Thank you!

I hope you have all been busying away on your WW2 home learning - I can't wait to see them!

Today we learned about the Dam Busters! Please ask about it, we then applied our knowledge to our ongoing WW2 powerpoint - they look very impressive (great computing skills being applied too!)

I would like to say a HUGE thank you to the Mistry-Dyer family, last week we had Alex's Grandma come in to talk to us about her experiences and stories from WW2. The following day, Mrs. Mistry-Dyer taught us all about how Hindus pray at home - we made our own Pujas. It was a really very special couple of days, thank you!

This week we will be finishing our evacuee stories, I am looking forward to reading them! In numeracy we are learning to use and apply formal written methods of calculation.

A reminder about costumes for the Nothe Fort trip - Mrs. Creed has been collecting boxes for gas masks, so if you are in need of one, please ask - we have quite a pile!

Harvest week is upon us, you are welcome to come to the assembly next Friday and to join us for the Harvest cafe in the afternoon - happy bread baking!

Mrs. Johnson and the Year 4 Team.

Home Learning for the school!

Home Learning  - Harvest celebration

(week commencing Monday 5^th October)

 
During the week of Monday 5^th October as usual we have planned opportunities throughout the week where the children learn about: food and where it comes from, visits to Maiden Castle farm, creating art pieces, cooking, thinking about seasonal food, creating goodies for the Harvest café using our orchard goodies, looking at India farming and of course the reason behind Harvest itself!

 

We thought this year we would have a ‘Bake off’ format to the week as the ‘Great British Bake off’ has been inspiring staff as well as the nation!

 

So, if your child wishes to, the Home Learning for the children is to…

 

Create their own bread and bring into school through the week leading up to our Harvest celebration! The class will taste it and talk about how it was made.   Everyone will need to share the ingredients and how they made their bread (write down or be able to talk about).   ‘Bread’ products are wide and varied across the world, so experiment, create!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through the week each class has also been set the challenge of creating a ‘master piece!’

 

These will be displayed outside of the hall for our Harvest celebration.

 

We will have our very own ‘Mary and Paul’ to taste each class’s efforts and decide upon a winner! Be ready to ask your child all about it!

 

Home learning and class charter reminder!

I hope you've all had some creative brain waves for your WW2 inspired project home learning!? I can't wait to see them!

Thanks to all of you that made it to the information session, it was lovely to see so many of you there!

The children are working hard at their spellings and did very well on Friday, likewise with their times tables! Well done - keep up the hard work, effort and enthusiasm!

We finished our poems for the poetry competition, some of us used personification and onomatopoeia!!!!!!!! (Ask them to tell you what they mean!) We will be embarking on WW2 inspired drama leading into story writing from tomorrow.

We began learning about negative numbers today - see if they can explain to you what they are!

Please keep hunting for WOW words at home, simply jot them down with the meaning and bring it in!

Don't forget to login to mathletics for some valuable mental maths work!

We would appreciate it if you could discuss our class charter again (listed a few blogs ago), some of us need reminding of the class rights and responsibilities that were agreed to, particularly with regards to putting in effort to learning, trying our best and not distracting others and secondly, friendship (being happy and making others happy!!!!!)

Finally, a HUGE well done to those 13 children who applied for the job of Playtime Warden, attended an interview and, due to their mature and enthusiastic responses, were successful in getting the job!!!! They will take part in training this week before beginning their role - you should be very proud! I am thrilled and know you will do an excellent job!

Mrs. Johnson and the Year 4 Team

costume pre-warning!

It's great to see all the home learning coming in - apologies for the missing numeracy, we forgot to put it in!!!!!!

The children have really impressed me with their grammar skills this week. Over the next couple of days we will be composing autumnal poems for a competition so I can't wait to see how creative they all are!!!!

We had great fun in French yesterday learning some conversational language as well as the French alphabet, spelling out our own names!

I look forward to seeing you all at the Year 4 parents information session tomorrow morning in the school hall at 9:00 am.

Pre-warning: for our trip to the Nothe Fort and the Tank Museum we will be dressing up as evacuees - please don't feel you need to go buying costumes, as I'm sure if you google images you will see that school skirt/pinafore/shorts are good with a cardigan/jumper/tank top.........knee length socks and a flat cap for boys, hair ribbons for girls are perfect! They will also need to make a gas mask box to bring in for the trip (cat food boxes or washing tablet boxes are ideal for this, cover it in brown paper, add string and gas mask box instructions). Any questions, please pop in and ask!

Some brilliant play time warden letters of application have arrived on my desk, interviews will begin tomorrow!!!!!

Keep up the good work with learning your spellings and timetables!

Mrs. Johnson and the Fantastic Year 4 Team!

First swim!

