Class Blog

This half term we have been looking at how to make car alarms, using our science knowledge of electricity circuits. We have really enjoyed learning how to use woodwork tools, such as the hacksaw, to make a vehicle. Here are some photos of the whole process and the finished product.

A final note...

It has been wonderful to get to know all the children and work with them since lockdown was lifted. We have all enjoyed learning and growing together. 

I hope you all have a fantastic summer. 🌞😎

Keep well, stay safe!

We have enjoyed all the anticipation of the Euro 2020 final this coming Sunday. We sang, we clapped, we cheered and we danced. 🦁🦁🦁

We dressed up in red, white and blue to show our support to the England team, whilst also raising money for Mr. T's memorial.

Enjoy the match everyone! Come on England - you can do this ⚽😍

This week, we have been exploring outdoor maths. Our activities have included measuring the time it took for each of us to run 200m or 400m and then converting the seconds to minutes. We also measured our bean-bag distance throw using centimetres and then converting our measurements into metres.

On Thursday, we got the trundle wheels out and measured the perimeter of different parts of the playground. We finished the week with an accurate scale drawing of our playground measurements.

We have been practising our observation skills. In one of the games, we were given 30 seconds to study 14 items in a tray. When the tray was taken away, we had 1 1/2 minutes to write down all the things we could remember. Not as easy as you think - can you do it?

This blog comes to you while we are still out of puff! As a whole class, we managed to dodge the downpours and run, walk or skip the Race for Life. We all went to our multi-use sports arena and raced for a solid half an hour. Some of us ran in memory or support of someone we care about who has been directly affected by cancer.

Year 4 Enrichment Day

We all had a wonderful day on Friday! We enjoyed a day off timetable, taking part in different activities under the banner - 'The Great Outdoors' 

We painted pebbles to make stone bugs to put out amongst the plants in the school flowerbeds. Using recycled bottle tops and a wooden pallette, we created a flower scene. An army style assault course was set up, which was great fun - even though we had to dodge the teachers firing water pistols at us 😮 One of our tasks was to make a waterproof shelter using only shower curtains, bamboo canes and string - these mostly failed as we all got wet during the water test - it made us all laugh though! We got into quite a sticky mess making bird feeders and also had the chance to create an 'art attack' picture using twigs, buttons, pipe cleaners and anything else the teachers could find in the art cupboard!

We had lots of fun in PSHE this week 🙂 We were learning how we are all special in our own way and that we can all contribute to a successful team. 

Our team building exercise was to complete an obstacle course, balancing an egg on a spoon. If we touched the egg with our hands, we had to start again! We all brought different strengths to the exercise and managed to get to the end of the course with only minor injuries to the egg! (Good job the egg was boiled😮)

Check out our models of Roman baths! 

In History, we have been looking at important landmarks around the UK. We have looked at Big Ben, The Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle and this week we have studied the Roman Baths. 

This week we have been looking at the features of Edinburgh Castle. We have studied how the castle could be defended and why it would be so difficult to attack. Did you know that it was built on volcanic rock, some 120m above sea level?

It has been quite a week, with the drama of Ofs going missing, rumours of who may have taken him and what their motive may have been, plus the worry of whether our Ofs Ted was even safe at all! 

The investigation developed during the week and evidence mounted as each day passed. Mrs Wakeling even called a detective in to help us solve the mystery. 

We learned about fingerprinting and used chromatography to analyse different inks. Sublime Science visited and demonstrated some very exciting experiments. We finished the week off with making blood! Who knew that our precious red stuff was so intricately formed with so many components!

What a brilliant week we have had!

In PSHE we have been learning about dental care. We know why it is important to look after our teeth by:

• visiting the dentist every six months, 
• eating healthily, 
• flossing between our teeth  
• brushing them twice a day - ALL our teeth, not just the front ones!

Here are some of the leaflets we created, accompanied by our beautiful smiles 🙂

In art we were looking at paintings by Ford Smith and Jan Poynter. This week we tried to sketch with coloured pencils, remembering to include as much detail as possible. We are looking forward to next week when we will use water colours to try and recreate their artwork.

