"Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?"

A great start back and a super start to 2015!
It sounds like everyone had a lovely holiday!

We made New Years Resolutions on Monday during our Jigsaw lesson, having discussed what an exciting year it would be!

In Numeracy we have been learning formal written methods of calculation focusing on grid method multiplication leading to short multiplication.

In Literacy our grammar focus is the uses of the apostrophe. We also had a very dramatic and important job to do yesterday............investigating a crime scene! Not just any crime scene...........a multiple death!!!!!!! We used our inference and deduction skills to examine various clues. Today we discovered if our theories were correct and if we needed to make any arrests! We learned of the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet!!!!!! Everyone loved the story and were surprised at the turn of events and the many twists in the tale. We are looking forward to more work on R&J as well as reading some of the other works by William Shakespeare! (Home learning will be following this week-end relating to Mr. Shakespeare!)

Our Art and Geography is interlinked with learning about the Gambia this week. In Science tomorrow we will embark on a journey starting with teeth and our mouth! Our RE was launched this week with a debate where the children were split into groups and had to work as teams to develop arguments and opinions relating to the cause I had given them. We then held debates which, as you can imagine, were superb! Everyone took turns and maturely used debating language! This was in order to show understanding of the term commitment. This will lead on to learning about how Hindus show commitment to their faith.

In French we immersed ourselves in vocabulary relating to food, cafes, shops and buying/ordering food - we used espresso to listen to French conversations and the children enjoyed identifying and saying different foods. We will be focusing on this over the next few weeks leading up to our welcome to Europe topic and subsequent cafe!

Today the children were extremely fit, with swimming this morning and hockey this afternoon where they learned and demonstrated excellent developing skills - control, movement/dribbling, passing and stopping. I look forward to continuing this love the next few weeks and hope we can get outside!

Home learning, spellings and times tables will all be sent out on Friday!

Any questions about the learning this week, then please ask me or, indeed your children who should be able to tell you all about it (numeracy for example!).

2015!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone - here's to a fun-filled, exciting, happy and healthy year!

Thank you once again for all the lovely, generous gifts - my cups have been endlessly filled with tea, chocolates and biscuits gobbled (exercise now needed!), decorations hung, earrings worn, socks snuggled into and bubble bath relaxed in..........thank you, I hope you all had a wonderful time and I can't wait to hear all about your holidays tomorrow!

Running club starts back NEXT Tuesday morning, parent information session NEXT Thursday morning @ 9:00 in hall, swimming starts this week and PE will be outside weather permitting so WARM TRACKSUITS needed and trainers that may get muddy. Those of you who are continuing with clarinet lessons will need to have them in school on Tuesday THIS week!

I will blog tomorrow with an update of our new topics...........I don't want to give too much away!!!!!

Mrs. Johnson x

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Well done Year 4 you were ALL amazing in our Christmas production, a challenging show but I knew you could do it!!!!! You should all be very proud of yourselves!!!!
Thank you to all the TAs who helped support the show and create stunning props and special effects!!!! We are heading for the West End I think!!! :-)


Have a restful, relaxing and fun festive break!!!! Thank you also for your very generous gifts!!!!
I will be thinking of you all on Christmas Day and hope all your wishes come true!

Thursday 15th January is our parents information session and there will be a news letter shortly after we return!

See you all soon-ENJOY!!!!

Mrs. Johnson and the Year 4 Team

Mixed up shoes (boys')

Dear Parents,
One of the boys in Year 3 has come home wearing shoes of a different size. Both shoes are the same model (black Clarks, 2 Velcro straps, green inner) but he has one 13F and one 2E. (Quite a size difference.) It seems likely that these have been mixed up with another boy's shoes;- who is likely to be finding one of his shoes a rather tight fit!
We have tried to sort this out at school, but without success. Please can you check your son's shoes to see if their shoes are mixed up too.
Many thanks,
Duncan MacBean

Lines!!!!

Well, I am pleased to say well done to all of you who have obviously been learning your lines and songs, I saw a massive difference!!! Keep "polishing" them and practise adding expression and volume to you lines!!! Still a couple of you who need to know your cues and be more secure on your lines!!! Some great costumes have started coming in-great! Thank you.....keep them coming please!!!!! We watched some of the "U" Christmas Carol today which was brilliant as the children could follow it and recognised their words!

Still a couple of days left for you to bring in your recycled Christmas decoration in-Thursday is the deadline!!!

In between rehearsals we have been finishing off newspapers and science presentations in the ICT suite!!!

KEEP PRACTISING!!!!!! :-)

Mrs. Johnson

Reminders for this week!

Reminders: I hope you have ALL been practising your words (not many people knew them last week which is leaving it a little late!!!!!!!) - both song and script!?

Costumes can start coming in on a named hanger please.

Thursday morning we are going to the Journey to the Stable.
Thursday is also the deadline for DT Christmas Decorations competition - Well done Georgia B who has put one on our tree!

Friday is Christmas technology day!

Year 4 Team

Costumes and learning this week!

And so the excitement begins.........

Tonight children came home with their costume note - please could they bring costumes in to school as soon as possible, on a named coat hanger then we can pop it straight on a rail! Thank you - if there are any problems with costumes please see a member of the year 4 team!

I would also really urge you to work with your child on practising their lines or song words - it makes rehearsing a lot quicker and smoother if they know their lines - this should now be their only home learning!

This week, in literacy, children have been set an open ended challenge to "show off" their literacy learning and skills so far this term. Having watched a short animation, they had to choose a genre of writing they have enjoyed this term and use the film as a stimulus to write in that genre - they had various elements to consider and include in order to show their progress in writing this term!
Numeracy has seen us embarking on a new challenge, using and applying our measuring skills in a cross curricular link with art. We learned about 2 historical mathematicians, Fibonacci and Pythagorus who investigated and discovered links between, sequences, measure and angles and patterns in nature - specifically the swirl! Children used their skills to produce art work based upon these theories! Impressive stuff! They will be displayed in our cloakroom when finished!

Pleas can I ask you once more, to consider if you child needs to bring in a large back pack to school daily because our cloakroom is very small and quite often, because of the amount of things hung on pegs, coats and bags end up all over the floor! This results in coats being trodden on or items being broken and also is a dangerous trip hazard! If they are able to just bring in a book bag and lunch box this would make a huge difference!

Finally, some children have come to school without coats this week, and as I am sure you will agree it has been VERY cold, so please could everyone have a warm coat, hat etc in school!

Thank you!

Mrs. Johnson