Mrs Gibbons

End of half-term in year 4

Year 4 did a fantastic, happy song about the food we “gather” in the supermarket at harvest. They really enjoyed working together to sing “In my trolley”. Next time I’ll arrange for someone to take some photos to post for those adults who were unable to attend!

In class, the children have also enjoyed building more circuits and seeing what happens when you add a conductor, insulator or switch to them. I have posted “a knowledge organiser” for electricity on Google Classroom. I will post the same or similar for next half-term’s topics. These will be there for you to access if you choose. They contain key vocabulary and explain the concepts we learn at school. If you’d like to share these with your children you are very welcome to.

The children have been improving their percussion skills in music, using the glockenspiels, xylophones and chime bars to accompany “Mamma Mia”.

The year 4 fencers gave a fantastic demonstration at an assembly this Tuesday and will be representing the school at a competition! Well done, boys and we wish you lots of success.

I did a slideshow of more photos from our trip to the cathedral last week, but it didn’t upload. I’ll post some of these below.

I hope you all have a very happy half-term and look forward to seeing everyone a week on Monday.

Netball

This Monday, 17th October, St Adrians played their first netball fixture against Killigrew, in the St Albans area league. It was a glorious autumn afternoon and both teams played very well, with good sportsmanship shown by all the players. Killigrew were the winners in this game and St Adrians is looking forward to playing other local teams after half-term.

Thank you to Miss Cartwright for coaching the team and umpiring; and also to the parents for their good-spirited support. If you are in years 5 and 6 and would like to come along to netball training – whether or not you would like to play competitively – please ask your parent to complete the Arbor consent form and come along on Wednesdays after school ( collection at 4.15).

Land of the Monks

Year 4 explored this today. The Land of the monks is St Albans Cathedral and its surrounding area – nowadays a parkland, the stamping ground of squirrels, dogs and their owners, cathedral visitors and worshippers and people en route to somewhere in town or walking to enjoy the scenery. Several centuries ago it was the site of a bustling, crowded complex of buildings where the various Abbey activities took place. Apart from some walls, nothing remains of the life led by the monks above ground. Today, the year 4 children used topographical (map) evidence and compasses to find where some of these activities took place, and also to find out a bit about the lives of the monks and the Abbot. Everyone found out really interesting things about Medieval monastic life. We also used found the cathedral, the school and local towns on Ordnance Survey maps. Our local knowledge was also enhanced by our walk to the cathedral, when the children walked smartly, showing manners to any members of the public and enjoyed seeing the sights and sounds of St Albans on a typical Friday morning.

Can your children tell you how to use a compass? And can they explain what happened in a scriptorium, Chapter House, refectory or dormitory? What other parts of the abbey can they name?

A massive thank you to the Mums – Mrs Miller, Mrs Watson and Mrs Worsley – who accompanied us and helped with the learning inside and outside. It wouldn’t be possible to do these valuable enrichment activities without this voluntary support. Thank you for offers of help from other parents and I will let you know of other trips later in the year.

Times Table Day

In honour of Times Tables Day, year 4 decided what their favourite times table facts were, said why and represented it in as many different ways as they could. This representation of the same fact – as an array, as a picture, or a Maths story, or in a different operation – is an activity we regularly do as part of our daily Maths fluency session. It shows deep understanding of the fact and of “number sense”, as opposed to rote learning of facts which is useful but doesn’t help with the reasoning and problem-solving aspects of Maths, which are just as essential as straightforward computation.

Reasons for choosing TT facts included products which were footballers’ numbers ( 10 x 2 = 20), or containing birthday details, or having numbers in cool patterns (11 x 12 = 132). Maybe you know the rhyme for 8 x 8 = 64………. which one class member chose? 12 x 12 = 144 is very popular, for different reasons.

Reasons to be proud…

Every child in year 4 was a credit to themselves and their school at Wednesday’s Mercy Mass. Along with the rest of the school, their singing was beautiful and rousing and they participated fully and respectfully in the service.

After Mass there were some celebrations inside and out. The children planted violas round the commemorative tree which had been planted earlier in the day. They then chose activities in the classroom, with many children deciding to play “Interland”, the game where the children learn how to be safe online. We also started our learning about Black History Month, learning about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King from “Horrible Histories” and sharing what we already know about these famous icons.

The classroom is looking bright and interesting with the children’s learning on the wall, including the home learning about Joseph. The paintings were done – carefully – in acrylic paints, throughout the week. Thank you for the painting aprons, at short notice.

wc 23rd September in year 4

The children are finishing the chapter on place value, working with numbers in the thousands. The next topic is adding and subtracting to 10 000. The daily fluency sessions provide opportunities to re-activate Maths learning and also develop the essential skills of sharing understanding, using correct vocabulary, with learning partners.

The home learning about Joseph looks fantastic. As part of understanding Jesus’ ancestry, we have been learning about Ruth and her qualities of loyalty and love, as well as Isaac and his sons Jacob and Esau. Here are the children role-playing these characters. This also gave us an opportunity to join in with some of the “Joseph” musical.

In Art, we have been exploring the stylised work of Julian Opie and used acrylic paints to create people in the style of his work.

