Year 4 showed their passion and understanding of what makes a good community today in their class assembly. It was a reflection on what we have been learning the past weeks, including our trips to Young Voices and the cathedral. The children took on board all the advice and encouragement from our practises – to say what they needed to say with meaning, with the precise choice of words down to them. I was particularly proud of the confidence they showed, owning the floor and looking out for each other with the “props” and microphone. It was a fantastic start to the week and created a warm glow of pride in year 4 to counterbalance the below freezing temperatures in the morning.
We also enjoyed marking the Lunar New Year, with children sharing their excitement at receiving their red envelopes and explaining traditions to us
Year 4 have had a great day out. As well as the learning, the walks to and from the cathedral were energising and beautiful, in the frost. We were pushed for time on the way home and everyone strode out, making it back to school more quickly than we’ve ever done before. Thanks, as always, to the fantastic parents who came and helped and without whom we couldn’t do these trips. The day included exploring the cathedral; finding out about St Alban, the first British Christian martyr; making and tasting typical Roman food; learning about Roman soldiers and their equipment; and finding out about the sorts of objects which are found in archeological digs. Oh – and a Roman soldier came to see us! He wasn’t very polite about us British, especially girls with long red hair for some reason. He seemed to me missing Rome, with it’s warm weather, elegant buildings and good food… fighting Celts painted blue isn’t as good as being at home, apparently…Here are some images from the day.
.. was postponed by a day this year, but was enjoyed just as much as usual – including the ever-popular Arctic roll. Here are a few “action shots”.
We have been finishing off topics this week and we can all look forward to new topics next half-term. We are loving our reading book – “The Wild Robot”, which has echoes of “Iron Man” . I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
This week we saw the amazing talents of our budding pop stars, with the fantastic “Rock Steady” concert on Monday.
We have been very busy practising words for the parts and songs in the carol concert. Well done to everyone who is making a huge effort to deliver their lines slowly, clearly and loudly and to those children who suddenly became understudies, due to the original actors being stricken by one of the nasty bugs going around just now.
Thank you for the RE home learning. The children have thought carefully about the qualities needed to be a prophet today – people who follow God’s path and emulate Jesus, such as Marcus Rashford, David Attenborough or parents.
I hope you all have a bug-free, relaxing and healthy weekend!
With Advent, carol concert practice and classroom decorations, Christmas is really on its way. The children have their names for their Kriskringles. We have been talking about what we can do during Advent, the period of preparation for Christmas; and the children suggested that doing small daily acts of daily kindness is one way of showing love for one another, in the way that God showed his love for people by sending Jesus. We are practising songs for the carol concert in earnest and looking forward to seeing you at the concert on Monday 12th. We are learning this fantastic Christmas song. Please could you practise it at home. Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lnYDohCNSM
The classroom looks very festive.
The children’s fantastic explanation writing is on display – either on the or in one of two books. This week they completed a very different piece of writing, retelling “FaRther” with a different ending, when they used personification, similes, expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials to write figuratively. In both cases every child focused and wrote incredibly well.
In Maths we’ve moved onto applying multiplication and division facts. The children are using the correct terminology for division; and used practice of the facts using manipulatives to make generalisations about division. For example, the class worked out that if the dividend and the quotient are the same, then the divisor has to be one. Or, if the dividend and divisor are the same, then the quotient must one 1. Today they have been constructing sentences like “The product of 8 x 4 is 32” or “6 x 3 is the same as 3 x 6 because of the commutative rule in multiplication.” Can your child explain these terms to you, in different contexts?
Please remember the deadline for the Called RE home learning which is 8th December.
Today was the last session of Gaelic Football which the children really loved. I will send a thank you email to Rory of Herts GAA for providing this first-class coaching to the school.
The children are getting to know their way round the library and are very much enjoying their time there. The beautiful books there, both fiction and non-fiction, complement the “reading scheme” books. As with the class reading books, the children have completely free choice with the library books. The reading scheme books are carefully matched to their reading age and are to be read independently and fluently (which means with 95% accuracy). The class and library books can be read independently by the children, or shared with adults, or can be read by the adults to the children.
