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2023/24 Our Learning

Summer 2 Week 7

I can hardly believe that we have reached the end of the school year already, it seems to have gone so quickly! In our English this week, we worked in groups to write a play script to tell the story of A midsummer Night's Dream, making sure we thought about what the characters would say and how they would act. We then practised it thinking about our voices making sure we used expression and were loud and clear. On Thursday, we performed them for each other outside in the open air. In Maths, we have been introduced to coordinates and how to read and plot them in the first quadrant. We also looked at drawing shapes accurately on a coordinate grid. We finished our Geography learning by looking at how lots of cities in the USA were designed using a grid and the reasons why. We also thought about why we are now moving away from the grid design and what factors have influenced this. In PSHE we learnt some more about the physical changes that will happen to our bodies as we go through puberty, thinking about what will happen to girls, boys and both genders. We have been treated to some performances this week, one from the children who have guitar lessons and also the Year 6 end of year production, which were both fantastic. On Friday, we had our behaviour treat where we went up to Blacksnape Park and enjoyed playing with each other. It has been a wonderful year and the children have achieved so much, we are proud of every single one of them and will miss them all next year. 

Summer 2 Week 6

This week in Maths, we have been looking at statistics. We have read and interpreted the data presented in pictograms, bar graphs and line graphs. We also managed to have a quick introduction to reading coordinates in the first quadrant ready for next week. In English, we started the week by retelling the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream using a 'Whoosh' story. We got into two circles and took it in turns to tell a part of the story and to act it out in the middle. Then we thought about the character of Puck and how he got everything mixed up, so we wrote a letter to a problem page asking for help with the situation. We also wrote a letter to a problem page as Helena to ask for advice for her love troubles! In Geography, we discussed what a landmark is and some of the reasons that they are protected. We then looked at a variety of key American landmarks and thought about why they are important or protected. We completed our Science learning about electricity by looking at the dangers of electricity. We found out what to look for and how to be safe around electricity, before designing a poster to warn others of the dangers. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we completed our newspaper report about the criminal activities of Macavity the Mystery Cat! We included more features of a newspaper report, including a quote and a conclusion paragraph that explained what would happen next. Our symmetry learning continued in Maths with Mrs Scholes, and we completed symmetric figures on a squared grid. We counted squares and looked for the location of vertices (corners) to help us to make sure the shapes and patterns were symmetrical. In PE, we recapped the 6 dance moves we have learnt over the unit and also the action and reaction improvisations. We then worked in groups of 4 to create our own electricity dance routines. On Wednesday in Art, we used a drawing technique created by Henri Matisse called drawing with scissors. We had a range of pictures of different shapes and sizes that we had to cut out. Some of them were intricate so we had to ensure we cut them carefully. We then arranged the images in a collage across the page thinking about where would be best to position them and if they should overlap or not. In our last French lesson of the year, we thought about the Olympics. We discussed how the games were created and the elements that are needed for them. We then played a game to match up some Olympic sorts to their French names using the learning from our Spring term topic. We have been treated to two musical performances this week, one from the Rock Steady bands and one from the keyboard players. It was wonderful to see our class mates performing and seeing ho w much progress they have made over the year with their instruments.  

Summer 2 Week 5

It has been a very busy and exciting week! We started with our outdoor learning session on Monday morning, unfortunately the weather was more like autumn than summer and it was very wet so we did have to come back to school a bit earlier than usual. We got ourselves into teams and then used natural materials that we could find in the woods to create a portrait of William Shakespeare. We then thought about the landscape of Hoddlesden and what physical and human features it has. We went to the reservoir where we sketched the landscape that we could see. On Monday afternoon, we had Computing and we used Scratch to write our own code to create simple games that involved sharks, Mrs Bradley was really impressed with what we made. We really enjoyed our Science learning this week! We used the electrical components to create a simple series circuit and then tested a range of materials to see if they are a conductor (a material that will allow electricity to flow through it) or an insulator (a material that doesn’t allow electricity to flow through it). We made predictions about the materials (wood, a copper coin, glass, aluminium foil, rubber and plastic) before testing them in our circuits. We found that the copper coin and the aluminium foil are conductors because they are both metals. In our R.E. learning, we continued our topic about prayer by looking at the formal prayer that Muslims carry out daily. They pray formally 5 times a day, but can also pray informally at other times. We looked at the ritual of Wudu, which is a cleansing ritual that is an important part of purity and cleanliness. It is carried out before prayer or before reading the Qur'an. In English with Mrs Scholes, we started writing our newspaper report about the crimes of Macavity the Mystery Cat. We wrote an opening paragraph that included the 5Ws (who, what, where, when, why) and the start of the main body of text about Macavity and the wrongdoings he had been committing. We looked at symmetry in Maths with Mrs Scholes, using a mirror to help us to find the lines of symmetry of 2-D shapes. In PSHE we learnt about the election process and how it works. We then had a class vote to decide the best way to choose someone to be 'it' during games as this is something we have been finding tricky. We also wrote our own manifesto to present to Mr Edgar about what we want to happen in Year 5. Then we had the opportunity to go into Year 5 for some transition days and spend some time with Mr Edgar. We began by getting to know each other, Mr Edgar wrote us a letter telling us all about himself and then we wrote him one back telling us all about ourselves. We were then really lucky to complete a design project from Ductu and Aston Martin. We spent some time looking at car designs and the different elements that need to be considered. We then got into groups and designed our own car thinking about the shape, the wheels, how it would be powered and the overall look. In the afternoon, we then built our cars and did test runs and made any changes we identified. Then we had a competition to see how well they went, how good they looked and also how well we worked as a team. We all enjoyed our time in Year 5 and it helped us to look forward to September. On Friday, for our English learning we looked at the plot of A Midsummer Nights Dream, which is quite complex! We then had to sort a jumbled up version into the correct order to show our understanding of the story. In French, we used the adverts we created last week for one of the toys and we presented them to the class to try and persuade everyone to buy them. We had to use all our learning from the last half term and think about our tone of voice and presentation. In Geography, we recapped what a biome is from our learning in Year 3 and how they are linked to climate zones. We looked at the 7 different biomes that there are in North America and what each one is like. 

Summer 2 Week 4

In Maths this week, we have been extending our understanding of time. We looked at the differences between analogue and digital clocks and have been telling the time using both. We also looked at the 12 and 24 hour clocks and have been converting times from one to the other. In English, we started our new unit about William Shakespeare, we thought about what things we already know about him from our previous learning and then found out some more information. We thought about his job as a playwright and we wrote advertisements for a playwright and also for actors to be in the plays. We then wrote in role as William Shakespeare to write an application for the job of Royal Playwright. In Geography, we thought about the different climate zones that there are all around the world and why there are different climates. We then focused on the United States of America and what different climate zones it has.  In Computing, we used Scratch to continue building on our programming and coding skills and this week we wrote our names and animated them. We started planning our newspaper report about Macavity: The Mystery Cat in our English learning with Mrs Scholes. We gathered all of the important information from the poem about the mischievous cat's crimes and thought about our opening paragraph that will contain the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, why). In our Maths learning with Mrs Scholes, we learnt about quadrilaterals (shapes with 4 straight sides) and looked at their properties, e.g. whether they have parallel lines, right angles etc. In Science, we looked at a variety of circuits and had to decide whether the bulb would light or not. Some circuits were missing components (parts) such as a battery or the circuit was not connected, so it would definitely not work as the current would not be able to flow around the circuit and make the bulb light. Our R.E. learning focused on the artefacts used in prayer in Judaism. We looked at the symbolism of the items, such as a prayer shawl and a head covering, and made connections to other areas of our lives. In PE on Wednesday, we continued to look at how we can mark each other and how we can move around to create space in invasion games. We adapted the game from last week making it more challenging. In Art, we focused on proportion; what it is and how artists can change it to create effects. We had a range of different sized and shaped objects that we need to draw in proportion to each other. We used the charcoal to coat our page and then used rubbers to show light parts of the objects and more charcoal to show the darker parts. There was a wonderful surprise for us on Thursday afternoon, an ice cream van came to school and we all got an ice cream or ice lolly from Mr Dugdale. Thank you Mr Dugdale. On Friday morning, it was our class worship all about British Values. We worked together to decide what we wanted to do and how we would do it. We practiced over the week and did a fantastic job on Friday. In French, we created some advertisements for one of the toys from our vocabulary list. We used some of the wow words that we have learnt and some new vocabulary about special offers on them.  In PSHE we talked about conflict and compromise. We looked at the type of things that might cause conflict with parents and families as we get older and discussed different ways we could compromise in order to resolve them. we ended the week with our PE dance session. This week we looked at creating improvised spark movements and also creating the movements in canon so one person moved and then the other person reacted. 

Summer 2 Week 3

This week in English, we have become The One Show presenters and reporters to prepare and perform a segment for the show all about Macavity and his criminal acts. Working in groups, we created scripts for presenters in the studio, a presenter out on location at the scene and people for them to interview. After some practice we then performed them in front of the green screen so that we can add appropriate backgrounds. You can watch the completed videos using the link https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/playlist/year-4-2023-2024-1. In Maths, we finished our money unit by looking at solving two step problems that involve money and applying our previous learning about calculation strategies. We then moved onto a unit about time. To start us off we have been looking at units that we use to measure time such as minutes, hours, days and weeks and converting between them. In Geography, we recapped the countries that make up the continent of North America before focusing on the USA. We looked at how the USA is split up into states and used an atlas to locate them all as well as listening to a song to help us remember them. In Computing, we looked at different kinds of loops that can be used in coding. We then had the opportunity to practice creating them on Scratch. On Tuesday, Trikidz came to school again and we had a session with them where we had to run and cycle. It was hard work and tiring, but also lots of fun. In our Science learning this week, we added a switch into our circuit to see what effect it would have. When the switch is open, there is a break in the circuit and the bulb won’t light. We then had a go at making our own switches using paperclips and drawing pins! We looked at the language in traditional prayers in our R.E. lesson and discussed what the language tells us about God and Christian beliefs. In our English with Mrs Scholes, we had a try at being journalists! We practised writing the opening paragraph of a newspaper report, which contains the 5 Ws - who, what, where, when, why - to set the scene for the reader. We are going to start planning our newspaper report about Macavity: The Mystery Cat next week. In our invasion games PE session, we played time bomb to help us sharpen up our throwing (using chest pass) and catching technique. Then we played games where we had to move into space to either pass or receive the ball. We started our Music lesson by identifying the different string instruments you would find in an orchestra. We then listened to Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev again and thought about how the string instruments affected the dynamics and texture of the music. Then we set ourselves the tricky challenge of trying to sing I Wanna Sing Scat in the two different parts.  We chose which part we felt the most comfortable singing and we did a great job with the first part of the song. In Art, we experimented with different types of pencil to shade with; we had a HB, a 4B and an 8B. We discussed how we can use shading and tone to show light and dark and make things look 3D. We were inspired by the piece of art work Eye by Ed Ruscha and made a shape with a piece of ribbon that we then drew and shaded. In PSHE we thought about changes that can happen in our lives and how this makes us feel. We shared some of the changes we have experienced in or lives and we also discussed how we felt about moving into Year 5 soon. In our dance PE lesson, we recapped the 6 moves we have learnt over the last two weeks and worked in groups to perform the routine in the right order. We had to work hard to be in time with each other. In French, we continued to practise creating sentences to express our opinions about toys. We played le Chef d'Orchestre to help us say them before beating Mrs Bullen at a guess my sentence game. 