]The children are reading more complex books in guided reading and are rising to the challenge of reading books where not everything is explained from the outset and inference and deduction are essential to understand how the plot and characters are unfolding. More and more children are recording their own reading in their reading records and it’s fantastic to see this increased independence and responsibility.

We have practised the songs and hymns for next week’s Mercy mass and hope to see lots of you there on Wednesday the fifth. In the meantime, white rabbits for tomorrow and have a wonderful weekend.

All singing in Year 4

Year 4 is enjoying this half-term’s Music topic “Mamma Mia”. They also love the opportunities for moving and dancing with “imoves”, a popular track being “Eye of the Tiger”. All tracks that the older generations in their families may recognise! Other singing this week includes the songs for the “Mercy mass” on 15th October, with the class improving the words and tune to “Circle of Mercy” very well.

Older generations – including the terms descendants and ancestors – also feature in the current RE topic “Where do I belong?” and the first two pieces of home learning relating to this have a lot of thought put into them.

Place value learning in Maths proved another opportunity to discuss the meanings of similar words meaning going up and down – ascending and descending. The children have become much more accurate and confident in identifying values in 4-digit numbers and using the terminology correctly.

The children seem to be enjoying the books in the year 4 class library. Over the weekend, please think about one of the books you have read recently. As a class, we’re going to create a display with the children’s versions of book covers and reasons why they have enjoyed the books. Please think about what is unique about the book, what you have learnt from it and what the most important part is because this will be what you show on the front cover. We will do the work in class but some prior thinking would be really useful.

I wish you all a very relaxing weekend.

W/c 12th September in Year 4

It was lovely to see so many of you at “meet the teacher” on Thursday. The slides I used on Google Classroom as a material, along with the year 4 parents’ information booket. If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me, as usual.

This week the children really enjoyed exploring circuits and how to make a working one. Their partner working and sharing of resources were both excellent.

We’ve started reading “The Iron Man” and the children are rightly intrigued by this fantastical character. They all wrote amazing similes and expanded noun phrases to describe The Iron Man. Today Alex was Hogarth and he went down “conscience alley”, when the other children suggested courses of action for the farmers to take against this new intruder. Next week the children will write the options, using modal verbs. Will they recommend blowing the Iron Man up, or shrinking him, or re-educating him, to name just a few examples?

We collaborated to write a prayer of thanks for Queen Elizabeth. The children, as a body, chose to say what an excellent role-model she was for King Charles; and how they will remember her for her kindness to everyone. The class also considered what it means to be a Mercy school and were creative and careful in their artistic expressions of Truth, Mercy or Justice or a quote by Catherine Mc Cauley. Neve and Gabriel read the prayer beautifully in front of the whole school this afternoon.

The class library bookshelves are much emptier now as children have borrowed books from there. These books are chosen by the children “for pleasure” . They do not need to be able to read them all themselves – maybe someone could read it with them, or to them. Please keep reading the school “scheme” books as these will ensure your child encounters vocabulary needed for his/her age range and to ensure that he/she makes progress.

Learning about Maths is much more interesting when it’s done with a partner, or as a “game” and can be when using equipment. Learning about place value, this week we used place value counters, place value cards and – my favourite – using dice to generate 4-digit numbers.

Spelling and Maths home learning tasks are posted, together with the new home learning grid. I’m looking forward to seeing the tasks you submit.

Let’s hope this beautiful autumn weather continues. I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing everyone next Tuesday.

Welcome back and to year 4

Everyone made a great start to the new school year. It was fantastic to see everyone, eager and lined-up on time. Everyone seems to have had a good break and rest over the summer holidays and are raring to go again.

During the first week learning got off to a good start. The children have used place-value counters to explore numbers in the thousands, recap times-tables already learnt, use modal verbs in questions, used the bounce pass in basketball and learn why Ancient Greece had a “golden age”, amongst other learning. There are some fantastic books in the year 4 reading corner and we’re all enjoying our new class reader “Odd and The Frost Giants” by Neil Gaiman. “The 39-Storey Treehouse” is in the CD-player and it’s lovely to see the children enjoying listening to it so much. Swimming got underway again. It was just a check to see which groups the children should be in this week and next week the lessons will start in earnest. Well done everyone for coming to school with the right kit on the right days!

It’s really great to see the children again and hear their news. Their independence and self-help skills have improved and we’re looking for children to become more proactive round the classroom.

We’re looking forward to see you all at “Meet the teacher” on Wednesday 14th, just after 9.

A hot, happy end to year 3

It was a very short week this week! And a slow one, to accommodate the heat. The children were super-sensible, drinking lots and taking it easy. We hat “hot play” instead of “wet play”. The children enjoyed playing, amongst other things, chess and shut the box; using the listening post; drawing and chatting to friends and it was a relaxing end to the year. On Tuesday the children also enjoyed finishing off the left-over crisps and biscuits from the First Holy Communion party.

We all joined in wishing year 6 the very best of luck at their new schools. In three years time the current year 3 will be moving on, which seems hard to imagine just now. There’s a lot more learning and fun to be had at primary school before that.

I’d like to say a huge thank you for the very generous presents and the lovely, thoughtful cards from children and parents. I have had a fantastic term with year 3 and am delighted to move up into year 4 with them and to see them develop and learn more. I wish you all a very happy holiday wherever you go and whatever you do; and look forward to seeing you all in September