  

Adios amigos

In 4JL, we have been busy helping to make the school look festive. We have spend some of our art lesson creating holly and ivy to make out Christmas hoop which is now hanging from the ceiling of the school hall.

In Geography, we have been using our Maths skills to read graphs about the weather in both the UK and in Spain. We were able to find out the hottest months in both countries and see which capital city (Madrid or London ) have the most rainfall.

Christmas is fast approaching and in 4JL we have begun to create decorations for the hall and learn our songs for our Year 3 and 4 performance. Please can you help the children to learn our class song and the sign language to go with it. 

Here is the link for you to have a go at home...
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SkZy-KNsI 

In music the children have been exploring rhythm. We looked at a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson called ‘The Railway Carriage’ There work is now displayed in the corridor at school for all the other children to see and hear. There are sound buttons with recordings of their performance and photos of them playing the percussion instruments.

We are beginning to look at the work on Joan Miro, a Spanish artist, in our art lessons this half term. After looking at some of his paintings we tried to re-create his paintings. Here are a few examples of our work.

In PSHE, we have been looking at our similarities and our differences and this week our combined lessons resulted in creating posters. Here are a few that we created.