Working hard right to the end!!!!!!!!! (of half term!)

Newspaper articles written, now smoke is billowing from the computers as we are busily typing away, formatting our work - we hope they will be hot of the press tomorrow!!!!!!!


We further embedded our learning about the journey of food through the digestive system by acting it out, then creating a picture map before embarking on writing it up - some of the sentence structure and language being used is of a very high standard!!!!!! (I can't wait to read them when they are finished!

Our giant Fibonacci and Pythagorus spirals are complete and displayed in the school hall, the individual ones are displayed in our cloak room - do come and have a look - they look fantastic! Mr. Farrington visited us whilst we were working on our giant pieces, and taught us more about Pythagorus and his theory - very advanced Year 4 - can you remember what he taught you and tell your parents - remember it involved a right angled triangle and three squares, one attached to each edge of the triangle, the one at the bottom is labelled c, the one on the vertical is labelled b and the hypotenuse is labelled a - the area of square c and b added together = the area of square a, this same calculation can be used for any sized right angled triangle! Try it! Fascinating!

Well done for the superb effort you have put into your home learning - it has been lovely to see all your different approaches and how creative you are as well as your preferred choice of presenting your learning - Brilliant!!!!

We will be visiting the Tank Museum next half term as well as a WW2 learning walk around Dorchester, visiting memorials and the Cenotaph to lay a wreath - dates will follow shortly. We will also then be finishing our WW2 topic at the end of November with a VE Day party and Tea Dance which we would love you to come to - again a date will follow shortly (I will blog it tomorrow!)

As part of our DT next 1/2 term we would like to ask each child to bring in an old piece of clothing which could be used as part of learning about "make do and mend" from WW2 - we hope to be making bunting for the party and possibly bags/purses!?

Thanks everyone - keep up the hard work - and it's been lovely to hear some real progress in your reading (if you haven't covered your reading journal, please do so over the holiday - they then need to be in school unless I send you home with an activity in Guided reading!)

Last but not least, can I ask all of you to take home PE kits over the half term and CHECK SCHOOL JUMPERS - Lots without names and lots of you have LOST them - some of you must be taking the wrong jumpers home, so please could you check and bring back any that you may have by mistake!? Thank you!

Year 4 Team :-)

"Hands on" learning!

Last week saw us having lots of fun with our learning! We continued learning about journalistic writing and created our own incidents in drama, ready to use to write a newspaper article. We will be word processing them and formatting them this week using purple mash. Great fun!

In numeracy we focused on measure - some of us began the week learning to measure accurately in mm, some of us began learning how to use a protractor to measure angles. Later on in the week we used this knowledge and applied it to some art work based around Fibonacci - the golden sequence of numbers and Pythagorus - Tell your families what these were all about - can you remember the golden sequence of numbers and where we see these in nature!!!???? Look out for a display shortly!

 

Science was also very exciting - we began learning about the journey of food through our digestive system! We simulated the break down of food in the mouth with enzymes, then the motion of peristalsis down the oesophagus into the stomach. Here we simulated what happens in the stomach - tell your families what happened and what we did! Having turned a solid into, pretty much, a liquid, we simulated the journey through the intestine (using tights and porridge) and finally the waste product!!!!!!!! Superb fun and learning!!!! Memorable moments!

Well done to all of you who brought a blinged bike in on Tuesday - a very colourful sight!!!!!!
A big thank you to all those parents who came to parents evenings - it was lovely to meet you and share how well your children are all doing and how well they have settled into Year 4 - Thank yoiu for all your positive comments and support - much appreciated!

The Year 4 Team! (Thank you Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Scott for helping me on Friday night with the Autumn Fest!)

Amazing!

Well done Year 4! Your assembly was fantastic - you demonstrated great maturity, confidence and team work, you should be very proud of yourselves - I sure am!!!!!! A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Scott who came in early to help set up and thank you to those children in breakfast club who helped us - very considerate, well done!

I have also been very pleased to see a hardworking and focused attitude from you all during independent working times - this is a very important skill to enable you to learn to the best of your ability and to understand the effect you may have on others and their learning, if you distract them! Keep it up!

