Mrs Gibbons

Year 4 are pilgrims….

It’s been a busy, varied week in year 4 – the best type of weeks. Many of the class stood for school positions with very well-prepared speeches confidently delivered. Well done to the children who were elected and also very well done to everyone who stood and made the elections possible.

On Wednesday we walked to St Albans Cathedral, just like millions of people have done over the years. While we were sitting in the nave a Roman soldier came to berate us! We found out about Roman life in Verulamium (which learning will be useful in January when we learn about the Romans) before acting the story of St Alban, in different parts of the cathedral. (The class was in two groups.) We also visited St Alban’s shrine. The guides were very complimentary about the children’s conduct round the cathedral and their respectful attitude throughout. I was very proud of them all as they were excellent representatives of St Adrian’s School and they walked back up to school very quickly, spurred out no doubt by the thought of lunch.

Thursday’s swimming was done in the smaller pool as the floor in the larger one was being mended. The children still did lots of good practice on their skills. On Friday the ukelele lesson was a lot of fun.

We will be moving on from place value to addition/subtraction soon. The current tasks on MyMaths have been written in line with the White Rose materials and reflect exactly the learning we have done and so are very useful in reinforcing skills. Please do log on to MyMaths and complete the learning. The log-in details are in the reading books. If you have any problems logging on please do let me know.

Thank you for sending, on paper or email, the photos and painting aprons.

It’s electric in year 4!

The children showed fantastic partner-working, initiative and perseverance this week as they were presented with boxes of components and wires and asked to “make a circuit”. The delight when they made the lightbulb come on, or the buzzer vibrate was genuine and wonderful to see.

They role-played what Panther and Cheetah could say to each other and really got into character.

Next Wednesday we will walk to the cathedral. We’ll be back in time for school lunches, so no packed lunch will be needed. Let’s hope the weather is as glorious as it’s been this week! Regardless of what it is like, I think we’ll have a very interesting and inspirational time learning about the saint which gave our home city its name.

As part of our learning about “The Midnight Panther”, some children made this wonderful collage of Panther trying to be as regal as Lion.

I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

Year 4 is going swimmingly….

Thank you for the hats for swimming! And for all your support in sending your children to school with what they need every day. The class is responding really well to the new routines in their new year and settling down to calm, reflective work while showing great independence.

We’ve started the new topics in science, history and art and visited the library for the first time. We’ve made great inroads into place value, using resources to represent numbers to their thousands and also to remember the significance of the all-important place value holder.

We’ve introduced some friendly competition in the class, as the children chose names for their tables. They chose the theme of “gemstones” and debated amongst themselves, on their tables, which name they would like for their table. The classroom door is now beautifully decorated with images associated with St Alban, the year 4 class saint. (Any illustrations which could not fit on the door are in a book to be displayed in the classroom.)

Mrs Newman delivered her first ukelele session and the children can already strum some notes in time.

It was lovely to see so many of you at “meet the teacher”. I’ve put a link to the slides on Google Classroom.

This week’s spellings and Maths activities will be on Google Classroom. Please let me know if you have any queries. Have a great weekend!

Welcome Year 4!

The new year got off to a great start for year 4. They have used handwriting pens in their RE and English books, started listening to the brilliant book “The Iron Man”, begun their Maths learning with place value and were excellent representatives for St Adrians when they went swimming on Thursday. I wished that I had worn my sunglasses, when faced with the dazzling display of brightly-coloured summer costumes on display! All the children have been put in groups and next week the lessons will start in earnest in both the smaller and large pools.

It’s been a great three days and the children are really ready for all aspects of learning and life in year 4.

The first lots of home learning are on Google Classroom – spellings for Tuesday and Maths for Thursday, please. Times- table is a major focus for home learning. It’s really essential that the children learn these facts off by heart. Thank you for your support in doing this.

I look forward to seeing you all at meet the teacher on Wednesday 11th September. In the meantime, I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Fun and Farewell from Year 4

At last some sun came out so year 4 could have some fun playing rounders and having an ice-cream afterwards. As usual, it’s been a busy end to the school year. All the work has gone home, the lockers are empty and year 4 is ready to move on and up to year 5! I have loved being your teacher this, year 4; and wish you all the happiness and success you all deserve. I look forward to hearing about your holidays and adventures when we are back in school in September. Stay safe over the holidays and have lots of fun!

Ukelele Finale

Year 4 performed really well at today’s assembly, showing the rest of the school the three songs they’ve over the last few weeks. From a standing start in September, they can now all play 5 chords and play together as a fantastic ukelele orchestra. I was really proud of them, as was Mrs Newman, the dedicated ukelele teacher who has taught them every week. As well as the notes, she’s helped them with maintaining the pulse and singing while playing an instrument, which are difficult skills especially when you are doing it with 25 other people.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the game on Sunday evening!

This week in year 4

The sun chose the right day to appear this week and all the children in year 4 competed brilliantly. I am always impressed by the way the children at St Adrians throw themselves into all sporting activities with gusto and confidence.

The children in year 4 have really peaked with their writing this week and are writing some stunning stories, based on “The Mermaid of Zennor”, when they retell the story from the point of view mermaid (or merrymaid, as they say in Cornwall). The story and text by Charles Causley are beautiful and inspirational and have really captured the children’s imagination. I look forward to what they are reading and love seeing the way they are changing the order of clauses in a sentence or using language they’ve read in their own books.

Another book we are enjoying is “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, when the children read different parts out loud to the class. They read with expression and good pace.

With two weeks left of year 4, the children will start bringing things home. Please could you send one (or two) very strong, roomy plastic bags, or the “everlasting” shopping bags on the last Monday of term – the 15th July – and we will send books home one day that week.

Please could you also dig out any library books, school reading book and, class reading books which could be anywhere in your house. We will be doing a check of which library books are out against which children and will need to ask for replacements for any which are missing. Next Friday, 12th July, will be our last visit to the library.

Thank you very much for digging these all out, so future children can benefit from them.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and look forward to hearing about the Gaelic football event next week.

Celebrating the learning in year 6

It was lovely to see so many parents and children on Wednesday after school, to enjoy the work done by your wonderful children, in a relaxed way. We shall starting sending things home now.

Thursday is sports day. Please send your child in with a T-shirt in their house colour and, of course, a full water bottle, school hat and wearing sun tan cream.

Sport in the sun!

The numbers in year 4 have been depleted this week, with District Sports and The “World Games” taking place. A massive well done to all the year four children who competed at Westminster Lodge, did brilliantly well in their heats and representing the school in good sporting style. Thank you to Mr Creaton and Miss Allen for taking them there. Miss Allen was quite hoarse this morning after all her cheering! I look forward to hearing all about it on Monday.

Let’s all hope the sun stays out this weekend so we can enjoy sometime outside at last!

Creating a little bit of Kew back in class

This week year 4 used their creative skills to design a pavilion based on what we saw at Kew Gardens. They had fantastic ideas and showed outstanding teamwork when working in pairs to build their pavilions. Joining “lolly sticks” together to make a design a reality is quite a challenge and the children rose to the challenge.

We have started reading a new, wonderful book called “The Mermaid of Zennor” and the children wrote some beautiful, original descriptions of the scene in the church with the mysterious lady sitting at the back.

Racing through the Maths topics now, the children are calculating with money. We all use cash very little these days. If you are out and about near shops this weekend, it would be useful to buy some things using cash (if the shop will let you!) Also, just looking carefully at how prices are set out on the shelves would be useful.

Sadly, the weather isn’t forecast to improve much but I hope the chilly weather doesn’t stop you all having a lovely weekend with your family, whatever you do.