Spring term
Week Beginning 27/03/23
Welcome to the very last week of Year 4's Spring Term! It has been a productive, fun and engaging term to say the least. The children should all be very proud of themselves, as they have been working so hard, learning new concepts and making progress.
Both classes have been working on their Ancient Greek masks which they first planned and designed and then actually made. They were either using papier mache and mod roc or making mosaic patterns with paper to achieve their desired effect. As you can see from the photos they do look very eye catching.
In Science, we concluded our work on States of Matter by investigating the processes of Evaporation and Condensation in the Water Cycle. The children produced some brilliant diagrams:
We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break and we look forward to seeing the children back in school on Monday 17th April for an exciting Summer Term.
Week Beginning 20/3/23
In Year 4 this week, we continued to look at the Easter Story and the children wrote some amazing Acrostic Poems. Here are a few:
In Art, we continued with our Greek masks. The children designed a comedy or a tragedy mask and then drew it onto card. They papier mached the features onto the mask and the next step will be to cover the masks in mod roc. They are looking very impressive!
Hopefully, we can show you the finished result next week.
In English the children have been learning about what an explanation text is. They have been able to identify the features used such as time and causal conjunctions, a main title with a question and a diagram. They have had lots of fun watching Wallace & Gromit and their amazing inventions. Next, the children drew their own inventions to be used around the house or garden. They came up with ideas such as the 'Brekkieatron' which makes the breakfast and the 'Homeworkatron,' which as you can guess does the homework for them! Then they had a go at using time conjunctions in sentences which they will use next week for their actual explanation on how their inventions work.
During PSHE this term, the children have been finding out about the unhealthy factors surrounding smoking and not being peer pressured into drinking alcohol or smoking when they are older. This lead onto what makes a healthy friendship and what in turn makes for an unhealthy friendship. They are beginning to learn that they do not need to be pressured into doing something they don't want to because friends are pressuring them. They are understanding that it does not make them look cool and it is their choice to say no. In groups, they brainstormed what they felt were good, healthy friendships to be in and what they saw as unhealthy friendships. Below are some of the posters they made.
We wish you all a wonderful, if not too rainy a weekend. Next week is our last week of the Spring Term and the children will finish on the Friday at 1.30pm.
Week Beginning 13/3/23
This week was the last of year 4's swimming lessons and they ended with a fun swim. We have to say that the children's behaviour has been fantastic at swimming this year and they should be very proud of themselves. We also have some excellent swimmers and almost all of the non-swimmers are now all swimming. Well done, Year 4! It would be brilliant if the children could carry on with swimming outside of school so as to continue their hard work. Loughton Pool offers swimming lessons for all abilities:
https://www.placesleisure.org/centres/loughton-leisure-centre/centre-activities/swimming/learn-to-swim/
This week it was Neurodiversity Awareness Week and, following an assembly by Miss Holland, the Year 4s looked at different types of Neurodiversity in more detail and produced some great work. Here are a few examples:
Week Beginning 06/03/23
Continuing with their Science topic 'States of Matter,' the children have been learning about how water evaporates to become water vapour in the air. They understand more that this process can be slowed down and that if something like salt is dissolved into water it can become solid again after all the water has evaporated. The children can try this out at home if you wish, by dissolving some sugar into warm water. Then pour some into a saucer and leave on a window sill. They will see the sugar crystals reappear as the water eventually evaporates.
On Thursday all the children wore pink, red or purple to school in memory of one of our White Bridge girls who sadly passed a year ago. Mr Steadman conducted a thoughtful and reflective assembly about her and what she meant to so many. It was incredibly moving for both children and staff. Below you can see how the children looked in her favourite colours.
Week Beginning 27/02/23
Our Year 4s have had another productive and positive week in school. On Thursday we celebrated 'World Book Day' with fun reading activities. They started the day with an assembly run by Mr Steadman which included a book quiz and discussions around favourite books.
Other activities during the day included reading under the tables , colouring in book marks, words searches about books and shared reading with a partner and their cuddly toy!
As it was a lovely sunny afternoon, the children took their books and cuddly toys out to the playground and read in very different places to usual!
The children have each been given a £1 Book Token, which they can take to their local book shop and choose from a range of books priced only £1 using the token. On the back of the Book Token is the choice of books they can choose from. We look forward to seeing these books brought into school and used as part of their weekly Reading Challenge - as more 'Movie & Munch' is up for grabs! Thank you for your support with the Bingo Reading Challenge at home. They will bring these back on Monday for us to see and to give out certificates. It sounds as if they have enjoyed reading anything from recipes and cereal packets to reading to their pets at home.
Another highlight of the week was the handing in of the Greek master pieces! Yet again the children have excelled themselves and the quality of their work is amazing - our Year 4 corridor looks vibrant yet again. Here are some examples (sorry we can't include them all). Thank you for all your support in producing these wonderful posters.
Week Beginning 20/02/23
We hope you all had a wonderful half term break last week. This week our Year 4 children have continued their learning journey with great enthusiasm. In English, they have been learning about fables and what the moral of a story means. They have planned their own fable to write as a story next week. In Maths, they have learnt about converting metres to kilometres and finding the perimeter of 2D shapes.
For Science, the children are continuing with their topic 'States of Matter.' They carried out an investigation as to which would melt first out of a: milk, dark and white chocolate button. They each held all 3 buttons in their hands and waited to see which one became sticky and lost its shape the quickest. As you can imagine, this was lots of fun for the children with plenty of scientific language being used. But best of all they got to eat their melted, messy chocolate buttons!