 Our "Evacuees on the farm" trip was a lot of fun, and we certainly learned all about the life of an evacuee on a farm - we were put to work searching for and bundling kindling wood, farming in World War 2 and The Land Army.

Make sure you have your spellings, x tables (remember we are learning them as fact families) and your home learning tasks (to be in by Thursday 24th October 2013) - some of you seemed to have left yours on the table!!!!!!!

 

The Blitz

There is some fantastic writing on display in the foyer by Year 4 which I hope will be an inspiration to younger children. The display also shows how much progress the Year 4 children have made over the years!!!

Bling a bike day!

“Bling a Bike Day”

Yes that is “Bling”, although we would like you to “Bring” your bikes too!

On Tuesday 15^th October we will be holding an event to promote “Being Safe by Being Seen” when out on your bikes and scooters. We will have a competition to see who can make their bike or scooter extra colourful and bright,- so that it really stands out!

The children may score extra marks for having bright, colourful clothing that they can put on when parading their “blinged”-bike.

Children who would like to take part in the competition should bring their bikes or scooters to school on the morning of Tuesday 15^th October. We will be asking Jonathon Dixon, our local Sustrans Bike Officer, to judge the competition. Winners will be decided during our school assembly at 10.10 am.

It is important that any materials added to your bike or scooter should not be in the way of moving parts, and that your bike or scooter can still be wheeled along in the parade without any difficulty.

Duncan MacBean Prince of Wales Bike Champion

Make Your Child a Maths Genius!

I forgot to remind everyone that the Parents evening sign up sheets are in the Year 4 cloakroom - hope to see you there.

Some of you asked me for help and guidance with strategies we used in school with relation to numeracy, therefore, I have added the DASP make your child a maths star page on the Year 4 Pupil Links page under Maths Block A. This is a brilliant document, which is downloadable and has examples to illustrate how we teach strategies in each year group and the progression through the key stages.

Please also use the other excellent numeracy sites on Year 4 Pupil Links, as well as mathletics, where I have set tasks for the children to access and challenge themselves - certificates will be handed out in school when these are completed!


We will be embarking on "Times Tables Tuesdays" every week to focus on rapid recall and understanding of times tables (this is not our test day), Over the next few weeks I will be talking about the Times Tables as "fact families" so that the children are also able to recall the corresponding divisions.

What a busy week!?

Hi everyone - Sorry that I have been a little late, I was unable to get onto my blog!!!!!!

The children began last week with our trip to the Nothe Fort - it was a fantastic trip helping to put all our learning into context, and the children thoroughly enjoyed it, they were a credit to the school. Thanks to Tony and Mrs. Staddon for accompanying us - I think they enjoyed themselves as well! Look out for photos at our assembly this Friday!

The results from our science experiment were very interesting and exciting ( a bit disgusting too!) What did we find out about the effect of acid on our teeth?

I thought the children produced superb art work (tricky and very skillful) and delicious food for the Harvest Festival - as well as helping your buddies and representing the school by serving in the cafe - Well done!

A reminder - we are off to the farm on Wednesday afternoon - school uniform to be worn in the morning to the pool ("tatty" trousers and wellies to be brought in a named carrier bag - wear a waterproof coat that day!) If there are any parents that would like to join us, we will be leaving school at 1 o'clock.

It is our class assembly on Friday - we have discussed with the children what they need to wear, if they could bring it in before Friday in a named bag, then we can see what we still need to organise!!!!!

Thank you to Florence's mum who has offered to come in and listen to readers - if anyone else can make it, that would be great - we really need you!!!


Thanks again,

The Year 4 Team

Our Harvest celebrations!

Thank you for all the harvest produce brought in, also the wonderful cakes and breads which were for sale in the Harvest café during the afternoon. The children created some wonderful food in class too! We hope some of you got to savour their delights? If not, ask your child what they cooked and what they enjoyed trying?

The School council decided that they would like all proceeds to be sent to help children in other countries whose parents cannot afford to send them to school. We will endeavour to find the right avenue to send this money and will keep you posted.