Before I go into anything else, I have to say what a wonderful couple of days the class has had with managing its behaviour on Thursday and Friday. With only a couple of exceptions, everyone focussed, followed directions and worked well together. As a result, we managed to have a lot of fun in our lessons and got a lot done. Really looking forward to the same thing next week, and that it wasn't just a "one-off."


Of course, the biggest news is that projects are due on Monday, as that is the day we will start giving the presentations and assessing them. I have already had a couple of them turned in and have had a few children breathlessly tell me about their A2 posters or their colourful brochures. I am really looking forward to seeing what creativity they have put into it.


We have started a new English topic on narrative poetry and the class really got into the idea of memorising a poem. We studied the "Willow Pattern" by Tony Mitton and rewrote our own version of it on Thursday. I've had a few children even shine by showing me their ability to self-edit and redraft their pieces.


In science we studied pitch and echolocation, which was a great way to explore how sound travels through air and water. The children generated a lot of their own questions and did their own investigating. Next week we will perform a test that they have designed themselves.


We're nearing the end of our gym course in PE, and still have so many children to sign off on abilities so that we can hand out skill award badges. I hope we can get to them all, but we were delayed early on by behaviour problems and we now only have two lessons to go.


We've also been studying Easter in RE and how important it is the people of a Christian faith. It has spawned a lot of questions that I hope to be able to address in the next couple of weeks.


As with last week, here is next week's promised spelling list so that you don't have to go hunting around in backpacks and crumpled piles of paper:

various

weight

accidentally

bicycle

caught


describe


earth


favourite


group


heart


Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday everyone. With only three weeks to go until the end of term we're gearing up to do our assessments of the children's learning and finishing up several units. Speaking of which, it's only one more week of working before the Geography project is completed and turned in on the week of the 20th of March. We have just finished our English unit on persuasion, and yesterday's Extended Writing was all about writing ad copy to convince someone to travel to either New Delhi or Mumbai. So at this point everyone should have the tools they need to give a truly persuasive presentation.


We've been looking at the Christian holiday of Easter in RE and more specifically the concept of the Eucharist. In Geography we spent time on laptops looking at India using the powerful Google Maps software that comes free with the popular browser. We were able to walk some of the Mumbai and New Delhi streets and virtually tour some of the hot spots.


In science we are continuing our exploration of sound, what it is and how it works. We looked at waves, frequency and how sound needs a medium to vibrate in. Most recently we've been looking at decibels and how they measure sound volume.


In maths we've been working on identifying key words in word problems that tell us whether to add or subtract, and then doing two-step problems to find solutions. We also went over factor pairs again and used them to make mental calculations easier. Next week we will look at our geometric shapes again, including identifying shapes by name and finding symmetry in different 2-D objects.


As many of the children have been forgetting/hiding their homework books and spelling lists on Mondays, I will print next week's here for you all to see. Hopefully this will eliminate the hassle of finding a family whose student did bring them home.


This week we are on week two of looking at the list of most often misspelled words for Years 3 and 4. I have seen many of these spelled wrong in children's books, so don't let their apparent easiness fool you. They all contain letters that are either hidden in pronunciation or are pronounced differently from what children may think.


Here they are:

learn

material

natural

occasion

particular

possession

quarter

recent

sentence

therefore

I hope this makes your Monday evenings a little less stressful.

Have a good weekend and I will see the children bright and early Monday morning.

It was National Book Week and the school had some special things planned. We had the special book exchange on Tuesday and every child in the class was able to exchange for at least one book. The books were all donations from other students throughout the school, and the generosity was apparent as the selection was very good.


On Wednesday the class was introduced to Alexander Martin, author of the Stanley Smartpants series. Martin read to us from some of his books and gave a tutorial on how to create and describe characters. He then led a workshop where he had the children try to describe his titular character. He sweetened the pot by suggesting that anyone with a particularly good description might have it put into his next book.


The class then began telling a story with a character they had made up. We will be submitting these to Martin, who will pick a "winner" and give that child a free book. We changed our extended write for this week so that the children could write theirs in class. I will be looking through these over the weekend and am quite looking forward to the imaginations of Year 4.


Today, of course, was dress as your favourite character from a story day. It was wonderful to see so many ingenious costumes in the class.


Next week will be back to "normal," with a full week of maths, English, science, geography, art and RE.

With a new half term comes a new group of units. Having finished our science unit on solids, liquids and gases, we are now starting a new topic on sound. In it we will be dealing with what sounds are made of, what their properties are, and how vibration works.


As we do not have music with Ms. Kelly this half term, I have instead planned an art unit on Indian Art to go along with our Geography.


Speaking of which, we have just started two topics that should help the children complete their end-of-term homework projects: We are looking at some cities in India in depth in our Geography class, and we've started a unit on persuasive writing in English that will help the children put on their best sales pitch. Our first task was to come up with something that Ms Roberts (head teacher) might consider doing (such as a day without uniforms or, as was very popular with the class, an "electronics day" once a week). They have been practising their very best strategies, but they are still new at this, so we will try a second draft next week and see if Ms Roberts is any more convinced.


We will begin checking children off on the gymnastics they can do over the next five weeks so that those who have earned them can get their various coloured badges. We've only got this half term to get as many as we can, so we'll be encouraging the children to practise their moves.


