Today, we started creating model biomes based on independent research. Check back soon to see the finished products!

A big welcome back to school year 4! We’ve covered so much already but a real highlight of our first weeks back was our trip to Pizza Express where we each got to make a pizza and learned about the origins of the Margherita 🍕 We have also spent a lot of time getting used to our new routines and using the resources to support our lessons.

This week we have been creating felt pigs as part of our preparations for the tree festival. We used templates to cut out and sew felt pigs before stuffing them and creating a little blanket to keep them warm! Look out for our decorations on the school tree!

It’s anti bullying week this week and this year the theme is ‘reach out.’ We’ve spent time talking about bullying and how it makes everyone feel, including those who may be bullying someone. Using our value of empathy, we discussed how everyone in a bullying situation might be feeling and how we can help by reaching out. Whether you’re the target of a situation, a bystander or a friend of someone who is being bullied, you can always reach out to a parent or carer, a member of staff at school, a friend or the people at Childline. You’ll soon find posters in the corridor which will point you in the right direction if you ever feel that you want to reach out.

With sheets of A4 paper of course! As part of our maths this morning, Miss Baker challenged to children to use nothing but A4 paper to work out the area of the class tables. The children had great fun on this metacognitive task and worked in teams to discuss things such as the width of the tables, how many sheets they would need and the best way to lay them out so that there were no gaps.

The children have enjoyed their first lesson of yoga in PE today! We practiced breathing exercises and then created a flow of different poses. These included down dog, mountain and cobra.

Year 4 have enjoyed a trip to Pizza Express today as part of our DT topic. The children learnt about the heritage of the company, health and safety when preparing food, technique when creating their crust and the origins of the Margarita. Did you know that the Margarita was created in honour of Margarita, Queen of Naples? And that the colours of the cheese, tomato and basil used represents the Italian flag!

Today the children have been taste testing and evaluating the flavour of various pizza toppings. In preparation for making our own pizzas the children had the opportunity to try mushroom, pineapple, tomato, olives and peppers as these are ingredients we added to our class shopping list last week. They loved it and many of them tried everything! As you can see from some of their faces, not everything was a hit 😂

Today the children have been working hard as computer programmers and have been writing their own script. This script commands a sprite and they managed to create shapes, change the colour of the pens and experimented with debugging the code if they ran into problems.

In year 4 we are working really hard to develop our understanding of multiplication and our tables in preparation for the MTC later this year. We use manipulatives to support our understanding as physical resources help to cement our knowledge. Here you can see us using bead stings, base 10 and multiplication squares to solve multiplication questions that we are less familiar with. The children choose their own resources from our trays every maths lesson if they feel that they want them, some of the children also find pictures or pictorial representations helpful.

Last week, as part of our history topic, we went on a trip to Blenheim Palace. We had lots of fun gathering information about Winston Churchill and now have lots of ideas for our leaflets that we are going to produce!

In literacy we are learning about Italy and by the end of the half term we will create our own information brochure. Today, we started to research about Italy and used the iPads to find information. We also used some videos and made notes on whiteboards.

We have loved dressing up as our favourite characters from lots of different stories! Our book for today has been ‘The day the crayons quit’ and we have done a range of activities linking to the story. For example writing a letter to a crayon of out choice to say sorry and creating our own version of the last page of the story using lots of colours.

We have been finding out which four countries make up the UK and have used an atlas to help us. We also looked at some capital cities and oceans around the UK.

We have started our new topic ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’ and have already found out what a compass is and how it helps us find north, east, south and west. We had a go at using a compass to find which way north was in the classroom.

We were lucky enough to listen to a member of our class play the violin. It was a lovely rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ – keep up the hard work!

In science, we have been learning about different types of birds. We went on a bird watch in the schools grounds to see which type of birds we could see.

We are very proud of our finished castles! We have evaluated them and talk about what could be improved.

In literacy we have been reading Hansel and Gretel and have decorated our own gingerbread houses using different materials.

We have been learning about what castles were used for and some that exist today. We have used rulers to design our own castles which we will start making next week.

We have updated our wow work wall with lots of amazing work!

We have been using the drums to make our own short rhythms and have been practising playing them as a class.

We have been learning about odd and even numbers. We have used teddies and cubes to help us see which ones are odd and even as well as using a 100 square.

In gymnastics we have been learning about different types of balances and travel. We have been exploring dynamic balances using the apparatus.

We have been learning the skill of tracing to help us create paintings of different fairy tale characters. These will look lovely on display!

Happy New Year everyone! We have been thinking about goals or things we would like to achieve this year and have written them into stars. We will display them in the classroom.

We have been continuing our learning about Diwali and have learnt about rangoli patterns and how they are significant in the Hindu religion. We have used oil pastels to colour in our own rangoli patterns.

We have been learning how 2 digit numbers are made up of tens and ones. We have been using a range of resources to help us make numbers and split them up using tens and ones.

We have started to learn about nets of 3D shapes and have been using polydron to help us. We have learnt how it works and made a cube using a net.