Summer 2 Week 2

In Maths this week, we have linked our learning about decimals to money. We have identified that the ones are the pounds, the tenths are the ten ps and the hundredths are the 1ps. We have then compared and ordered different amounts of money. We also used our rounding skills to help us estimate amounts of money to solve some problems. In English, we got into role as detectives and responded to an email from the Chief Inspector wanting to know why Macavity hasn't been caught yet. We also read another one of T.S. Eliott's poems about cats called Skimbleshanks. We then compared the characters of Macavity and Skimbleshanks in a Venn diagram. To finish off the week we worked in groups and performed a section of the Macavity poem which you can watch on the school website https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/media/macavity-performance-poetry.  We started our new Geography topic about The Americas and looked at the different countries that make up the continent of North America, labelling them on a map. In Computing, we used Scratch to write programming code to draw different shapes. In our English lesson with Mrs Scholes, we continued looking at the features of newspaper reports so that we know what to include in our own. The features include a headline, an opening paragraph with 5 Ws (when, who, what, where, why), quotes, pictures with a caption and a conclusion paragraph with information about what might happen next. In Maths, we compared and ordered angles. We loved our practical Science lesson, where we got to get the circuit equipment out and make a series circuit! We created some simple circuits, making a bulb light up and a motor run. We then investigated what would happen if we added an extra bulb and an extra battery. We drew the circuits, using the symbols for each component. In our R.E. Lesson, we used the Bibles to look up some verses in the New Testament. We used the verses to find out what we could learn from Jesus about prayer. We found out that Jesus often prayed alone, which we thought might be so that he could really focus on what he was saying to God, without any distractions. He also prayed often, for long periods of time and in lots of different places! For PE on Wednesday, we looked at the skill of marking an opponent and played a shadowing game. We then looked at how we can use space to get away from someone who is marking us so that we can receive the ball. In Music, we listened to a famous piece of music by Prokofiev from Romeo and Juliet and used lines and colour to show how it made us feel. We then looked at part two of the song I Wanna Sing Scat that we started last week. We had to work hard on the timing as it was much slower than we thought. In PSHE we thought about some of the advantages of having mobile phones and also some of the risks involved with them. We looked at some scenarios where people had been sending unkind messages or comments about others and decided what we would do if we were in that situation. In French, we recapped the wow words from last week and also the toy vocabulary from the unit. We continued to build up sentences to express our opinion about toys for example J'aime le poupee c'est fantastique. Madam Wardle then showed us some sentences and we had some time to look at them before we had to try and write them from memory - it was very tricky. On Friday afternoon, we ended the week with some dance in PE. We recapped the 3 street dance moves we learnt last week and then learnt 3 new static shock moves. Then we put all 6 moves together in a sequence. 

Summer 2 Week 1

It has been lovely to be back in school this week and although it was a slightly shorter one, we have made a super start to our Hoddlesden Globe topic. In English, we became detectives and investigated a crime scene using video evidence of Dusty the criminal cat to help us. Then we read our new text; the poem Macavity The Mystery Cat, which has quite a lot of challenging vocabulary in it. We used dictionaries to find out what the vocabulary meant to help us understand the poem better. In Maths, we finished off our unit on decimals by identifying fraction and decimal equivalences for halves, one quarter and three quarters. We then started a new unit all about money. We talked about the different coins and notes we have and their values. We then learnt how to write money as a decimal. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we started looking at the features of newspaper articles in preparation for writing our own. We read a variety of articles and gave our opinions about them, thinking about the structure and content. In our Maths lesson, we continued our shape learning by identifying different types of angles. We learnt about acute and obtuse angles; acute angles are less than a right angle (a quarter turn) and an obtuse angle is greater than a right angle but less than a half turn. We started our Electricity topic in Science by acting out the moment that Benjamin Franklin and his son discovered how to harness electricity's power so that people could use it. It was a dangerous experiment that involved lightning and a kite! We then talked about how we use electricity, sorting appliances into those that use mains electricity (electricity from a power station, accessed via a socket) and those that use batteries. In our R.E. learning, we started learning about prayer. We considered what prayer is and learnt that it can take many forms, including praise, thanking God, asking for things we need or just having a conversation with God. In PE on Wednesday we started our unit about invasion games and talked about the importance of marking opposing players and good ways to stick with our player and mark them effectively. We practiced by trying to stay with our partner when they were moving around and also by playing triangle tag. In Music, we found out about our new composer for the half term Sergei Prokefiev and some of the events and influences in his life and music. We then listened to some scat music and discussed what it is like and how it is structured. We had a go at singing the first part of the song I Wanna Sing Scat. In Art, we looked at the work of the French artist Henri Matisse and we were surprised to find out that he only started painting when he was 20 and how much his style changed over time. In PSHE we looked at some online safety. We watched a video that showed us that people can lie about who they are online and then we discussed the things we need to do to keep ourselves safe from strangers. We designed posters to share our knowledge. In French, we recapped our learning from before half term about numbers and toy vocabulary. Then we discussed how we are going to be trying to persuade people to buy a toy and we recalled some vocabulary that we learnt in Year 3 that would help us to do this such as c'est fantastique and incroyable. In our second PE lesson we were doing dance linked to our Science topic of electricity. We learnt some basic dance moves, but as our style was electricity we needed to have straight lines and for our movements to be sudden and sparky when we were doing them. 

Summer 1 week 6

It has been a busy and exciting end to the half term for Year 4. We started the week with Sports Day, where everyone joined in all the activities brilliantly and demonstrated our sporting values. After a physical morning, we came back into the classroom and did some History, where we looked at the Ancient Egyptian process of mummification. We also talked about some of the Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife. In Computing, we learnt how to use the clone tool to either add or remove things from a picture. We started with a picture of the pyramids with a camel in front and used our skills to add and remove the pyramids or camel. On Tuesday, we put our juggling, balancing and spinning skills to the test in a fantastic circus skills session. We enjoyed having a go at a variety of different activities, some of which required a lot of perseverance! Amongst other things, we hula hooped, cycled, juggled a variety of items, balanced on stilts and had a go at spinning plates. We loved it! See us practising our new skills here. We completed our Animals, Including Humans unit in Science by looking at food chains and food webs. We revisited key vocabulary such as predator, prey, producer (an organism that creates its own food or energy) and consumer (a living thing that eats other plants and animals). In our R.E. learning, we looked at the symbol of light and how it is used across several world faiths. It is used to represent aspects of the different faiths such as Jesus, Allah, the victory of good over evil and the miracle of oil burning for 8 days. In English with Mrs Scholes, we performed our kennings poems as a group, choosing the best lines from each of our poems and putting them together to create a new poem. Enjoy our poems here. On Wednesday in DT, we finished our slingshot chariots and then got to test them in the hall. Some of them worked really well, some even went backwards. We then evaluated our end product and thought about what we would do differently if we did it again. In English this week, we have been looking at newspaper reports and the journalistic style and features that they have. We then used our knowledge of Howard Carter discovering Tutankhamun's tomb from History and wrote a newspaper article about it. In Maths, we have been putting decimal numbers into ascending and descending order and also rounding decimals to the nearest whole one. On Thursday, we went on a trip to Bolton Museum. In the morning, we looked around the different areas of the museum including the aquarium, the art gallery and the nature gallery, answering the questions on the special trail. In the afternoon, we had a workshop with Katie, who talked to us about why Bolton Museum has so many artefacts from Ancient Egypt and we shared some of our knowledge with her. We then went into the first room where we created a giant timeline to show us how long ago the Ancient Egyptian period was and looked at the different artefacts. The second room was all about mummification and the afterlife and we were able to build on the learning that we had done in school. Finally, we went into the replica tomb, where we re enacted removing the organs and putting them into the canopic jars and also weighing the heart against a feather to see if you could enter the afterlife or not. we also got to see a genuine Egyptian mummy of the 'unknown man' that was over 3,000 years old. The children were all fantastic ambassadors for our school and showed wonderful recall of their learning. 

 

 

Summer 1 Week 5

We had an exciting start to the week, with a visit from Pets at Home to link with our Science learning. They brought some small mammals (hamsters and a guinea pig), some reptiles (snakes) and some molluscs (African Giant Land Snails). We were given the opportunity to handle them and look at the differences between them. In our Maths learning this week, we have continued to build our knowledge and understanding of decimals. We looked at hundredths that total one, partitioning decimals to show the value and for calculating and have also compared decimals using the greater than and less than signs. In English, we have been exploring the journals that Howard Carter wrote to document him discovering Tutankhamun's tomb. We looked at the different features it contained and then had a go at writing our own journal entry as Howard Carter. We also started to look at some newspaper reports about the discovery.  In Gymnastics we started to put our learning together by working in groups to create a sequence that included some rolls, balances and jumps. We started planning and practicing them this week and we will refine them in next weeks lesson. In our Science learning this week, we discussed how our teeth and gums have to be cared for in order to keep them healthy. We came up with lots of ways we could do this, including cleaning them regularly, going to the dentist and not eating too many sugary foods! We then did an investigation where we put hard-boiled eggs into different liquids to see what effect the liquid would have on the shell (the shell is similar to our teeth). We used cola, orange juice, vinegar and water. We found that the orange juice and vinegar both caused the outer layer of the shell to come off as the liquids are both sugary and acidic. We were surprised about the orange juice because we thought it was healthy! The cola stained the egg shell and the water did not have affect the shell at all. In our R.E. lesson, we continued to look at the places of worship of World Faiths. We looked at the features of a mosque (Islam) and the features of a gurdwara (Sikhism). There are many similar features to the different places of worship, even though the religions are different. We wrote our kennings poem about Ancient Egypt in our English lesson with Mrs Scholes, using nouns and either an er noun or an ing verb to create hyphenated words. Some great examples of our kennings are 'pyramid-assembler', 'body-wrapper' and 'gods-praiser'. In DT we started to create the slingshot mechanisms for our chariots using lolly sticks, elastic bands and paper clips. It is quite fiddly and was frustrating at times, but we persevered with it. In Athletics we looked at some of the throwing techniques that we can use in athletics. We practiced the technique for javelin and also for a sit down throw. In History, we looked at the different groups of people that lived in Ancient Egypt and what they each contributed to society. We discussed which of them we thought contributed the most and thought back to what is needed for a successful civilisation. We had a special PSHE lesson all about the effects and impact of calling each other names. We shared what names we didn't like to be called and how they made us feel. We used a piece of paper by scrunching it up to show the effect that name calling can have on us even after someone has said sorry, it still leaves a mark. Our French lesson was a bit different this week, we recapped our numbers to 59 but then we learnt about the French currency; the Euro ready for when we do our 'shopping' parts of our topic. As it was warm and sunny, we went outside to do our Music lesson with Mr Richards. We continued to work together to compose our own pieces of music using the Egyptian scale. 