We've started a unit on East in RE leading up to the actual holiday. And in Maths next week we'll be reviewing our place value again through rounding, multiplying and dividing mentally using our knowledge of the times tables, and remembering what happens when we divide by 1 and 0.


So, have a restful weekend and I will see the children for a week of fun work!

As of this afternoon we are officially halfway through the school year (but who's counting?). We've passed some big milestones and are now preparing for others. After a welcome week off we need to return ready to work!


We just finished our topic on states of matter, looking at different substances and their properties as solids, liquids and gases, ending with a look at the water cycle and how important it is to our planet. When we start back we'll be going to a new science topic: habitats and food chains. We'll be looking at the relationships between predator and prey and the complex connections all plants and animals have to one another.


In Geography we have looked at a variety of different earth sciences such as mountain and river formations and how landscapes form over thousands and millions of years. We have then been looking at the features of India and how they are used by the people who live there. One fun fact that amazed the children: the Ganges River has over 300 million people settled along it, and Great Britain has only about 75 million people altogether! In the next term we will continue to look at the physical and social landscape of India and prepare the children for their projects by showing them some of the cities of that ancient country.


In English, we just finished a unit on story settings, looking at mood and atmosphere and how to show that with good positive and negative descriptive words. Many of the children really had a try at writing some good similes, metaphors and personification. After the break we will do three weeks on persuasive writing, which again will help them with their homework project.


In RE we will focus on the holiday of Easter and what that means for Christians, as well the importance of sharing food in different communities.


We will also continue our gymnastics unit in PE. I would like to remind everyone that we do PE on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we require a complete PE kit. Quite a few children have been missing shirts or shorts and have had to wear their uniform.


In Maths we are beginning our cycle of teaching again, so we will revisit many of the concepts we did before, this time combining some together or delving more deeply into them.


It was lovely to see so many of you again in the parent conferences. My voice was starting to sound like Chewbacca near the end due to the cold I'm getting over, but it was great to update all of you.


Enjoy the week of respite, and I will see the class again in a week and a half.

In an amazing reversal of fortunes from last week, we are now three weeks into the term with two weeks left to go. Of particular note for next week is the Year 4 sharing assembly, which will be on Friday, for parents. Come in and see what we've been up to for the last 17 weeks. We may ask that some of the children bring some of their Egyptian projects back in to show off.


We started our English unit on story settings, and I've started them out describing a fantasy location they are mostly familiar with and using as many adjectives, adverbs and figurative language as they could to paint the picture with words. Next week we will begin to use settings to develop a mood or atmosphere.


In science we explored solids that act as liquids, and then did an observation of melting some chocolate, butter and wax in a microwave to see how fast each one melted. Unfortunately, when we melted the butter we also melted the plastic container that was holding it, so that ruined the experiment a bit. But we soldiered on anyway.


We took a good look at India in Geography this week, exploring where it is in the world and looking at its various climate zones. The children are becoming much more expert at reading a map and several of them figured out what population and elevation maps look like.


We're dealing with the excuses we give ourselves and others for not trying our hardest in PSHE. In PE, we're continuing to learn different gymnastics moves and combining them into sequences. They are also learning hockey with Mr Clark. We're continuing to learn about Sikhism in RE and comparing it to the more familiar traditions (for many of us) in Christianity.


We've got a lot of practising to do for the assembly next week, so hopefully we'll be all polished and ready by Friday. Hope to see many of you there.

Two weeks in and only three more until half term! Where does the time go?


First and most importantly, we welcomed a new student from abroad into class on Monday. It's a girl, which helps redress our large boy-heavy classroom. She is a native French speaker with little English knowledge, which has been a challenge for me, whose High School French was far too long ago and far too limited to carry on any meaningful conversation. But just as I am working on more French phrases, she is immersing herself in an English environment, which will be what makes her learn our rich but often difficult tongue. It's great practise for the other children, too, as they are learning French with Mme Allin.


This week we did lots of work with fractions in maths, learning how to add and subtract them, turn them into decimal fractions. We also learned how to count up and down in tenths and hundredths, and are starting to explore the 24 hour clock.


Next week we'll focus much more on column method addition and subtraction and look at one- and two-step problems. We'll then look at multiplying and dividing larger numbers, and then decimals.


In English we just finished up our unit on writing and performing plays. The children adapted the fairy tale of Goldilocks and wrote a play about the bears entering their ransacked home. We hope to perform one at the Year 4 sharing assembly in a couple of weeks.


We'll be starting a unit on story settings that will probably take us to half term. We'll be stretching our descriptive muscles to see how vivid we can be.


In science we are looking at solids, liquids and gases. This week we explored solids that can act like liquids and the gases that comprise the air. We also looked at the space left between particles and how that allows us to compress things, especially gases.


In geography we spent a lot of time looking at maps and how they work, how to read them and how to find the cardinal directions. Next week we'll be looking at our target country in detail: India. I expect we'll have a lot of fun with it.


In RE we began looking at Sikhism and their beliefs and symbols. After a long discussion about what a symbol is and what it can mean, the children designed their own symbols for things that were important to them: pets, family, X-Boxes and football teams, mostly. Some of them were quite clever and would make good corporate logos somewhere.


We are continuing on with gymnastics, and Mr Clark has introduced them to touch rugby now that it's not snowing.


Also, I believe the letters with this term's curricula have gone out, including the long-range homework assignment. The results from the Egyptian project were so amazing, I'm quite excited to see what they come up with this time.