We wrote up our investigations and discussed the different types of variables to improve our Scientific vocabulary.
In History, the children have been learning about the Ancient Greek gods. They chose a god, drew a picture and added lots of facts they found in topic books and work sheets.
Week Beginning 06/02/23
As part of Children's Mental Health Week this week, the Year 4 children took part in a 'Walk & Talk' activity. They teamed up with children from each other's classes with whom they do not normally speak to. Then we took them on a trail around the school, allowing them the chance to have a good old chat and find out more about each other. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and everyone felt thoroughly refreshed and happy afterwards!
Tuesday was Internet Safety Day. The children were taught to understand the ways personal information can be shared on the internet. They were shown what privacy settings are, why they are needed and how to use them.
In PSHE this week, we had great fun working in teams to create a Potato Person for a competition. The team work was amazing and so were the finished results!
Unfortunately, there could only be one winner.......
Max!
In June of this year, all our Year 4s will complete a formal Multiplications Table Check test (MTC). It would greatly benefit the children if they can practice their tables at home. We recommend fun sites such as 'Maths Frame' or 'Hit the Button' where there are lots of fun games they can play on line while they are learning their tables. These are free web sites & can be found via Google.
Week Beginning 30/01/23
On Monday the children had a visit from Catherine Hammond who works for the Epping Forest District Museum Service. She brought a number of fascinating pieces which depicted life from Ancient Greek times. The children were invited to make observations about for example, what clothes were worn in those times or which musical instruments were played. As you can see from the photos there were lots of clues for the children to go on.
This week in English the children wrote non-chronological reports about their Ancient Greek mythical creatures they had designed. They used writing features such as: main headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, fact boxes and pictures with captions. They really enjoyed the imaginative challenge of coming up with their own creatures. The children came up with names like: The Slaying Slivther, The Nasty Naimir and The Petrifying Perhand! This was to be their next piece of important writing, which gets displayed up on the classes' English Writing Walls.
In R.E., we continued to study Hinduism and their worship. The children drew and labelled Puja plates:
In Science, we began to investigate whether gases have any mass. We filled bottles with fizzy drink, shook them and then released the gas. We weighed the bottles before and afterwards to see if their mass had changed. There was lots of Scientific discussion about Dependent variables, Control Variables and Independent variables.
Week Beginning 23/01/23
Another productive week for our Year 4s. They have been busy planning their non-chronological reports about their mythical creatures they have designed for English. Some of them have started the tricky concept of short division in Maths, which will become easier with practice.
The children are still looking at states of matter during Science and there will be more investigations coming up. In the mean time, we have a fun suggestion they could try at home should the weather turn below zero and become icy. They could fill a balloon with coloured water (food colouring), tie a knot in it and leave it out in the cold over night. The idea is, that the next day when they cut away the balloon they are left with a beautiful, coloured ice ball!
During music the children have started learning about the Japanese festival called Hanami. They discovered that this is a Cherry Blossom Festival and is celebrated every year towards the end of March. They then had to visulise standing under these trees and imagining what smells, sights, sounds & feelings they might experience. They wrote some words and drew a cherry blossom tree.
In History, we are continuing with our topic of Ancient Greece. This week and next, we will be investigating and researching the Ancient Greek way of life including clothing, food and entertainment. Here is some of the fantastic work so far:
Week Beginning 16/01/23
Another exciting week for our Year 4s. They have begun investigating making slime as part of their Science topic. As you can imagine there was lots of mess, laughter but plenty of scientific enquiry was apparent. This will continue next week.
In Maths this week the children have continued working on multiplication and division. They now have a better understanding of multiplying & dividing by 10 and 100.
In English, Year 4 retold the story of Theseus and The Minotaur. Once they had finished the story, they used their editing skills to improve their work. We are really pleased to see that the children are beginning to use accurate punctuation including speech punctuation, brackets and dashes. They are also becoming more confident in using different sentence types and starting their sentences in different ways. Keep it up Year 4!
Our area outside Whitebeam and Lime Classes is ready for all things Ancient Greek, as you can see from the photos. Hopefully by Parents' Evening you will be able to see examples of the children's work.
Week Beginning 9.1.23
Welcome back everyone and we hope that you had a fantastic Christmas break. It is lovely to have Lime and Whitebeam classes back for the Spring Term.
We had our first swimming session today, which went really well, and the children seemed to love it - we have some amazing swimmers this year.
In English this half term, we will be writing Greek Myths and non-chronological reports about mythical creatures. We started this week with story maps of Theseus and the Minotaur.
In RE, we will be learning more about Hinduism and in PSHE, our theme is Dreams and Goals.
In Art, we will be drawing Greeks vases for the first few weeks. Here are some of our first attempts:
We will definitely miss Mrs Wells!
Maths for the next few weeks will be all things concerning multiplying & dividing numbers.
In Science for Spring Term, the children will be looking at 'States of Matter' - that is solids, liquids and gases.
For ICT they will be getting to grips with their Google emails and using Google Classroom effectively.
This term we have started our exciting new topic the Ancient Greeks. The children will be learning all sorts of interesting information. As you can see this topic branches into other subjects they are doing too.
French this half term the children are learning the story of Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears in of course French!
During their music lessons they will be learning about the Japanese festival of Hanami.
We wish you all a wonderful weekend.