Summer 1 Week 4

It may have been a short week with the bank holiday, but we have packed a lot into it. On Thursday, we had our outdoor learning session which was canoeing at Fishmoor Reservoir. We split into 2 groups for the sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The first group had to work together to join the canoes to make rafts that were stable. We then got out on to the water where we practiced our paddling. Louise then challenged us to collect some balls and inflatables that she had thrown into the reservoir to earn as many points as we could. After that, we rowed to the shore and got out to play a game with our paddles. Louise gave us different instructions and we had to swap our paddles or let go of them to do a dance move without dropping them or we were out. Next, we got back into the canoes and headed out into the middle of the reservoir. We held onto each others boats so we were one large raft. Then we took it in turns to stand up, turn around and jump. Some people were brave enough to dip their faces in the water to say hello to the fish and some people walked the planks joining the canoes to swap into different canoes. Our final activity in the canoes was to play canoe football. We had to try and get the ball and throw it into Louise's canoe to win points. Before we finished, the second group had to work together to separate the canoes and take them back up to the top. At the end of the session, we had the chance to paddle or swim in the reservoir near to the shore, which was loads of fun. All of the children were wonderfully behaved and got involved in the sessions even if it was out of their comfort zones.  In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we gathered vocabulary ready to write our kennings poems about Ancient Egypt. We made a list of nouns, -er nouns and -ing verbs that we will use to create the kennings (a figure of speech used in poetry that describes something, without actually mentioning its name). In Science, we compared the teeth of herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. They all have some similar teeth but they are different depending on what they eat. For example, carnivores have larger, sharper canine teeth to tear the meat they eat and the rest of their teeth are also pretty sharp! In our R.E. learning, we explored the places of worship for the World Faiths Judaism and Hinduism. We looked at the features of the synagogue (Judaism) and the mandir (Hinduism) and compared them to a church. We also enjoyed a cricket coaching session in the sunshine on Tuesday morning! We practised bowling, throwing and batting before using those skills in a game. In English with Mrs Bullen, we finished writing the ending to Secrets of a Sun King and revealed whether or not Lil managed to save Grandad. In Maths, we looked at some of the questions that we found tricky on our assessments and strategies to answer them. We also started our second decimals unit and looked at adding tenths to make a whole one. In PSHE we thought about what makes a healthy lifestyle and what things we need. We created an imaginary hotel and made posters to advertise what facilities it could have to promote a healthy life style. In French, we impressed Madame Wardle with the work we did last week whilst she was in France. We recapped the vocabulary for toys that we were introduced to last week and added some actions to them to help them stick in our mind. In Music, we continued to investigate the Egyptian scales and we took advantage of the nice weather and went outside. We worked in groups to improvise and compose our own pieces of music that we linked to the food beats and Egyptian scales. 

Summer 1 Week 3

We have loved our English learning this week. We got to read more of our novel Secrets of a Sun King and we finally found out what is hidden in the jar. We wrote some telegrams to the different characters and then planned an ending for the story. On Friday we started writing our ending. In Maths we looked at dividing numbers by 100 and how it affects the value of the digits. We then did some assessments to bring together all of our fractions and decimals learning. In our gymnastics session, we recapped some different balances in our warm up and then we focused on different types of rolls. We looked at log and teddy bear rolls and recapped the techniques we had learnt previously, then we learnt how to do a side role. This week in our poetry unit with Mrs Scholes, we focused on kennings poems. A kenning is a figure of speech used in poetry that describes something, without actually mentioning its name. Kennings poems are like riddles - they describe something without ever saying what it is. We created two-word, hyphenated phrases with a noun followed by an -er noun to describe ourselves, e.g. pizza-demolisher. The poems were super! In Science, we started learning about human teeth. We have four different types of teeth (incisors, canines, premolars and molars) that all have a different job while we are eating. Our R.E. learning about the Church continued with us looking at the guidance that Paul gave the early church about how they should behave and what their attitude should be. For example, he told them they should live in harmony. We linked this to our own school values and then designed a poster to display the guidance. In DT we designed the body for our chariot thinking about the shape and using typical Egyptian patterns. Then we used the glue gun to attach the axels to the chassis and then added the wheels. In our athletics session, we went back to the long jump and to the flight part of the jump. We practiced the hitch kick technique of peddling your legs in the air as you are in flight to help us go further. For PSHE we thought about choices. We identified the choices that we can make as children and also some of the choices adults have to make for us and some of the reasons why. We then looked at some of the choices that adults have that children don't. In Computing, we looked at different ways we can alter the colour on a digital image. We then experimented with some of the different effects on some photos of Darwen. On Friday, Madame Wardle was in France so we did our French lesson without her and we think she would be proud of what we achieved. First we recapped numbers to 59 from last week and then we were introduced to some new vocabulary for some toys. We were able to identify what some of them were very easily using words we already knew and some similar words and sounds to English. In Music, we continued to look at the work of Hans Zimmer at the start. We then went outside to practice some of the Egyptian scales on the glockenspiel and to try and compose some of our own pieces. 

Summer 1 Week 2

This week in Maths we have built on our understanding of decimals and have moved onto Hundredths. we have explored hundredths as a fraction and then as a decimal in a place value chart. In English, we have read more of our novel Secrets of a Sun King and have been introduced to some new characters. We also learnt that the mysterious jar is Egyptian and it is cursed. We made some predictions about what the curse could be. In History, we identified that Ancient Egypt is considered to be one of the most successful civilisations across time and we explored some of the reasons why. We worked in groups to research one area that they were successful and created information posters to share with each other. In DT we made the chassis for our slingshot chariot using the glue gun and then measured and cut the two axels using the saws. We started our new English poetry unit with Mrs Scholes. We looked at a range of poetry styles (e.g. haiku, shape and acrostic) and we decided which type of poem we liked the best and why. In our Maths learning, we continued finding missing lengths on rectilinear shapes before calculating the perimeter (the distance around a closed 2-D shape). Following our Science lesson last week where we learnt what the main parts of the human digestive system are, this week we learnt what the function (job) of each of those parts is. In our R.E. lesson, we looked at a variety of churches and we learnt what the main features of the churches are. For example, even in different denominations, most churches will have things like a cross, candles, a way of playing music for worship and somewhere for the congregation to sit. In PE this week, we looked at jumping over obstacles such as hurdles and the best techniques to do this. We looked at photo editing in Computing and used Canva photo editor to crop and flip some images of Darwen. We explored and celebrated all of our different talents and qualities in PSHE this week. We identified each others talents and qualities before identifying 5 things that made us, us. In French, we continued to build our confidence with numbers up to 35 and then extended our knowledge to numbers up to 59. With Mr Richards in our Music lesson, we sang the song about the human body from last week that links with our Science learning. This week we added a glockenspiel accompaniment to parts of the song as well as singing it. 

Summer 1 Week 1

What a fabulous start to the summer term (apart from the weather!) we have had in Year 4. We have started our new topic of Historical Heroes. In Maths, we have been introduced to decimals and Mrs Bullen and Mrs Sullivan have been blown away by how well we have understood this new learning. We found out that decimals show us parts of whole ones just like fractions. We learnt about the decimal point and the tenths column and how to write number with whole ones and tenths. We also put decimal numbers onto a number line and divided single digit numbers by 10. In English, we started our new novel Secrets of a Sun King. It has a very mysterious start and we have been making predictions of what could be in a parcel that was sent to one of the characters. We have also been doing some letter writing between the characters using our predictions and we produced some fantastic writing.  In History, we built on our learning about the stone age from Year 3 and thought about what things a civilisation needs in order to be successful and we made posters. We are going to be thinking about an ancient civilisation and so we thought about what the word ancietn means and where it would be on a timeline. In English with Mrs Scholes, we finished writing our non-chronological reports about the Romans. We added features such as a heading, an introduction, a glossary and pictures. In Maths, we continued our learning about perimeter by finding the missing lengths on rectilinear shapes. We started our new Science topic about teeth and digestion by learning about the basic parts of the human digestive system. We played a game where we had to work in a group to draw a simple picture of the digestive system...but we were only allowed to look at the picture we had to copy for a few minutes before we had to try to replicate it! We were all pleasantly surprised by the outcomes. We had some great discussion about the new topic and we were amazed by how long our intestines are! Our new R.E. unit is about the Church. We began by learning that the Church is not a building - it is the people. We looked at the features of the Church that Peter and the other disciples 'built' after Jesus left and we realised that the Church is still very similar now; people still gather together to do things such as learn about Jesus, pray and spend time together and try to help others. In Computing, we looked at different ways that digital images can be edited and looked at some examples. We had some technical issues when we came to have a go at cropping and rotating an image, so we will have another go next week now they have been resolved. Our DT topic this half term is slingshot chariots. We looked a simple chassis design for a car and thought about how we could adapt it to be for a chariot. In PE on Monday, we did some gymnastics and thought about the vocabulary accelerate and decelerate and what it means. We also discussed when we might need to accelerate or decelerate in gymnastics. We practiced accelerating and decelerating. In our other PE session, we thought about different athletics events before focusing on jumping. We looked at the flight part of the long jump and tried to improve our jumping technique. In PSHE we did an online safety lesson, where we looked at copyright. We found out what copyright is and how it protects creators. We looked at a scenario where copyright had been broken and thought about what we should do. In French, we started our new topic L'Argent de Poche which is all about pocket money. We discussed our own experiences of pocket money and how we like to spend it. We watched a video of a French child earning some pocket money so that he could buy a toy he wanted and picked out some familiar vocabulary.  In Music, we learnt to sing a song about the body which links to our learning in Science. For our composer explorer focus we listened to some of the work by Hans Zimmer. 