This half term in Art we will be looking at The Great Outdoors. We will be working on sketching, painting and the use of different materials in our artwork. 

This week, we have been working on line, tone and shape in our sketching of plants. As it was a little chilly to be sitting still outside for the whole afternoon, we brought the great outdoors into our classroom and studied and sketched the plants close up!

This week in Drama, we have been reciting the poem, 'Don't' by Michael Rosen. We split the class into groups, and each interpreted our lines, adding expression and miming to bring the poem to life. We aim to learn the poem by heart so that we can perform it to the rest of Year 4 after the Easter holidays.

This week in Music, we learned about note values and how to write a rhythm on a stave.  Having written our piece, some of us performed our work to the class.

WORLD BOOK DAY

To celebrate this special reading day, we were set a number of challenges. Among our favourites were: reading in an unusual place, recreating a book cover using items around our home and making our own comic strip. It was great to see our friends and class adults dressed up at our live lessons.

On Wednesday, we had a day away from the computer screen, giving us a chance to try new things and be creative. 

Our activities included:

• Being David Attenborough for a day - looking for plants, bugs and other creatures in the nature around us.
• Origami
• Making pictures of springtime
• A virtual 'Bring your pet to school' day
• Watching a movie that was made before we were born
• Writing a letter to someone we have missed during lockdown
• A Year 4 Bake-off!

We had so much fun trying out new things and old things(!) - the films made before our time are actually quite good; made our parents feel old though! 😮 We certainly learned that there are lots of activities, aside from gaming, that keep us occupied and entertained

In Maths this week, we were looking at properties of shape and angles. 

Angles are all around us. We made a right angle by folding a circular piece of paper in half and then in half again, to form the 90 degree angle. We used this to help us find obtuse angles (bigger than 90 degrees) and acute angles (smaller than 90 degrees) in our own home environment.

In Science this week were investigating and observing freezing water.

Our first task was to build the tallest icy skyscraper, using just ice cubes and to see how well it stayed up after 20 minutes - good job this wasn't done in the summer! 

Then we experimented with freezing different liquids to see which froze the quickest: boiled water, salt water, coloured water (with food dye added) and fizzy water/lemonade.   

We won't spoil the fun by telling you the results... try this yourself to see what happens 🙂

This week we have been doing daily activities linked with Mental Health Week. We know how important it is to look after our own minds as well as our own bodies and in turn look out for each other.

One of our fun tasks was to design a 'home school' uniform. We think you'll agree that some of these outfits reflect our wish to be comfortable and relaxed, whilst other designs focus on being more eye-catching - really waking us up and making us ready for a new day!

We have had a busy week, rewriting our own story modelled on The Three Little Pigs. Each morning we have looked forward to hearing the next episode of Mrs Leary's 'The Three Malicious but Delicious Year 4 Kids', to help give us some ideas for our own work.

Another hi-light of the week was making our own 3D model of a Saxon village. Those of us who couldn't get hold of the resources drew a picture of one instead.

Week Commencing 23rd November 2020 

Dear Parents and Carers,

As you no doubt will be aware, Year 4 are going to be recording a video of their Christmas performance that will be released on Teams on Wednesday 9^th December.  We are writing to you to ask for costumes for this performance.  Please can your child bring in as much as possible from the following items on Monday 30^th November:

• Christmas jumper (to be returned in time for Christmas Jumper Day)
• Christmas hats
• Christmas or novelty glasses
• Tinsel for a scarf
• Other wearable Christmas decorations

Thank you so much in advance for helping to make our 2020 Christmas performance the most memorable yet.  We hope that the finished result brings a big smile to your faces and a little bit of Christmas cheer.  

Kind regards,

Mrs Walter and Mrs Leary. 

For the past two weeks, 4SW have been looking at similarities and differences between people in PSHE.  We have had many an interesting discussion about the challenges faced in our country and beyond – issues with racism and discrimination of minority groups of people, religious differences, and we have even had a look at Donald Trump’s ideologies and opinions. The children have done really well tackling such big issues in a mature manner, listening to each other’s differing opinions with respect and decorum.  They made me very proud to be their teacher.