We have been writing instructions in literacy to explain how to make a jam sandwich. We have used bossy verbs and time words to tell people what they should do. We followed our instructions to make a jam sandwich.

We have been learning about Remembrance Day and why it is so important. We have also learnt why a poppy is an important symbol and have used collage to decorate our own poppies. They all look lovely on our class display!

We have been naming and describing 2D shapes. We have used geo boards to make 2D shapes and some of us have made a rocket using 2D shapes. We then counted how many sides and corners the shapes have.

We have made our own firework pictures using black paper, oil pastels and chalk. We watched a real firework display and talk about the patterns and shapes that can be made. We then used oil pastels and chalk to make our own.

We have learnt about the Gunpowder plot and how this links to bonfire night. We acted out the story in groups using masks and also had a story teller.

We have been testing materials to see which ones are waterproof to make Percy the park keeper a new umbrella. We made predictions as a class to guess which material might be best and today we conducted our experiment. We found that the plastic was the most waterproof and didn’t absorb any water.

We have been learning about materials and their properties in science. We have applied what we have learnt during CIP time to use the science area to sort and describe materials.

This morning we shared with parents and the rest of the school what we have been learning in our topic ‘Whatever the Weather’. We used the values of teamwork and perseverance to perform a quality assembly. Thank you to all parents and family members who came to watch!

We have made our own weather glossary page using what we have learnt in topic and literacy. Some of us used a dictionary to choose and find the meaning of weather words.

In literacy we are learning about glossaries and what they are for. We looked at lots of non-fiction books to identify where a glossary can be found and what they help us to find out. We had a go at reading some meanings for words in the glossary.

During child initiated play in the afternoons the children have been enjoying using different areas of the classroom to apply what they have learnt in lessons. Here, children are using money to role play shops and others are using the weather station role play area.

We have been learning about the Moon festival in RE lessons and have made our own Chinese lanterns using paper. We also decorated them to make them stand out.

We have used a fantastic website where the children can create their own virtual weather report by clicking on each section and selecting different types of weather and temperatures. The weather report is then read to the children by a cartoon weather reporter.

We have been learning about what weather forecasts are and how we can find them using a range of devices at home. We watched some real weather reports and talked about what we could see then we worked in groups to plan and perform our own to the class.

In maths we have been learning about the value of coins and used this to solve a problem. We had to find as many different ways to make 10p using the amounts of 1p, 2p and 5p. We used a number line to help us add up the totals.

In literacy we are reading ‘After the Storm’ written by Nick Butterworth. We have acted out the story using character masks and each group had a story teller to narrate what was happening.

In topic we are learning about weather and seasons. We went outside and made observations using our senses to create a weather diary for the afternoon – we also compared the weather to how it had changed throughout the day.

In maths we have been sorting a range of objects/ pictures into groups based on their similarities and differences – some of us have sorted into three groups as well!

Reception Class had a fantastic trip to The Box Moor Trust this week. We went pond dipping, mini beast hunting and even managed to find The Gruffalo in the woods!

Week Commencing: 22nd October 2018

This week we have been learning all about Autumn. We have had the opportunity to complete lots of Autumn activities during CIP. We have done some leaf threading, conker counting, tree printing, conker rolling and transient art . We also went on an Autumn walk around the school grounds collecting a range of different coloured natural items.

Our Autumn Walk:

Week Commencing: 22nd October 2018

This week we have been reading the story ‘Leaf Man’. After hearing the story we used leaves and other natural materials we found as part of our homework to make our own Leaf Man and Leaf Girl pictures.

Week Commencing: 15th October 2018

This week we have been reading the story ‘Owl Babies’. During Literacy we acted out the story in small groups. During CIP we also did some ‘Owl Babies’ activities.

Wednesday 10th October 2018

Today the school had a visit from James Arnott. James won a silver medal in the para commonwealth games for athletics. We had an assembly and learnt about James and his successes, then we had a workshop. During the workshop with year 6 we got to look at his medals, his running shoes and ask him some questions. James then got us to do a range of exercises to keep us fit.

Week Commencing: 8th October 2018

This week we have been reading the story ‘Peace at Last’. One of our activities during literacy was to make our own bears. During CIP we also did some ‘Peace at Last’ activities.

Week Commencing: 8th October 2018

This week in maths we have been learning about repeating patterns. We have made patterns using a range of objects and resources from around the classroom.

Monday 8th October 2018

Today we went to St George’s Church to do our Harvest Assembly. Our KS1 assembly was all about different vegetables. As a class we did vegetable printing crowns and learnt a song called ‘The Farmer Plants a Seed’. We all sung ‘Dingle, Dangle Scarecrow’, ‘Big, Red Combine Harvester’ and ‘The Vegetable Song’.

Week Commencing: 26th September 2018

This week we have been reading the story ‘The Gruffalo’. In our groups we story mapped the story on large pieces of paper. During CIP we also did lots of Gruffalo activities.

Week Commencing: 10th September 2018

We have been getting to know one another and making new friends. We have also have the opportunity to explore our new classroom and the school. It has been a little bit scary but very exciting!!

Welcome to all the children joining us in reception.