Spring 2 Week 6

We have had a fantastic end to the half term in Year 4 with lots of exciting activities.  To finish our History topic about the Romans, we thought about the reasons why the Romans left Britain and their rule ended. We also had a battle re-enactment using shields that we made as part of our home learning (which everyone did an amazing job of). We made some of the different army formations and tried to march keeping in position. On Thursday, we went on a trip to Ribchester Roman Museum. We did a workshop with Patrick the curator where we learnt about Ribchester being a Roman Fort for mounted soldiers and what it was like there in Roman times. We were able to look at and handle some authentic Roman artefacts that had been found by archaeologists and also some replica items. We went out to look at the ruins of the granary (food storage) buildings. Additionally, we were able to try on some of the different armours, helmets and hold some weapons. We finished the visit by completing a trail around the museum to find the answers to some questions. We got back from our trip just in time to have our gymnastics session with Miss Winward. Because it was our last week, we did some races that tested our core strength, speed, balance and teamwork. Also this week, we had spirituality day where we learnt about different days of Holy Week and their significance to Christians. We had different adults come to do different activities with us for each of the days. We completed our Science unit on sound by carrying out another investigation. We were testing different materials to see which is the best insulator (a material or object that does not easily allow heat, electricity, light or sound to pass through it) by measuring the loudness of a sound source when it was covered in each material (in decibels). We found that rubber was the best insulator out of the materials we tested. In our R.E. learning, we finished our Easter unit on trust and betrayal by thinking about what World Faiths say about forgiveness. We were surprised that the faiths can be so different to each other but they all said the same thing about forgiveness...we should forgive people because God forgives us! In English with Mrs Scholes, we started writing our non-chronological report about the Romans, using the notes we made from our research last week. We used the features of a non-chronological report, including a heading, subheadings, paragraphs, a glossary and a text box. We loved our behaviour treat for this half term. We enjoyed a bouncy castle assault course, spending our time racing each other and finding different ways to come down the slide! Watch our experience here. We enjoyed making Easter cards for our families using the chalk pastels to blend and create different shades.  

Spring 2 Week 5

This week in Maths, we have finished our unit on fractions. We finished with subtracting fractions from whole numbers and also from mixed numbers. We had to use our understanding of converting to improper fractions to help. In English, we have been writing our version of Rumaysa with our innovated character; our villain. We have been focusing on included adverbial sentence starters and description of our evil character. In History, we looked at Hadrian’s wall and some of the reasons why it was built by the Romans. We also thought about what it would have been like to be a Celt or a Roman soldier  whilst the wall was being built, thinking about the sources of evidence that we have that tell us about it. We looked at some Vindolanda tablets that Historians have excavated and what messages the Romans wrote on them. We were surprised to see that they included invitations to birthday parties, shopping lists and military notes. This week, we took part in a circuit session with the Great British cyclist Milly Tanner. It was hard work! We then enjoyed an assembly with Milly where she told us about herself and her sport, reminded us about staying healthy both physically and mentally and answered lots of our questions. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we used the questions we had generated in last week's lesson to carry out research about the Romans. We mainly used the internet but we also enjoyed using the features of the information books to find the answers we needed. Our R.E. learning about the trust and betrayal in the Easter story centred around why Christians can trust Jesus. We gathered lots of words that represent the trust we can have in Jesus and we used them to create a piece of art. In Science, we planned another investigation relating to our Sound unit. We are going to see which material is a good insulator for sound by wrapping the sound source in different materials and measuring the loudness of the sound in decibels (dB).In PSHE we looked at behaviours that make us happy and behaviours that make us sad and we discussed why. We then looked at the role of the bystander in times when people are being made to feel sad and how we can be active and do something about it. On Thursday, we had our outdoor learning session for this half term. We started with a group challenge to use natural materials to create an Easter bonnet. After that we recapped our Science learning about sound and how sounds are made. We then formed some forest bands, where we had to make instruments to play from the natural materials around us. Each band then performed a piece of music with their instruments, some groups even composed their own pieces of music. In Music, we watched some sections of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet and thought about how the music helped us to understand what was happening in the story and also to build the tension and drama. In gymnastics we continued to work on the three core elements of strength, flexibility and balance. We recapped jumping onto the vault and being able to dismount it and the started to think about how we could jump over the vault completely in one action. On Friday, we had a visit from the author Simon Hunt. He read his book Billy the Bottom Burping Pirate to us, which was really funny. He then shared with us the inspiration for him becoming a writer as well as some of how the writing process worked. In French, we recapped everything we have learnt in our healthy living topic since January. We were able to remember lots of things from our topic and then we played a game to help us remember them. In Art, we looked at creating still life compositions from classroom objects we worked together to try out different arrangements. Then we sketched them thinking about the sizes and shapes of the objects. 

Spring 2 Week 4

It has been another busy week in school and Year 4 have been working hard! In English, we have really enjoyed creating a new character to use in our own writing next week. Our character is the villain of the story, so we have been drawing on our knowledge of villains we already know from books and films to help us make our character as evil as possible. We have created Top Trumps cards about them and written a description of them. In our Maths learning this week, we have been adding and subtracting fractions from other fractions and also from mixed numbers. In History, we looked at how the Celts fought back against the Romans led by the Celtic Queen Boudicca. We discussed the reasons why they fought back and what happened when they did. We used our skills from English to then create a Top Trumps card about Boudicca. As part of British Science Week and our Sound learning, we carried out an investigation to see what happened to the loudness of a sound as we moved further away from the sound source. We used the data logger to record the decibels (dB) and then recorded our measurements in a table. We then presented the data as a line graph. We found that our predictions were correct; we thought that the sound would get quieter as we moved away from it and when we carried out our investigation, the number of decibels decreased as we moved away from the sound source. We had one measurement that didn't fit in with the others so we had the opportunity to discuss the data and whether it was reliable or not. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we used the non-fiction texts about the Romans to choose subheadings for our non-chronological report. We then generated questions for our research next week. We continued our learning about perimeter in our Maths lesson with Mrs Scholes. We used the properties of rectangles to calculate their perimeter or find the length of a missing side if we already knew the perimeter. In PSHE, we thought about how the media can influence our opinions and actions. We looked at a newspaper article that had been written in two different ways and how the language used affected our opinions. On Thursday in gymnastics, we did some conditioning training to get our bodies active and really warmed up before doing some more flexibility exercises. In our Music lesson, we listened to Tchaikovsky's waltz from Sleeping Beauty. we discussed how a waltz is a piece of music that has 3 beats in a bar and is often written for people to dance to. We then went back to the song Frere Jacques and learnt to sing it in a round.  In Art, we investigated a range of different painting techniques to create different effects. we tried dabbing, stippling, pointillism, creating washes and uses sponges to create texture. Our French learning this week, needed us to be detectives and use some 'sideways thinking' to try and decipher the vocabulary of some different leisure activities that we hadn't seen before. We needed to draw on previous learning and identifying parts of words that we already knew. 

Spring 2 Week 3

This week was World Book Day and to celebrate we came to school dressed as our favourite book character or as a word. It was wonderful to see the children in all their different costumes. We took part in a virtual author visit with the author of the Invest-GATORS books; John Patrick Green. He spoke to us about the style of books he creates and taught us how to draw one of the characters. for World Book Day, we also read The Pirates Next Door. We thought about some of the different characters in the story and then created a character profile for Jim Lad. In Maths, we looked at converting improper fractions into mixed numbers and then we moved onto identifying equivalent fractions. We used number lines and fraction walls to help us identify the equivalent fractions. In History, we looked at how the Romans were able to defeat the Celts when they came over in 43AD. We looked at the weapons and armour that both sides had and also at how organised the Roman army were. We used a written source from a Roman called Tacticus that described one of the battles to help us understand the differences between the two sides. In Computing, we looked at the data logger and what things it measured. We took some readings in the classroom. We also had a go at being data loggers and recording some information, we realised it was quite challenging to record information over time and understood why we use data loggers to do that instead of humans. This week in our Science learning, we planned an investigation to find out what happens to the loudness of a sound as you move away from the sound source. We are fairly confident that we know what will happen, but we are going to use a data logger to measure the sound levels and see if our predictions are correct! Our Easter R.E. learning focused on Peter's betrayal and how significant it was to God's Big Story. If Peter hadn't denied that he knew Jesus, he may not have been around to establish the church and continue to tell people the good news about Jesus. In English with Mrs Scholes, we practised using our skimming and scanning reading skills to work as a team to locate information in a text.  In PSHE we thought about what our rights are. We discussed what the United Nations is, what they aim to do and how they have created rights for children. We looked at some statements and decided if we thought they were rights or just things we would like. In Music, we listened to some of Tchaikovsky's most famous pieces of music from Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. We were surprised that we recognised some of them and we discussed what they reminded us of and how they made us feel. We then listened to a jazz version of Frere Jacques and learnt to sing it. For our Gymnastics session, we focused on flexibility; we recapped some bridges from last week and also did some flexibility exercises. We then learnt how to do a headstand. In French, we recapped the days of the week and thought about verbs that are used in commands. We also started to predict the vocabulary for different ball games. 

Spring 2 Week 2

This week, we have read some more of our story Rumaysa in our English lessons and have explored the two main character's of Rumaysa and Cordelia (the witch). We were a bit shocked at how evil Cordelia was. We wrote diary entries about one of the chapters from both Rumaysa and Cordelia's points of view. In Maths, we continued to build our understanding of fractions. We have focused on mixed numbers and improper fractions, showing them on a number line and converting improper fractions to mixed numbers. In History, we looked at the reasons why the Roman's wanted to come to Britain using a written account from Strabo, a Roman general, as a historical source of evidence. In our Science learning, we investigated pitch (how high or low a sound is) using the musical instruments. We discovered that we could change the pitch of a glockenspiel by changing the size of the bars. To change the pitch of a ukulele, we could pluck a thinner string or we could make the string shorter. In our R.E. lesson, we looked at trust and betrayal related to the Easter story. We focused on Judas betraying Jesus and how crucial that was to the outcome of the story. If Jesus hadn't been betrayed and put to death, God's Big Story would have been incomplete. We continued to look at non-chronological reports in our English learning with Mrs Scholes, and we practised retrieving information from the text. We wrote a multiple choice quiz using the information that we found! In Maths with Mrs Scholes, we converted units of measurement. We found equivalent measurements in metres and kilometres. In PSHE we continued our work around the duties of people who help us such as doctors, police and firefighters and thought about how we could help them to help us. In Music, we found out some interesting facts about the composer Tchaikovsky. Then we revisited the song Let Your Spirit Fly and learnt to play part of it on the glockenspiels. In French, we recapped the days of the week in sequence, but then we completed lots of puzzles to help us remember them out of sequence. In our Art lesson, we thought about how we can use shades and tints to make object appear to be 3D. We used a grid template to paint a cup using gradual tints and shades to show the dark and light parts of the object. 