The reading stars sheets have been added to the children’s books and are ready for signatures to be added, which will be converted into housepoints.
Thank you for the beautiful birthday books which have been bought for the library, by Darragh and Gabriel. Children over the years will love reading them.
As you can see, everyone in year 4 looked wonderful in their spots and stripes. There are the art entries from the class. Ralph was a proud school winner with his very jaunty Pudsey Bear! Thank you for all your generous donations to Children in Need this year.
This week, the children worked hard at making their torches, using their understanding of circuits from their science learning. Some of the work was fiddly and tricky and there was lots of excellent and co-operation and perseverance.
This week the children learnt about the 9, 11 and 12 times tables and different ways of working out the products to equations. The children are improving at representing the calculations in different ways.
At assembly today, the children shared what they had learnt about The Qu’ran with the rest of the school. They have also completed writing fantastic explanation texts about the lifecycle of a flowering plant. This used their knowledge about pollination, fertilization and the growth of plants from year 3 to write detailed explanation texts with features like causal conjunctions, subheadings and lots of correctly-spelt technical language.
Everyone is making good progress in swimming. It was decidedly nippy when we set off this morning! As the weather gets colder, you might want to send your child with a woolly hat for when we leave Westminster Lodge.
Well done to the children who remembered their library books today. We will go to the library every Thursday.
Our first visit to the beautiful new library was very exciting. There was so much to look and talk about, I haven’t got many good photos of enjoying the fantastic, also brand-new books there and I will post more in future weeks. Thursday will be our regular library day so please return any read book then, to borrow a new one, so it’s swimming bag and library book on the same day!
Thank you for the warm outdoor PE kit. All the children were well-wrapped up for Gaelic Football outdoors today and then looked super-smart for the remembrance assembly, during which they behaved perfectly. Beforehand, we discussed what “sombre” meant and the remembrance was an opportunity for all families, from all different countries, to reflect on fellow country people lost in war.
This beautiful wreath was created by a year 4 pupil and looked stunning on the lectern.
The children are doing very well with their times-tables. We will cover the 11s and 12s next week, though the children already know that they have already covered all those facts. They are all sound in knowing the facts, generally, which is a good point to be at at this point of the year. It’s now a question of remembering the trickier ones, using all and any “aide-memoires” at our disposal ! Eg 5 6 7 8 is a useful way to remember that 56 = 7 x 8. We talked about the various ways to remember the 9TT facts. The goal on TTRS is 4 seconds or less and that is within everyone’s grasp! I’m going to post some sheets called “Times TAble Mastry”. This is just to inform you about the depth of knowledge on times tables the children need to have. Instant recall is part of the knowledge, but understanding the relationships between the calculations and how to reason with them is also important. These will be in the autumn learning resources topic.
Practical representation of TT facts helps with the mastery aspects.
It was lovely to see everyone, looking relaxed and enthusiastic on Monday. We’ve made a great start this week and have completed the formal subtraction method with subtracting 4 digit numbers involving renaming. The children are enjoying exploring a wonderful book called Varmints –
There is a film version of the book online if you would like to share it at home.
Sadly, our class reader about a hapless young hero called Odd has come to an end.
There are many other wonderful books by Neil Gaiman, for children. And we are looking forward to startin g “The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club” (by Alex Bell).
On Friday, the children sampled a session of Gaelic Football which they really enjoyed. There will five more sessions, provided free by Hertfordshire Gaelic Athletic Association. Apologies for the slightly muddy PE tops and jumpers! Please could you return cleaned tops by Monday. Thank you. If your child has studded boots, please send them in for Gaelic Football over the next few weeks. If it’s not possible to play on the field without studded boots then the children will practise the skills on another surface.
On Thursday the children will show their respects at the Remembrance Service and I hope to see some of you then. The children have come home with a blank stained glass window for them to use felt-tips to decorate in a theme of Remembrance Day, for display at school, if they would like to. In the meantime, have a happy relaxing weekend.
