Category: Year 4 – St Alban

Year 4 had glorious weather for their trip to Kew. The question was, on a day like Thursday, was the weather more tropical in Kew or the rainforest habitat in The Palm House? I was pleased to see the children remembered the geographical knowledge from the last two years, telling Katie – the Kew education leader – about the equator, why countries there were hotter, naming the Amazon Forest and the countries it covers. The children used specialist equipment to measure humidity, soil temperature, soil moisture and air temperature. We then explored The Palm House to find out how animals and plants co-exist in rainforest eco-systems. Can your child tell you some of the examples? The children also enjoyed sketching in the Temperate House – which was cooler than it was outside – and had lovely picnics sitting in the shade on the botannical garden’s beautiful lawns.

The lily pond house was stunning and the children enjoyed seeing, and some sketched, the enormous lilies. Wel also visited the hive which is an amazing structure – a type of pavilion – which “hums” the hotter it is.

A huge thank you to the very kind parents who gave up a day to help out on the trip. These events would not go nearly as well without your support. And apologies for the mix-up about collecting at the end of the day. I didn’t realise adults would wait at the front of the school and then thought we could dismiss children from the car park, but the children went through to the classroom first. Thank you for coming round to the playground where we could see everyone safely to their adults.

After the father’s day assembly, the children will be painting based on what they saw and experienced on Thursday.

We finished the very interesting book “Letters from the Lighthouse” this week and several mysteries were cleared up. Next week will we start reading “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”.
It was very exciting to see the works of art on display in the hall. If you purchased one, I’m sure it has pride of place in your home.
The season for athletics has arrived and the children had a great time running holding their arms in different positions – by their sides, for example – to understand the benefit of the pumping arm action when trying to run as fast as you can.
We are nearly at the end of our learning about the Anglo-Saxons and we are evaluating what remains of Anglo-Saxon culture and society today.
Our Maths topic is now money, which has become nearly redundant for lots of people! So any opportunity to use and count would really help your child’s Maths development.
I’m attaching the photos which I didn’t do before the half-term holiday.
I hope you have an enjoyable – and sunny! – weekend.
With best wishes
Katharine Gibbons

Welcome back and to the summer term! Year 4 were outside in the sun yesterday, starting the rounders which is one of this half-term’s PE topics. It’s been a short week, during which we started our new History topic “The Anglo-Saxons and Scots”, our new book “Weslandia” and are getting into the plot of “Letters From The Lighthouse”.

The new home learning grid is now on Google Classroom. One of the possible activities is to draw aspects of Anglo-Saxon life. It would be fantastic to have these ready for our History display as it always looks so much better with original artwork.

The TTRS leaderboard is looking amazing – year 4 pupils up at the top, where they should be! Keep up the practice.

Let’s hope the sun stays out this weekend and I hope you all have a great few days.

We’ve had a great week in year 4. Our Lent learning culminated in this week’s reflection and celebration today and the children’s understanding of the Lent season has deepened. Their contributions to the Liturgical Art competition were varied and stunning.

We very much enjoyed reading “Matchbox Diary” and will start “Weslandia” when we return. “The Lighthouse Letters” is already intriguing and we’re looking forward to continuing that after the holiday.

The “Rock Steady” children gave fantastic performances on Tuesday and the choir gave a rousing, beautiful performance today. A few more members of year 4 joined the choir recently and it would be wonderful to see more children doing the same. Joining in a song with a large group of people is a brilliant feeling.

Thank you for your support of your children this term, whether it be by buying cakes or helping with home learning or all the other positive, supportive things you do for your children and families. I wish you all a relaxing, enjoyable holiday whether at home or abroad and look forward to seeing you all again in late April.

A wave of excitement rolled over year 4 this morning when we saw our classmates’ names topping the leader board in TTRS! And more names are appearing further down the leader board. Great job, year 4 – let’s give years 5 and 6 a run for their money. Keep playing Garage to improve your recall. Then, when your accuracy is there, play Studio and your status will improve.

This was after a lovely mass at St Barts, with years 3 and 4. Behaviour was impeccable and the children were a credit to all their adults.