Spring 2 Week 1

Year 4 have come back to school after half term and thrown themselves into our new topic of Treasured Tales. In English, we looked at the traditional fairy tales of Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin and thought about the characteristics of fairy tales. We then started reading our text, Rumaysa. We have read the first chapter and have identified some similarities between Rumaysa and Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin. We also looked at the characters and how they would have felt throughout the events of first chapter. We then concentrated on the dialogue and did some role play of what the characters might have said to each other before writing it down using the correct speech punctuation. In Maths, we moved onto our unit about fractions. We started off by making sure we all knew what fractions are, what they show and what the numerator and denominator are. We then looked at fractions that make a whole and counting in fractions to go beyond a whole one. We discussed what improper fractions and mixed numbers are and how to write them. In History, we explored some artefacts. We thought about what they were made of, what we thought they would be used for and who might have used them. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we started the non-fiction part of our Traditional Tales topic which will link to our History learning on the Romans. We have looked at different text types, with a focus on non-chronological reports. We used our skimming and scanning reading skills to locate information about rich Roman women! In the R.E. lesson, we began our Easter unit by investigating what it is to trust people. We considered how we know the disciples trusted Jesus and how we know that Jesus also trusted them. As part of our Science learning about sound, we used junk items to create our own instruments! We thought about what needed to vibrate on our instrument to make the sound. We then enjoyed playing along to a piece of music. Listen to our home-made music here. In PSHE we talked about people who help us and linked this to the idea of duty. We thought about the different ways different sets of people help us and what their duties are. In Music, we listened to the song Let Your Spirit Fly and thought about what style of music it was, what the dynamics were like and also if it was legato or staccato. We then learnt to sing it, ensuring we had good posture. In Gymnastics, we recapped some different positions; pike, tuck and straddle and used them in some simple sequences. We also did some different rolls; barrel, forwards and backwards. In French, we learnt the 7 days of the week to help us talk about when we do some exercise activities in the next part of our topic. We put actions with the days to help us remember them. In Art, we looked at some of the work of Paul Cezanne and the different techniques he used. We then experimented with white and black paints to make tints and shades of blue. 

 

Spring 1 Week 5

We have had an extremely busy end to the half term! In English, we have been looking at the issue of tiger numbers declining due to hunting and environmental issues, particularly in Asia. We found out lots of facts about it and then we wrote a formal persuasive letter to the Prime Minister asking him to help with the situation. We then linked to the work we have been doing with Mrs Scholes about plastic problems and then used our letter writing skills to write a second letter to Rishi Sunak asking him to do something about single use plastics. Maths this week has been quite challenging. We have been learning about the written method of division called chunking. We started off with small numbers to get us used to the method, but then we moved onto larger numbers which meant we had to think about taking larger chunks at a time. Even though it was tricky everyone worked really hard and did brilliantly with it. In PE we worked with a partner to apply all the different Charleston moves into a short dance sequence. This week was Children's Mental Health Week, so in our PSHE lessons we thought about what mental health means and which things can affect our mental health both positively and negatively. The theme this year has been 'My Voice Matters' and we discussed how we felt when people listened to us and also when they didn't listen to us. In our English learning with Mrs Scholes, we used the expanded noun phrases we wrote last week to write our own version of the poem Plastic by Lea Knowles. In Science, we investigated a variety of percussion instruments to discover what vibrates on the instrument to make the sound. We then used this information to design our own instrument! We will be using everyday items and upcycling them (taking something no longer in use and giving it a second life and new function) into an instrument, thinking about which parts can vibrate to make a sound. For Safer Internet Day, we thought about connecting with people safely. Connecting with others is really important so we discussed how to make sure that we can do it in the safest way when we are online. In our R.E. learning, we completed this half term's learning by exploring the traditions and meaning of Jewish Shabbat. We were interested to find out what Jewish people do and don't do on their day of rest, the Sabbath. As it is Chinese New Year on Saturday, we found out about what it is and how it is celebrated across 15 days. We made some pop out cards to wish people a happy and lucky new year. In French, we learnt two new phrases to say something is good for your health and to say something is not good for your health. We practised saying them with the different foods that we have learnt. In Music, we sang a slightly different version of The Bare Necessities with Mr Richards and played our glockenspiels to accompany it. 

Spring 1 Week 4 

This week, we had our outdoor learning session which we linked to our Geography and DT learning. We started by playing the floor is lava, the children had to find different  ways to get their feet off the ground to escape the lava! Then they were set a group challenge of building a volcano and surrounding village using frame structures like we had looked at in DT. Each volcano was built around a bottle and they had to use cladding to make sure that we couldn't see the bottle. Once they were all built bicarbonate of soda and vinegar to make them erupt. Whilst we were working on our volcanoes, Mrs Bullen took some of the children down to the stream to measure the water levels. You can watch a video of our outdoor learning in the video resource centre of the school website using this link https://stpaulshoddlesden.primarysite.media/media/outdoor-learning-spring-1. In English, we have finished writing our alternative ending to the Jungle Book. In our ending, Mowgli stayed in the jungle rather than going back to the village and was attacked by Shere khan's son. we then started to look at some persuasive formal letters and their features ready for our non fiction unit. In Maths, we started to look at division, we made sure we understood that division is grouping or sharing and then looked at different mental strategies we could use to help us work out how many groups of are in a number. We then moved on to looking at divisions that had a remainder, still using mental methods. In Geography and DT we looked at some of the design features that buildings in earthquake zones have in order to prevent damage during an earthquake such as cross bracing and base shock absorbers. We then designed our own earthquake proof building using the different design features. In our English lesson with Mrs Scholes, we planned our own version of the poem Plastic by Lea Knowles. We used the description from the poem to write expanded noun phrases about the pros and cons of using plastic, ready to write our poems next week. In Maths, we found the product (the result of multiplying two or ore numbers together) of 3 numbers. Multiplication is commutative (can be done in any order) so we looked for the most efficient way to multiply the numbers. On Friday, it was the NSPCC Number Day. We all dressed up in clothes that had numbers on or showed something to do with Maths and we all looked fabulous. We then completed a special challenge where we had to get pieces of a key by answering Maths questions correctly. In our R.E. learning this week, we researched Archbishop Oscar Romero. Archbishop Romero was assassinated for his faith and for speaking out against social injustice and violence in El Salvador. We discussed when it may be right to challenge authority, like Oscar Romero did. In French, we continued to look at giving our opinions about the different foods that we have learnt by saying 'J'aime' or Je n'aime pas'. We also learnt to say I would like 'je voudrais' and please 'sil vou plait' so that we can use the full sentence to ask for a food we want. We played a matching pairs game in teams where we had to match the foods, but to get the point we had to ask for it using our sentence. In PE we started to learn some Charleston dance moves that you do with a partner. It was really important  for us to be completely in time with our partner. We practised the moves ready to put into a dance next week. 

Spring 1 Week 3

This week in Maths we have been looking at both mental and written methods of multiplication to multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. We have used partitioning and our known facts to help us break down the calculations and make them easier. We also needed to use the skills we learnt last week of multiplying by 10 and 100 to help us. In English, we have finished reading The Jungle Book. We thought about the way that  Mowgli was treated by the wolf pack and also by the humans and how this affected his behaviour We then planned an alternative ending to the story where Mowgli has to stay in the jungle and he gets attacked by Shere Khan's son. We had a great on Wednesday when we took part in a virtual meet the author session with Beth Lincoln. Beth told us all about her book The Swifts and shared some of the techniques she uses when she is writing. In Geography, we looked at where about in the world there are the most active volcanoes and earthquakes and identified the Pacific Ring of Fire. We used the earthquake tracker website to look at where earthquakes have been happening over the last few days and weeks. We also thought about some of the reasons that people choose to live near to volcanoes and earthquake zones despite it being dangerous. We were surprised to find out that the land is very fertile so good for growing crops and that there are lots of minerals that you can mine for.  We loved investigating the link between the size of vibrations and the volume of the sound they make in our Science learning this week! After observing what we could hear and feel when we hit a drum softly and then harder, we used birdseed to show us the strength of the vibrations when we hit the drum. Watch our investigation here. We spent time in our R.E. lesson reading stories about Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). We continued to make links between the Bible stories and what Christians believe about Jesus, thinking about how Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God. In English with Mrs Scholes, we worked in a group to learn part of the poem Plastic by Lea Knowles and perform it as a class. We thought about what makes a good performance, including intonation (the rise and fall of the voice in speaking), tone (the emotional sound of the voice, e.g. frightened, angry or joyful), volume (how loud or quiet the voice is) and action. Watch our performance here. Our Maths learning with Mrs Scholes focused on the 12 times table and strategies we could use to multiply the number. In PE we continued to refine our Charleston dances to trying and make sure we are completely in time with our partners and that the moves are perfected. In PSHE we thought about ways that we can reduce the risk in different situations to make them safer and who might be able to help us with that. In French, we recapped the opinion phrases from last week and all the new food items that we learnt. We practised saying them and also had a go at writing parts of them. In Music, we continued to work on our performance of the song The Bare Necessities on both the vocals and the glockenspiels. 

Music accompaniment of The Bare Necessities on the glockenspiels

Still image for this video

Spring 1 Week 2

It has been another busy week in school and the children have been working hard. In English, we continued to read and analyse The Jungle Book. We thought about why the wolves may not want Mowgli to join their wolf pack and wrote a persuasive speech. We then read about Mowgli getting taken by the monkeys and made predictions about how Bagheera and Kaa would rescue him. We used a point and evidence table to identify things we found about about some of the characters within the text. In Maths, we focused on the key skills of being able to multiply and divide numbers by 10 and 100 thinking about how the digits move and their value changes. This skill will be very useful as we start to look at written methods of multiplication next week. In PE we learnt another 3 Charleston style moves to add to the 3 we learnt last week. Once we mastered the technique, we worked in pairs to create our own short dance sequences using the 6 moves focusing on being in time with our partner. In Science, we continued our learning about sound and how sounds are made. We discussed which parts of objects and other things vibrate to make the sound. For example, the strings on a guitar vibrate to produce the sound. We learnt about the Transfiguration of Jesus in our R.E. lesson, where Jesus was changed as he had an encounter with God. We imagined what it would have been like to be a witness of the event and how it demonstrates that Jesus is the Son of God. We continued our poetry unit in English with Mrs Scholes, focusing on the fantastic vocabulary in the poem Plastic by Lea Knowles. We used our dictionary skills to find the appropriate definitions of the words. In PSHE, we looked at the vocabulary danger, risk and hazard and what each one means. We then looked at some scenarios and identified if there were dangers, risks or hazards in them. In Geography, we looked at how the movement of tectonic plates can cause volcanos to form and then we looked at the different parts of a volcano and what they do. In Music, we continued to refine our performance of the the song The Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book and added to the actions that we created last week. We also played some games with the glockenspiels to help us get used to striking the notes C, A, D, G and jumping between the musical intervals. In French, we recapped some of the food vocabulary that we learnt last week and added some new ones. We also learnt to express positive and negative opinions abut the food using the phrases j'aime and je n'aime pas to say I like or I don't like. 

