Category: Year 4 – St Alban

The baubles the children have decorated and brought in look stunning on the Advent promises display. The Kris Kringles are accumulating at the Christmas tree and it’s very tempting to have a squeeze and try to guess what is in each one. It’s also a time for showing little acts of kindness which can cheer up the chilly, damp days.

In RHE the children have been learning about how they are all unique and that God is always there for them. Everyone is born to love, to be loved and to make a difference. Here the children are singing to song for this topic.

We have also been practising carols for the grandparents’ tea next week. We’re looking forward to seeing grandparents and any other relatives on that day.

The children all looked amazing and festive in their Christmas jumpers – every one was different!

Thank you very much to Luisa, Serena’s Mum, who came into class in her capacity as a dentist to share knowledge of teeth cleaning and hygiene. The children crunched a blue “plaque reveal” tablet to show where old and new plaque was on their teeth; and then cleaned it off. Luisa shared lots of important information about how to avoid sugar and how to keep teeth strong throughout a lifetime. What she told us married with what we found out in our investigation this week – Coca-cola erodes the layers of teeth and so does orange juice, because of the sugar and acids in them.

Well done to everyone in year 4 for the huge collection of cakes last Friday. The children enjoyed their doughnut or muffin on Monday morning. I have ordered a set of model teeth and a cloth version of the digestive system to help with our current science learning.

After learning lines for the class assembly, it’s time to learn more for the carol concert – songs and some narrator parts. The children have been reciting both sets very well and we look forward to performing to you next Thursday, 5th December.

Thank you for writing beautiful prayers and presenting them beautifully in the class prayer book. This will go home to one family on Friday, to be brought back in the following Wednesday please. There are suggestions for writing prayers and examples of prayers for children in the little bag.

Names for Christingle will go home next week. Please use the £3 limit for the gift you buy, so everyone receives something similar.

The children all wrote very clear, well-thought out explanation texts about how an electric sharpener works. I never knew there was so much to it! The class has also been learning about teeth in science – a particularly fascinating topic when you are 8 or 9 and losing and gaining teeth!

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing the children again next week, with the start of Advent!

It’s been a very varied week!

The children have learnt about Hindu books and stories and this week they experienced aspects of Hinduism and Indian culture. The children loved dressing in saris, prayer shawls and turbans – some of us helpers had our folding skills pushed to the limit! The children picked up the “stick dancing” patterns brilliantly.

The highlight of the week was the year 4 assembly and I will be proud all year for the children’s achievements. I was impressed when, by the day after handing people’s words, the majority of the lines were already learnt. The children’s commitment was total and their teamwork outstanding.

The children and Mrs Newman have all worked together brilliantly well with the ukelele playing. She pointed out that they have only had eight lessons to learn the instrument from scratch. On Thursday they performed the pieces very well with no music to hand (because of space constraints due to the stage being up already)

Thank you for coming and supporting your children in this and also the cake sale. I shall ask the children what they would like to improve their classroom, once we know how much we have to spend.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend in spite of the miserable weather which is forecast.

It’s been quite a different week this week. On Tuesday we all looked very individualistic in our odd socks, to remind everyone that we are all different and it’s important to respect the wonderful variety in people.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we took the opportunity to boost our accuracy in TTRS by participating in the “England Rocks” sessions. Soon it’ll be time to learn the 6, 7 and 9 times tables in class so being secure in the 2, 3 and 4 TTs is really important.

We have been practising our class assembly which we are looking forward to next Thursday the twenty-first. While the rest of the class continued with swimming on Thursday afternoon, the choir went to sing at Trinity Church. I’m sure it sounded as beautiful as the choir sessions on Tuesday afternoons do.

Year 4 go to Cambridge

…and visited The Fitzwilliam Museum to learn about the Ancient Greeks. The children were extremely well-behaved and responsible amongst artefacts which are thousands of years old. We examined coffins, statues, pots and other archaeological remains to determine the lifestyle and habits of the Ancient Greeks. We also marvelled at the splendour of the building itself and the children played chicken hero on the lawn outside the building. In the afternoon they each made a clay pot using slip and decorating it any way they chose, inspired by what they had seen and learnt at the museum.

The children coped with the long return journey very well and were all credits to their families and school.

The children are all looking forward to the class assembly which will be on Thursday 21st November at 9.00.

In the rush at the end of day, after returning from the museum, I forgot to give out the prayer bag for the second week. I will do so on Monday. Thank you for the prayer from the first week/

Have a wonderful weekend.

Katharine Gibbons

The past few weeks have sped by and year 4 has made good use of every minute.

The children finished painting their clay pots in an Ancient Greek style.

In the “Called” topic in RE, the children reflected on the power of the Holy Spirit. They thought of a great collection of adjectives to describe living without the Holy Spirit (slow, sluggish, mean, isolated etc) and acted these out; and they also thought of how to describe life with the Holy Spirit (joyous, helpful, energetic etc) and acted these out.

We have been reading “Jabberwocky” and (most of) the children have loved exploring the “portmanteau” words and reading about the exploits of the characters in the poem. On returning from the week’s break they will continue with writing their own nonsense poems.

Column subtraction is a challenging concept! Everyone has made great progress with it, finishing off a good half-term’s learning about 4-digit numbers.

The children’s understanding of programming, in particular the need for absolute accuracy, is developing well. They have very much enjoyed learning how to use a repeat function and how to use “procedures” to program efficiently.

The class assembly will take place on Thursday 21st November (not Friday 22nd as published in the bulletin).

I hope you all have a relaxing half-term break and look forward to seeing you all on 4th November

The children used acrylic paints to create self-portraits using the photos you sent in. I love the way each one is unique, and looks like the painter, even though many of the features are identical.

The children continue to love investigating electrical circuits and very much enjoyed exploring insulators and conductors. There were some “eureka” moments which was great to see.

In learning about how Samuel and David were called to serve God, we did a “hot-seating” activity, with “David” being questioned about how he felt when he was anointed and realise he had been chosen by God.

They have also continued to deepen their understanding about Greek society and made these informative and attractive posters containing what they have learnt. They will see some real artefacts and find out more on our trip on 15th November to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which I am very excited about. (I would’ve liked to have gone sooner but the afternoon clay session wasn’t available before then and I wanted to make the trip a full day to justify the cost of the coach.)

Sadly we didn’t have ukelele this week as Mrs Newman needed to run her child’s ukelele assembly! But the good news is that there will be two sessions next week.

It has been lovely to touch base with you all about your children’s progress. I hope that you are as proud of them as I are. They’ve already come a long way in year four and I know that they will continue to shine and excel.

This week Black History Month was marked by learning about Benjamin Zepahanian’s work and life with Mrs Gallaher; and we are now reading exploring “The Undefeated” by Kwani Alexander.

We all really enjoyed the excellent year 6 assembly. As well as hearing the important messages about the Mercy charism and about the life of Catherine McAuley, it was wonderful to see some older siblings speaking so well and setting high standards for the younger children at school.

The children’s thoughts on St Alban are now on the wall and in a book.

I hope you all have a lovely relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing you all at consultations next week.

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.

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.

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!