Mrs Gibbons

Shining a light on the week

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.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Visiting and spelling “library”

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.

Have a lovely, relaxing weekend.

First week back in year 4

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.

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.