Spring 1 Week 1

It has been wonderful to welcome the children back into school this week after the Christmas holidays and we have got stuck into our new topic of Amazing Asia enthusiastically. In English, we have started to look at our new text The Jungle Book. We discussed how the Year 4 version of the text will be different to the Year 2 version of the text. We compared the openings of the text and the film and discussed their similarities and differences. We also wrote a speech to persuade the wolf pack to let Mowgli join them using some of the persuasive techniques we looked at last half term. In Maths, we started a new unit about multiplication and division. We started by looking at factors. We identified what they are and then created factor monsters to show the factors of a range of numbers. We also looked at multiplying numbers by 10 and 100 and how this changes the numbers. We used place value sliders to help us move the digits one or two places to the left. In Geography, we looked at the structure of inside the earth and what the different layers are. We then identified the tectonic plates that are found on the Earth’s crust and how they move, which causes earthquakes. In DT, we identified what pavilions are and looked at some examples of them and what they are used for. We were then given a challenge to complete in groups. We had to build the biggest and strongest structure that we could using marshmallows and cocktail sticks. Each group faced different challenges and worked well together to think of ways around them. In French, we were introduced to our new topic for this term which is ‘La Vie Saine’ or having a healthy lifestyle. We looked at some vocabulary for the names of different foods, lots of them were cognates and we were able to work out what they were. In Computing, we thought how we can record and playback sounds and thought about the input and output of devices. We also discussed what would make a good recording thinking about the background and also what the person speaking would need to do. Our English learning with Mrs Scholes focused on poetry about plastic and the environment. We read and responded to the poems, thinking about meaning, structure and vocabulary.  In Science, we started a new topic on sound. We started by thinking about how we think sounds are made before learning that they are caused when an object vibrates. The air particles around the object also vibrate and form a sound wave which goes into the ear. When the sound wave causes the ear drum to vibrate, a message is sent to our brain. In our R.E. learning, we read a range of Bible stories that show us that Jesus has power and authority over nature, sickness and death. The stories included Lazarus being raised from the dead and Jesus calming the storm. In Music we listened to a piece of music composed by our focus composer for the half term Joe Hisaishi and thought about the style and how it made us feel. We learnt to sing the song The Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book, we added actions to bring the song to life. We also learnt to play the verse on the glockenspiels. In P.E. we started our Charleston dance unit. We discussed when the Charleston originated from and the some of the stylistic features. We then learnt 3 basic moves ready to build on next week to start creating our own dances. 

Autumn 2 Week 8

It was a short week in school this week, but we still managed to pack a lot in. We had two more performances of our carol concert and again we were fantastic. We had a Christmas party where we played lots of games and had some snacks. We finished off our English unit on the Pied Piper of Hamelin by reading the ending of the story and then thinking about whether or not the Pied Piper was right to take the children away. We thought of reasons for and against and started to think about how we could create a debate. In Maths, we have done lots of Christmas themed activities and puzzles using all the skills we have learnt over the term. In History, we looked at how the Anglo Saxon period ended with the Battle of Hastings. We thought about why William invaded Britain and created a timeline of the events the led up the battel ad the battle itself. In RE we looked at the Jewish festival of Hanukah and how the symbolism of light is used and made comparisons to Christians and Christmas. On Wednesday, we made Christmas cards to give to our loved ones. We also had a special surprise from Mr Dugdale, as a reward for all our hard work on our reindeer fact files, we had two reindeers come to visit. We were able to ask the handlers questions about them and also share some facts that we had learnt. We would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year. 

Autumn 2 Week 7

It has been another very busy and Christmassy week in Year 4! We have been rehearsing hard for our Carol Concert making sure we know all the lines and actions to our poem and that we know all the song words. We had our first performance on Friday morning and despite some technical issues with the laptop, it went brilliantly. At the start of the week, Mr Dugdale set us all a special Christmas Challenge to create a class fact file about reindeers. So we have been working as a class team to research and find out as many facts as we can about reindeers for our fact file as well as drawing reindeers and bubble writing for our headings. In English this week, we have been looking at different ways to persuade people such as using rhetorical questions, emotive language and alliteration. We the used these techniques to write a formal letter to the Mayor of Hamelin trying to persuade him to get the children back. In Maths, we looked at what we mean by mathematical difference and how it is another way of saying subtraction. We found the difference between some numbers and solved some problems that included difference. We also looked at finding the difference between some areas of shapes and gardens. In Computing, we used all these skills from the unit such as using the repeat function and programming the turtle to create shapes, to create some complex patterns. We also used the pen up and pen down function and changed the colours to make our patterns bright and interesting. In English with Mrs Scholes, we used drama to explore a scene from the text The Adventures of That Most Entertaining Feline Puss in Boots by Philip Pullman. We acted out a conversation between Puss and a ghoul, where the ghoul said it might take out all of Puss's bones and play skittles with them if he didn't help them to go to sleep! We then used out ideas to write a short text, focusing on speech punctuation. In Maths, we continued to explore multiplication and division facts for the 7 times table using arrays. Our PSHE learning looked at respecting people's personal space and looking for signals that people aren't comfortable when we get too close to them. We also talked about what to do if we aren't comfortable with people being in our personal space or if we experience any physical touch that we don't want.

 

Autumn 2 Week 6

This week year 4 have all become entrepreneurs for our Elf Enterprise week. We have been busy in the kitchen baking lots of biscuits and then decorating them ready to sell at the Christmas Fair on Sunday. We had some problems with our cutters and had to do some problem solving and make changes to our original plan to get around them. We had to measure out the ingredients, mix it well, roll out the dough, cut out the shapes, make them and then decorate them. We worked together as a class to come up with a name for our products and we decided on December Delights using some alliteration. We created some tags to put onto our biscuits to make them look more appealing and also to tell our customers what ingredients are in them. We also created some posters to advertise them. We are really proud of our end results. In Maths this week, we finished our unit on area. We looked at using the < and > signs to compare the areas of rectilinear shapes and then we completed an investigation about carpets. We had to calculate how much carpet and all the extras such as gripper rods, underlay and fitting would cost from a range of different shops to work out which one would be the cheapest. In English, we read the next part of The Pied Piper and thought about how the townspeople of Hamelin would have felt at different points in the story. We also looked at how the vocabulary we choose can effect the reader, we looked at how different words can have stronger or weaker meanings and when we might use the different ones. During our RE lesson, we discussed ways in which we could follow Jesus' example and bring light to the world. There were some wonderful suggestions, such as "I could be the light in the world by being respectful to others" and "I could be the light in the world by raising money for charity." In PE, we were continuing to practise our throwing and catching skills. We played lots of games to keep moving and warm during the cold weather! In PSHE, we thought about the difference between friends and acquaintances and how we would behave towards to each one. In French, we were given some French Christmas words and we used the French to English dictionaries to find out what they meant.  In Computing, we used the skill we learnt last week; programming the turtle to create a shape from just a one word command and then we used it to create repeating patterns using that shape. 

Autumn 2 Week 5

It has been another packed and exciting week in school for Year 4. On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to take part in an inclusive sports workshop. We spent some time getting used to being in the wheelchairs and moving them around the room, before playing some wheelchair basketball games. Although it was challenging having to move the wheelchairs and think about throwing and catching the ball, it was lots of fun and it gave us an idea of what it feels like to play wheelchair basketball. Wednesday continued to be a different day for us as we had French with Madame Wardle (who usually comes on a Friday). In our French lesson, we recapped all of our learning from our On y va topic and played a game of Blankety Blank to help us remember some of the small words that we can easily mix up in our sentences. In our English learning, we started a new topic and a new text; The Pied Piper of Hamelin. We began by looking at an extract from the text and looking for clues in it that would tell us what the text was about. We then thought about how the townspeople of Hamlin would have felt when the town became overrun by rats. In Maths, we continued to build on our understanding of area and looked at how to find the area of rectilinear shapes by counting squares. In History, we looked at what life was like for different groups of people in Anglo Saxon times. We looked at the hierarchy of people within Anglo Saxon society and how each group lived their lives. During our RE lesson, we worked in groups to make our own Christingles, thinking about what each element represents. In PE, we continued to practise our throwing and caching skills In PSHE we thought about stereotypes and identified examples of them in our society. We also look at how the media can promote some stereotypes and ways that they do this. In preparation for our Elf Enterprise project next week in our DT lesson, we looked at the ideas of budget and profit. We looked at how much all the ingredients for our biscuits would cost to make a batch and how much we could sell them from. We then refined our biscuits designs to ensure that the cost of them would be within a budget to enable us to make a profit. On Friday, we had a very exciting morning, we went to Bolton to watch the Mayors Christmas Concert. We had the opportunity to see and hear a full orchestra playing a variety of Christmas music and also to join in with singing some well known Christmas songs. Everyone enjoyed the experience and represented our school brilliantly.  