A great first swim today, with many children showing great bravery and trying their best! Well done!

I have also been very impressed at the home learning that has been handed in already - very creative!

Our World War 2 topic has fired our enthusiasm and many children have been telling us family stories with a link to the topic. Yesterday we began learning the Cha Cha, ready for our VE Day Tea Dance in November - ask for a demonstration at home and you can all cha cha round the house!

A big well done to those children who are writing their reading books into their diaries and thank you for any messages - we are checking them on a daily basis and responding to any comments - I will write in a set of diaries for one house a day!

It has also been lovely to award several citizenship stickers over the past couple of days to children fro being polite, considerate and caring - keep it up!

Posters have appeared in and around our classroom advertising for the position of a playtime warden - there is a job description attached and the children have been asked to apply to myself in writing if they are interested........interviews will take place next week. We need as many of you as possible!

The children began harvesting our crops of wheat and barley this afternoon and, I believe, they worked very hard, so I am looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow!

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!

Good night!

Class charter - please read and discuss me!

Our class charter agreement discussed and written by Year 4.

We have the right to learn and to talk, we have the responsibility to show respect to others (adults and children) by listening and trying our best.

We have the right to smile and be happy in who we are,  we have the responsibility to make others happy.

We have the right to be safe, we have the responsibility to look after ourselves and others.

We have the right to use equipment, we have the responsibility to share and take care (of it).

We have the right to outside learning, we have the responsibility to be sensible.

These rights and responsibilities are very important and will ensure we have a happy, safe and successful learning environment. Please read them at home and discuss them, thinking about how you will try hard to keep this agreement.

Spells and spelling!

Yet ANOTHER excellent day - well done Year 4!!!!!!!!!!
Today, we undertook some top secret learning all about our brains (I will let the children tell you all about it............... :-) )

We gave out our new Home School Diaries today, I have asked the children to record the books they read in it, as well as any achievements and successes (we love to hear about those!!!!!). There is a space to record spellings, although it may not be big enough for some lists so we decided that you could either record your whole list or just the tricky ones! We are going to get into a routine of placing our diaries open on our topic places each morning so that I can scan round and read any messages from home and I can also write in them as well. We agreed that it would be best to keep our diaries in our book bags so that they are remembered daily - this is also great practise for next year when their diaries need to used in most lessons!

Spellings will begin next week, they will be sent home on Friday to be learnt by the following Friday when they will be tested, they will also be expected to learn timetables on a weekly basis as well.
Home Learning was sent home tonight, the children have a wallet to keep their home learning in so that you will see the marking the following week. This week they have been asked to conjure up a spell for a perfect Year 4. I would ask that they spend approximately half an hour on this task and that you encourage neat handwriting and presentation as well as challenging themselves to use exciting language.

PE kits need to be in next week please and swimming starts on Wednesday where the children can either meet at the pool for 8:45 or meet at school ready to walk up at 8:30. PE will be inside on a Tuesday and outside, weather permitting on a Friday. Because we will be outside on Fridays then the children may have tracksuit bottoms and trainers to wear for those sessions - depending on time, because the lesson is at the end of the day, we may send them home in their PE kits some Fridays.

Please see the next blog for our new, hot off the press, Class Charter...............

Welcome to Year 4!

A VERY warm welcome to Year 4! It was so lovely to see so many of you this morning - lots of friendly, smily faces!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, in fact, I know you did because the children told us all about them this morning!!!!!!!

Well, what a fantastic first day..............everyone was enthusiastic and demonstrated excellent listening skills and superb attitudes and behaviour!!! I sense a brilliant year ahead!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a lot of listening and discussion throughout the day based around our class, the classroom, the teachers, culminating in agreeing on our very important class charter. This is an essential part to the beginning of every school year because it generates lots of discussion and thinking about why we are at school, what we expect from school and how we treat other people as well as the responsibilities that go along with these rights. They underpin the ethos in the classroom and establish a common agreement for the whole year, running nicely alongside the DASP citizenship caterpillars. I will be sending home and blogging a copy of the charter that the children created so that you can discuss it at home and refer to it throughout the year, demonstrating a 3 way partnership to the children between themselves, home and school.

We also met our buddies today which was very successful and I was extremely proud of each and every child in Year 4, they were kind, caring, friendly, understanding and good role models - Well done!!!!!!!

Thank you for a fantastic first day Year 4, I am really looking forward to tomorrow - I hope you are too!!!!

Remember Year 4, we discussed a step towards developing independence this year would be to see how many of you are able to come into class on their own and organise themselves in the morning - You can do it!!!!!!
(Mums and Dads, of course I am available if you need to see me or make an appointment to see me, and I will always be outside at the end of the day!)

Mrs. Johnson and The Wonderful Year 4 Team