Category: Our Classes

This week in history, we have been comparing facts about our current monarch King Charles 3rd and James the 1st who was king 500 years ago.

Today marks the beginning of Advent, the Church’s season of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. We read in Matthew’s Gospel, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Our RE display is bordered with lanterns – a reminder that we should be watchful – each of which contains our Advent promise as we reflect on our lives and resolve to live closer to God.

We have also worked together this week to make a door display for our classroom to remind us of the Advent season. The Advent wreath is full of symbolism: the circular shape stands for God’s infinite love for us; the materials of the wreath lead us to reflect on the everlasting nature of God; the four candles shape our preparation and remind us of Christ’s Nativity.

As we enter December and this Advent season, we look forward to the celebration of Christ’s Nativity and sharing this message with you at the key stage carol service on Monday, 11th December.

Beth says, “On our class trip, we went to Hampton Court Palace, we learnt about the Tudors and many of the events that took place there.

We went into the Great Hall, where all the important people ate twice a day.There were many long tables including one where the king and queen would eat with their most important courtiers. On the ceiling, there were heads called eavesdroppers to remind the  servants that they were always being watched. On the walls, there was a huge tapestry showing a bible story. When Henry VIII beheaded  Anne Boleyn, he wanted every trace of her removed from the palace, but one of her signatures still remains in the carving on one of the walls.

We also visited the Chapel Royal. Henry VIII was a very Catholic person and went to church every day. We saw the place where Henry VIII would sit for Mass. This was separate from where his Queen would sit. Another thing we saw in the chapel was Henry VIII’s  crown, although  it was a  replica because the real one was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell. It is made of pearls, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.

In the kitchen there were many bags of food and a fireplace where the meat would be cooked and places where they made the meals. Nearly 1,200 meals every day because they had to feed 600 people twice a day. 

I learnt many things about the Tudors on our school trip to Hampton Court Palace. “

We have had great fun learning about equal groups and how they can be used to make arrays. We used these arrangements to count in 2s, 5s and 10s and even learned some multiplication table raps. We are getting really good at using counters and real objects to help us to solve our multiplication problems.

(Please see last week’s post to find out what we did to start our Structures topic). The next step in our Design and Technology project was to create a chair for a bear that followed our designs. We used what we had learned about structures to write clear success criteria and we had to make sure that the chair was stable and strong, so that the bear did not fall off. We worked well as a team and once our chairs were completed, we found out how many bears our chairs would hold. Some chairs held as many as 34 bears without collapsing. This shows once again what strong structures cylinders are!

Year 4 has completed many topics in learning this week. They completed their story about the varmints, learnt all about Area (in Maths) and have continued learning about Sound in Science amongst other learning. They looked fantastic in their spots and have made some amazing-looking cakes.

Mr Hayes has released powerpoints for the Christmas songs for the KS2 play. The link is below. Please spend some time at home learning the words so the songs sound amazing at the performance. Have a great weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nDi_UuwLfmAC_ZB_-fWD8Y1uEfJjgcXx

We celebrated Children in Need by wearing spots and stripes. Here are some photos of our celebration.

On Multiplication Day, we played games to help us learn our times tables. Our favorite game was Around the Clock Multiplication. Each child filled in a section of the clock with the times tables.