Autumn 2 Week 4

It has been another busy week in Year 4. We started the week with a visit from the mobile planetarium, which was really exciting. We looked at the Earth and some of the landscapes on the different continents. In readiness for our learning in the Spring term, we looked at earthquakes and volcanoes and some of the effects of them. In Maths, we finished off our unit on addition and subtraction by applying all the skills we have learnt over the last few weeks to some problems. The problems all needed us to complete two steps in order to solve them, so we had to think really carefully about what we needed to do. We the started our new unit on area and we used post it notes to help us understand that area is the measure of a surface inside a boundary. In English, we wrote our hybrid magazine pages with a non chronological report about the Anglo Saxons describing who they are and what life was like for them and also a biography about the Anglo Saxon King Alfred the Great. Once we had written them, we then published them thinking about the layout and how we could make them attractive to the readers. In Science, we looked at ways to classify animals, in particular vertebrates. We looked at the 5 different groups of vertebrates; mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians and what qualities or properties they have. In PSHE we thought about the ways that we can be similar or different to each other thinking about our physical and personality features. We then discussed how we can embrace and celebrate our differences and treat everyone with respect. In Computing, we continued to use the repeat function to help us to draw a range of different shapes. Mrs Wardman also challenged us to use the pen up and pen down feature so we could draw more complex things such as a house using different shapes inside each other. During our RE lesson, we discussed the Christingle services that are held in the run up to Christmas. We identified the different parts of a Christingle and what they represent. In PE, we were practising our throwing and catching skills again. Everyone in Year 4 had to really focus on their hand-eye co-ordination to try and achieve as many successful throws and catches as possible. As we finally had some dry weather, we finished off our PE session with the daily mile as well. In D.T, we introduced the ideas of a budget and profit and how when we are making our biscuits, we don’t want to spend more money than we make. We looked at the prices of some of the ingredients that we thought of using in our biscuits and how much it would cost to make them using them. We set a budget of £3.50 per batch to keep within an redesigned our biscuits from last week. In French, we continued to build our sentences to show how we travel to different places, but instead of travelling to different countries on holiday we learnt how to say how we travelled to school. 

 

Autumn 2 Week 3

This week, we had our outdoor learning session and manged to get lucky with the weather again, getting a dry day. Following on from our Geography last half term, we measured the water levels in the stream again. We are going to do this every half term so that we can compare what they are like over the year. We then created some miniature Anglo Saxon houses and villages using the natural materials that we could find that were the nearest to the ones used by the Anglo Saxons. We had to think about how we could make them stand up and attach the materials to each other.   After that, we used clay to create some Anglo Saxon brooches, we had to shape and decorate them with natural materials whilst keeping to the Anglo Saxon style. In our English learning this week, we thought about paragraphs, we identified what they are and how they are used. We then wrote some paragraphs about our school.  We also prepared for some research by identifying what things we already knew from our learning so far and things that we needed to find out. On Friday's lesson we completed our research so we are ready to write our magazine page on Monday. In Maths, we built on our understanding of written subtraction by looking at calculations where there is more than one exchange and then we discussed how efficient this is. We tried different calculations to see if mental or written methods were more efficient.  At the end of the week, we started to look at using our addition and subtraction skills from this unit to solve two step problems. In History, we looked at how the Anglo Saxons split Britain into kingdoms and identified the 7 main kingdoms. We noticed that some of them had the same names as we use today. We also found out that each kingdom was ruled differently and how seriously the Anglo Saxons took the laws. This week was Antibullying week so on Monday we all came to school in odd socks to celebrate our differences.  In our PSHE lesson, we thought about 'Making a noise about bullying' which is the theme this year. We discussed the importance of speaking out if you think you or someone else is being bullied and who it would appropriate to talk to about it. We then made kindness socks to show ways we could show kindness to others.  In Computing, we learnt about the repeat command to reduce the number of commands we had to write to create some shapes on Turtle academy. We also learnt about the pen up and pen down function to enable us to move the turtle to a different position without drawing a line. In Music, we learnt the song take time in your life and discussed the meaning behind it. We also identified it had a thin texture and that the notes were legato. We then learnt to play the verse on the glockenspiels. In RE, we are continuing to look at the way 'light' is often used to represent Jesus. This week, we studied artwork showing scenes from the Nativity and analysed the different ways that artists had used shape and colour to depict Jesus as light. Year 4 then got creative and used chalk pastels to produce their own Nativity artwork. Our PE session this week was quite competitive, as the class took part in team games. Everyone had to use their agility, speed and stamina to score points and try to win. We were very impressed to see some children show real team spirit and 'sportsmanship' even if they lost. In French, we used a sentence builder to write some sentences in French from the sentences that Madame Wardle showed us on the board that were in English. At the end of the lesson, we were able to think of some of our own sentences to write. 

 

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We played the glockenspiels to accompany the song ‘Take time in your life’

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We played the glockenspiels to play along with parts of the song Take Time in your Life.

Autumn 2 Week 2

This week in English we have focused on two different types of non fiction text; biographies and non- chronological reports. We explored some biographies of famous people and had to use the clues in the text to work out whose biography it was. We also looked at a biography about the Anglo Saxon King Alfred the Great, Mrs Bullen mixed it all up and we had to put it back into the right chronological order. We also looked at a non-chronological report about the Anglo Saxons and then we made a quiz for our partners to complete about it. In Maths, we have been looking at written methods of subtraction using the column method. We learnt how to do an exchange when the number you are taking away is greater than the number we have got in the column. In Science, we worked together to create a classification key for some different biscuits. We had to look at the properties they have and decide which questions we could use about them to help us sort and group them. In History, we continued to find out about the Anglo Saxons. We learnt about who they were and where they came from. We also discussed some of the reasons why the came to England and then why they decided to stay here. In Music, we listened to the song Looking in the Mirror and discussed the message that it was giving us. We then used the glockenspiels to play along to the verse part. In DT we looked at a basic biscuit recipe and then thought about things we could add to the mixture or after we had baked them to improve the taste. We thought about the tastes that we enjoyed from tasting the biscuits last week and how we could replicate them in our own biscuits. In RE we discussed how light is often used as a metaphor for Jesus in the Bible. The children then came up with their own metaphors to show that Jesus is the light of the world. During PE children were practising their under arm throwing and catching accuracy, in order to improve their fielding skills. In PSHE we thought about what aggressive behaviour is and about some of the reasons that might be behind some aggressive behaviours. We also discussed what we could do to make a situation right if we had displayed aggressive behaviours towards someone. In French, we recapped all the different sentences we have been learning about in our Ony Va topic. We focused on the new question we learnt last week 'comment vas tu en france?' to ask how you travel to France. We then practiced answering it using the different place we know and the different forms of transport, for example Je vais en France en voiture.  In Computing, we used Turtle academy and had to programme the turtle to create more complex shapes and images such as our age in digits and our initials. 

Autumn 2 Week 1

We have had a super start to the new half term! In Maths, we had one last day recapping written methods of addition with exchanges before moving onto mental methods of subtraction. We looked at how subtraction is the same as finding the difference and then we used the shopkeepers counting on method to mentally subtract numbers. In English, as it is Non-Fiction November, we have started with our non fiction unit this time, which is all about magazine pages. We looked the 6 different non fiction text types and examples of what they are like. We then had some time to explore lots of magazine pages and see which text types we could find. We also looked at some of the technical vocabulary that we can find on the pages and used dictionaries to find out what they mean. In History, we started our unit by using the skills of a historian to interpret some historical artefacts. We thought about what they were made of, what they might have been used for and when we thought they were used.  In Science, we started to think about how we can group or classify living things by their characteristics. We began by grouping ourselves considering things such as gender, hair colour and which pets we had. We used an existing classification key to sort some pictures of mice and then we looked at creating our own classification key for a group aliens. In DT we had a fantastic morning tasting a range of different biscuits as research for our Elf Enterprise project. We looked at the packaging of the biscuits, as well as the appearance, taste and smell of them. In Computing, we worked with Mrs Wardman using the programme Turtle Academy, where we had to programme the turtle to move and create simple shapes such as a square, rectangle and triangle. we had to make sure that we wrote the code accurately using the correct language. In PSHE we looked at the words negotiation and compromise and discussed what they meant. We then looked at some different scenarios and thought about how they could be resolved using negotiation and compromise. In French, we recapped our learning about where we live and different countries from last half term before moving onto the next part of out topic. We discussed all the different modes of transport we could use to get to France such as plane, boat, train and car. We then learnt the French words for each type of transport. In Music, we listened to a piece by our new focus composer Nkeiru Okoyo. We thought about how the music made us feel, about the tempo and the dynamics changes within the piece. We also thought about how it made us feel and what it made us think of. 

Autumn 1 Week 7 

The last week of this half term has been a bit different as there has been some building work in our classroom, the children have coped really well with the disruption, which was all worth it as our classroom looks fabulous now. In English, we have been writing our innovated version of The Boy and the Tiger. We have been trying to include fronted adverbials for when and where and also to fully punctuate any direct speech. In Maths, we have continued to build our skills for written methods of addition to include exchanges. We started off with calculations where there was only one exchange needed, but moved onto calculations where lots of exchanges would be needed. In Science, we recapped all of our learning over the half term by completing a quiz all about the 3 states of matter and the water cycle. In Geography, we looked at mountains. We used an atlas to identify some of the biggest mountain ranges in the world and label them on a map. We also looked at the different features of a mountain range and what they are called. In Computing, we thought about the different content we can find on the web and who it belongs to. We then thought about if we could download it or use it as our own or not. In PSHE we thought about the word pressure, what it means and where pressures can come from. We identified that it can come from our friends, our families or the media.  We discussed some different scenarios where we were being pressured and what we could do about it. In Art, we used wire to create some wire sculptures. We had to think about how we could shape the wire and also how we could fix and attach pieces. In Music we listened to Echolocation by our focus composer Pamela Z. We thought about the different instruments that we could hear and why it is called Echolocation. We then listened to a song called Martin Luther King and discussed the story it told us. We thought about the texture and dynamics of the piece before learning to sing it. In French, we looked at saying Francophone countries in French and we looked at using the correct version of 'in' to go in the sentence as some countries need en and some countries need au. We had the countries flag and had to write the sentence to say we lived in that country correctly. 

Autumn 1 Week 6

On Thursday this week, we had our outdoor learning session which was lots of fun. We were lucky with the weather getting a warm and dry day. We began with some team building activities such as making human sculptures. Then we focused on our Science and Geography learning that has been all about the water cycle. We went down to the stream and tracked it's path taking measurements of the depth at different points and we are going to do this at different points in the year so we can compare them. We then got into two groups for a challenge; to create a model of the water cycle using a piece of tarpaulin and natural materials that they could find. Once they were done, we poured water on them to see where the water flowed to. Back in the classroom, for our English learning we returned to the story The Boy and the Tiger so that we could innovate it using new characters. Once we had chosen our new characters we did some research about them to find out what they are like and what ways humans use them.  In Maths, we finished off our place value unit by consolidating our understanding of rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000. We then moved onto addition, where we looked at using partitioning for mental addition and then started to recap the written methods that we had learnt previously in school. In Geography, we thought about why people often settle near rivers and all the different ways that we use rivers to help us with our daily lives. In Art, we continued our work about shadow art, by making our words with letters and creating poses to display them creatively. As part of our Black History Month celebrations we have been looking at Floella Benjamin and the things she has achieved in her lifetime. We wrote some poems to show the qualities that she has shown and how she inspires others. In French, we continued to look at how to say some of the European countries in French and played a game to match them to their flags. In Computing, we were thinking about the material that is on the web and how we are able change some of it, but there is some content that we can't change. We used Chrome Music Lab to create some musical pictures as an example of things we can change on line. The height, shape and size of the lines we drew made different sounds and we really enjoyed investigating the range of sounds we could make. In R.E. we looked at the psalms; what they are and where we can kind find them. We also interpreted what things they were telling us about God and Jesus. 