Thank you to the original works of art which are coming in for the home learning/art competition. Each one is unique and, as a class, we are enjoying celebrating each creation.

The children also used their creativity to illustrate one station of the cross in watercolours, as part of our understanding of Good Friday.

As it’s the end of term, we’re finishing off the learning in topics. We have finished the chapter about fractions and next week will be learning about time, in particular the number of minutes in an hour, weeks in a year, etc. We will have lots of absorbing problems to get stuck into. We’ve all found learning about physical features of the earth such as volcanoes and rivers very interesting. We will start “Letters from the Lighthouse” next week, as our reading book.

Have a lovely weekend and let’s hope the rain stays away.

We all hope you enjoyed year 4’s tribute to their wonderful grannies, aunties, mums, great-grandmas and other significant women in their lives. The words were created collectively and the children loved filling the room with happy voices in recognition of all that is done for them.

We are moving on with our learning in Lent. We have been thinking about the role of self-sacrifice in our lives, particularly during Lent but also in general. I haven’t sent a specific piece of Lent homework in the spring home learning grid, but please remember the Easter art competition. I’ve included some suggested scripture on Google Classroom.

The children’s understanding of fractions is developing very well, in little stages. I’ve been reminding them about the importance of pictures – diagrams – to show and develop understanding in Maths. Drawing the fractions as pizza/pie or as a bar model are very effective ways to problem-solve and also prove your answer.

We marked Science Week with an investigation involving carbon dioxide, leading on from the learning on states of matter. We found out that the hotter the water the more carbon dioxide is produced in a mixture of yeast and sugar. It was very exciting, as you can see. In one batch, the balloon split and so the gaseous liquid spread everywhere. Can your child explain this, thinking about how molecules in different states behave?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. With the longer days (if not the temperatures) it’s starting to feel a bit springlike.

Year 4 finished learning about “The Lion and The Unicorn” by writing their own versions of the story and used creative noun phrases to describe the scary night scene when their main character tried to run away. “Jack felt crushed, he made a decision. Stealthily, he packed his bags and snuck out the back door. Through the garden he weaved through the branches from the dead tree. After that, he scampered through the arch …”

Understanding about fractions is going well and the children are using complex terminology such as “improper fraction”.

The children supported Mrs Porter in her sponsored walk, not letting a bit of rain put them off.

Have a great weekend everyone.

There was a wide range of characters in year 4 today – and they were all very keen to take a journey to the centre of the earth and write all about it in books they made themselves. The books are a work in progress as everyone put lots of time and care into their writing and illustrating a cross-section of the earth. As is always the case with geographical and scientific learning, the children are super-keen to acquire knowledge and use word like “magma”, “core” and think about what it must be like at the centre of the earth, where it is as hot as the sun. We were linking knowledge from previous years – basalt, granite, for instance – to understand this year’s learning better.

This half-term has got off to a flying start.

The children are concluding learning about states of matter and had good ideas as to why the ice with the salt on it melted faster than without salt.

With Mrs Gallaher, the children composed music for the “flying car” scene in “Harry Potter”.

The children thought carefully about what they could do in Lent to be closer to God , whether their promise was to do with giving, praying or giving something up. Their behaviour in the Ash Wednesday service was impeccable and they enjoyed learning about the symbolism involved. We are doing activities from The Mission Together Lenten Calendar – https://missiontogether.org.uk/calendar/lent/ which has some lovely things to do. I sent one home earlier this week. It wasn’t compulsory home learning – I just thought it was a really nice, engaging activity you might enjoy. We’ve reflected on the significance of 40 during Lent and why Jesus went into the desert.

The children are really enjoying our new book – “The Lion and The Unicorn”, which is providing inspiration for writing. In Reading sessions we are reading “The Firework-Maker’s Daughter”, which I’m mentioning at consultations. These books are online in various ways. It’s always useful to read the books at home to share what your children are learning, discuss vocabulary and themes in the book. Like the other books we read, they are beautiful and full of lovely language and ideas. They could give you an idea of what to wear for World Book Day next Friday!

It’s been lovely to speak to all the parents about your wonderful children, their achievements and progress.

I hope you all have great weekends.