Autumn 1 Week 5

We have had another busy week in Year 4. In English, we have been creating information posters about tigers from the research that we did last week. We had to try to include all the different features we have seen in our lessons over the last few weeks including our new grammar skill; fronted adverbials for where. In Maths, we have been looking at rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000 using number lines to help us see which multiple it is nearest to. In Geography, we studied the River Nile. We found out some interesting facts about it including how many countries it runs through and how long it is.  We then looked at what the landscape is like around it as we did a virtual journey down it. In Science, we linked our learning about the water cycle in Geography to our work on evaporation and condensation from last week. We had a group challenge to create a diagram to show the water cycle with all the correct labels on. In Art, we looked at the work of Sokari Douglas Camp and in particular her shadow sculptures. We looked at some different styles of lettering for us to use in our own shadow art that we will be creating over the next couple of weeks. In Music, we listened to the song 'I'm always there' and thought about the texture of the song, the tempo, what instruments we could hear and if the notes were smooth or spikey. We thought about how the music made us feel and what the lyrics meant.  It seems like it has rained every Friday afternoon this half term as we have been doing Jag Tag, unfortunately the rain this week was too heavy and we had to do our lesson inside.. We enjoyed playing bench ball with a twist, we had to use the American footballs. This meant we had to make sure that our throwing and catching techniques were good in order to win. In French, we looked at how to say and spell some European countries in French. We played a matching game where we had to match the start of the country name to the end part. We were surprised at how similar a lot of them looked to the English. In PSHE this week, we looked at some different places; the playground, a supermarket and the airport and discussed how people might feel in those places. We soon realised that different people would feel very differently in those places and that it is natural for that to be the case. We then thought about how we can tell people are feeling a certain way from their body language and behaviour and how this can be helpful to us. 

Autumn 1 Week 4

In English this week, we have continued to look at information texts and have been preparing for creating our own about tigers. We designed how we want our poster to look using ideas from some of the posters we have looked at to help us. We then thought about what we already know about tigers and what specific questions we needed to find the answers to in order to write our paragraphs of information. We then discussed efficient ways to research and had some time to carry out the research in order to find the answers to our questions. In Maths, we have been comparing numbers up to 10,000. We started off using the greater than and less than signs to compare them and then we moved onto putting sets of numbers into ascending or descending order. We then moved onto Roman Numerals, we looked at how the system works and what the different symbols are up to 100. We then learnt to read numbers given to us in Roman Numerals and also write numbers using Roman Numerals. We picked this up really quickly and were superstars at reading and writing them. In Science we learnt about the processes of evaporation and condensation. We thought about where the puddles go after it rains and then found out that the heat from sun heats the water and turns it into a gas called water vapor. Then when the gas is cooled it turns back into a liquid and this is condensation. We identified examples of evaporation and condensation that happen all around us such as water on the outside of a cool bottle and washing drying on the line. The next day in our Geography lesson, we then used our knowledge of evaporation and condensation to understand and describe the water cycle. We sang a very catchy song to help us remember what happens. In Music, we listened to the song Go Tell it on the Mountain and thought about the style, tempo and how it made us feel. We then went back to the song Hoedown from last week and and sang it with some actions. We then used the glockenspiels to play a part of it to accompany the song. In Art, we used the potato peelers to add some details to our soap sculpture shapes that we made last week. We had to work more delicately to get the smaller details. In R.E we thought about the qualities needed to be a good king and looked at the Bible to see how David made a good King. In PSHE we thought about different emotions that we can have, both good emotions and bad emotions. We also thought about the vocabulary around our emotions and how some words are stronger than others to show different levels of emotion. In pairs we had lists of words that all meant a similar emotions, but we had to rank them from strongest to weakest. In French, we thought about some of the reasons why people learn different languages and the advantages that it has. We then identified the main Francophone countries around the world. 

Autumn 1 Week 3

This week in English, we created some text maps to help us recall the story of the Boy and the Tiger. we then changed our focus to non-fiction and information posters. we looked at examples of information texts and posters. We identified technical vocabulary and used dictionaries to help us a create a glossary. we also did an information hunt where we had to find the answers to questions in the text using the layout features to help us. In Maths, we followed on from last week by looking at subtracting 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 from numbers and thinking about which columns changed. We then looked at positioning numbers up to 10,000 on a number line. We started with number line with increments on them and then moved onto estimating on number lines with just the start and end numbers. On Wednesday morning, we enjoyed our curriculum enhancement an African drumming workshop. We got to play different types of instruments including djembes and Ghana bells. We learnt the techniques to play each one and then did some call and response exercises using food beats to help us.  In Geography, we looked at the different features of a river system; what they are and what they do within the system. In Computing, we thought about what a network is and how messages get passed between networks through switches and routers. We did some role play to see how this worked. In Science, we continued to look at the process of melting. We investigated which type of chocolate would melt the quickest between milk, white and dark. We could see that the white chocolate melted much quicker than the other two. In PSHE we investigated the vocabulary rude, aggressive and assertive and what they mean. We then looked at some text messages some friends had sent to each other about a bike ride they had been on and decided which ones were ok and which were not ok. We had a very exciting Art lesson with Mrs Bradley, where we used potato peelers to carve sculptures out of soap. We created the basic shape this week and next week will will add some details to them. In French we had a 3 minute challenge to see if we could go all the way around the room asking each other Ou habites-tu and replying with the correct response eg J'habite a Hoddlesden/Darwen etc. We nearly made it all the way around, but not quite. We will try again next week. We also looked at more towns/cities on the map of France and this week we labelled them on our own maps. On Friday afternoon, we had a rainy Jag Tag session, but despite the bad weather we all worked really hard. We focused on our throwing technique to ensure we are side on and twisting our hips when we throw to give the ball more power. We also started to play some games where the quarter back threw the ball to a wide receiver whilst a defend tried to intercept. 

Autumn 1 Week 2

We have had another fantastic week in Year 4, we went swimming for the first time, which was lots of fun. In our Maths learning, we have been looking at 4 digit numbers in more detail and building on our understanding of thousands. We looked at partitioning the numbers to show the value of the different digits and then we looked at partitioning the number in different ways to help us calculate. We also looked at what happens to numbers when we add 1, 10, 100 or 1,000 to them. In English, we created a description of some of the different settings from the story The Boy and the Tiger, using adjectives and considering all 5 of our senses. We then read the end of the story and were all shocked at the twist at the end! With Mrs Bradley on Thursday we looked at the classic poem The Tyger we worked in groups to perform a small section of it. Watch the video of our performances below. In Science, we were given some ice hands and had some time to explore what they looked and felt like. We then observed what happened to them as they were left in the warm classroom and saw that they changed from a solid to liquid or they melted. In Geography, we listened to the music The Blue Danube Waltz and imagined we were stood by a river which we drew. We then looked at a picture of the Danube river and compared our picture to it. We then went outside and did some fieldwork to investigate what happens to water when it is on the ground. We poured some water in different locations around school and observed that the water either ran downwards or was soaked in the ground. We were introduced to the word infiltration to describe this process. We had a visit from Steven from the Life Education Centre for our PHSE lesson. We talked about what things make us unique and how we should celebrate each of us being unique. We watched a video of Harold the giraffe going to a theme park for the day with his friends, but they all wanted to do different things. We saw how important our friends are to our lives and taking it in turns to chose what we do or play. In Art, we went onto the playground and used chalk to try and imitate the shape and style of Magdelene Odundo's sculptures thinking about the ovals and shapes she uses. In RE we looked at the story of David and Goliath and thought about the qualities David showed and how his faith in God gave him the inner strength to defeat Goliath. In Music, we started by listening to a piece of music from our focus composer Pamela Z, we thought about what instruments we could hear and how it made us feel. We enjoyed learning and singing the song Hoedown. On Friday, in our French lesson we learnt a new question 'Ou habites tu' to ask where you live. We also learnt how to answer the question by saying 'J'habite a Hoddlesden/Darwen'. we also looked at different cities on the map of France and what they are famous for. We created some actions to help us remember how to say them. 

Tyger Performance Poetry

Still image for this video

After only one hour of learning, this was Y4's first attempt at performing the poem Tyger by William Blake.
I can't wait to see what the performance is like in a few weeks time when Y4 have had more exposure to the poem!

Autumn1 Week 1

What a fabulous start all the children have made to Year 4! They are settling into the new routines brilliantly and have been working hard despite the heat. On Monday, we spent some time creating a class contract in order to make our classroom a safe place in which everyone can learn. We thought about what we would like to achieve whilst we are in Year 4 and set ourselves some goals. We also thought about some goals we had for the future beyond Year 4.  In Maths, we have been looking at the place value of numbers and extending our understanding into thousands. In English, we have read the first part of our text The Boy and the Tiger and we have thought about some of the important vocabulary such as justice and wicked. We have also thought about how the characters would feel at different parts of the story and made some predictions about what could happen next. In Science, we identified the 3 states of matter as being solids, liquids and gases and looked at the different properties of them. We used this knowledge to help us sort some materials into solids, liquids and gases. In R.E. we thought about how people are chosen for different jobs and the different qualities they need to have for those jobs. We also thought about what qualities God looked for in some of the prophets such as Jonah and Noah. In Art, we looked at the work of the Kenyan born sculpter Magdelene Odundo and found out about her life and influences. We created information pages about her. On Wednesday we had a visit from one of the swimming instructors who told us what we would need to bring to our swimming lessons and what to expect. We are looking forward to going next week. In our P.E. lesson on Friday we had Coach Jake for Jag Tag. We focused on how to hold and throw the ball correctly. We played some games to help us throw the ball straight and accurately. Madame Wardle was back in school for French this week. After a recap of some of our Year 3 learning, we moved onto our new topic which is called On y va. We looked at the country of France on a map and identified what shape it is and which other countries it is near. We then looked at some large towns in France such as Paris and Bordeaux on a map. When Madame Wardle said the place name we had to draw the symbol from the map.  In PSHE, the focus of the lesson was to work collaboratively to create human machines. We were given some very strange challenges for our machines to do whist the other groups had to work out what we were doing. 

Start children off on the way they should go and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
- Proverbs 22:6

awards

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