Year 4 has had yet another busy week, focused around our last big narrative before the half term. The children watched video clips of famous baddies, like Cruella de Vil and practiced how to show their character through actions and speech. They all ‘designed’ their evil villain and also spent time planning and drawing pictures of the valuable jewellery that our Super Spies will have to retrieve.  They are thoroughly enjoying this story and had some brilliant ideas for their writing that they will start on Monday.

In Maths, we were inspired by Ellsworth Kelly, an American modernist painter, and created beautiful fraction pictures that are now on display around the school. By completing this work, the children also extended their learning towards decimal fractions and percentages! Well done!

On Wednesday, Year 4 and Year 5 took part in a Well being Zoom session titled Laughology where they though about the power of joy and positivity.

The children have also carried on their learning on cool and warm colours and created beautiful pictures using a variety of media to show the effect of these colours on the viewers. These will also be displayed around the school. In Science, they used circuits to investigate conductors and insulators, whilst during PE they learnt how to hit a volley and played rallies in house teams. In computing, they built on their Scratch project and moved onto the next module of their RCE topic with Mrs McNamara.

Have a lovely (lockdown -eased) weekend 😊!

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara

Please see below your Home Learning:

	Due by Tuesday, 25th May 2021
Spelling	Please log onto Spelling frame and practice this week’s commonly used words then test yourself. https://spellingframe.co.uk/spelling-rule/48/30-Word-list-years-3-and-4—i-to-ma-
Reading	Please log onto Read Theory and complete 2 activities. Please also update your Reading Logs. This week 5 children received book awards for their regular comments. Well done! https://readtheory.org/
Maths	Please log onto Study Ladder and complete the assigned tasks. They are a consolidation of the learning we did in class: calculating fractions of numbers and quantities. If you need a reminder, please start with the tutorial then complete the 2 set of questions. You might need a piece of paper or a white board to jot down your calculations. https://www.studyladder.co.uk/
English	As said before, the children are going to write their narrative pieces next week. Please prepare the following resources for yourself to help you in class: Come up with an engaging title for the story: For example, The Tiara Mission or Treasure of the Fair Ground, etc. 2. Use a thesaurus to come up with similes for: run, walk, say. For example: dash, stumble, whisper. Please find at least 3 different words for each. You will need those on Monday for our first 3 paragraphs. 3. Create an illustration to go with your story and to help you visualise your ideas. It can be a story strip or a cartoon. Fold an A4 piece of paper in half on the long end at then fold it in half twice more. By doing that, you will end up with 8 squares to sequence your story. Peter and Polly receive their mission in front of the Japanese Embassy. The Twins arrive to the Fair Ground Polly and Peter look for the villain and spot him/her somewhere. The siblings try to get to the villain using a gadget. Peter and Polly retrieve the treasure. They get back to the entrance of the Fair Ground somehow. They deliver the Jewellery to London HQ.

Although, it has been only a short week, children were very busy in Year 4. On Tuesday, we made model houses to support our descriptive writing based on the book, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Thank you so much to all of you Parents, who sent in beautiful flowers to help us with this project. In the afternoon, Mr Mills braved the rain out and led a fantastic tennis session, where we started focusing on different stroke types, such as backhand and forehand.

On Wednesday, we looked at Science in the news and used iPads to research Perseverance and Curiosity, the 2 most recent Mars missions. Children were fascinated by the facts they found on Nasa’s website about the rovers and we had great discussions about the possibility of future life on the Red Planet.

On Friday, children participated in a beautiful May Procession and completed learning about Mary. They also carried on with programming and followed on form last week’s Ten Ten module.

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara

Please see your Home Learning below:

	Due by Tuesday, 11th May 2021
Spelling	Please log onto Spelling Frame and spend some time practicing this week’s spelling words then test yourself on them. https://spellingframe.co.uk/spelling-rule/46/28-Word-list-years-3-and-4—ei–to-fe-
Reading	Please log onto Read Theory and complete 2 activities. Please also make sure that you update your reading log and that you have it with you in school in order to record our Guided Reading sessions and for us to have a look at your logs. https://readtheory.org/
Multiplication	Please log onto Hit the button and spend some time practicing your mixed number facts with a special emphasis on your division pairs to support your fraction learning. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/
Maths	Please log onto Study Ladder and complete the assigned fraction questions. They are from a mixed range of years to ensure consolidation. https://www.studyladder.co.uk/
English	Please listen to our  class story for the last time. Pay special attention to the scene where the pig sees the house of flowers for the first time. On a piece of paper please create a word bank that you could use for your description. Think about the 5 senses: What could the pig see, smell, hear and feel. (taste might not be useful in this part). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPW9VUm299I

 

 

                       

The children this week had an amazing opportunity to learn about farm animals and about ways to care for them. The Ark Farm’s visit on Tuesday allowed them to have a closer look at animals such as a donkey, a pig, some lambs, chickens, ducks as well as rabbits, guinea pigs and even a hedgehog. The children loved stroking the animals on display and recorded lots of newly learnt facts about them later on in class.

In English, we have completed our first big write of the term. A newspaper article based on our class book, The three little wolves and the big bad pig. In Maths, we started our new unit of fractions, using Cuisenaire rods for the first time.

We have completed our daily mile and in Design and Technology, finished our circuits and switches for our bedside lamps. Today in our Computing session we learnt through using Scratch how to use the forever and repeat programming blocks.  The children enjoyed programming three dinosaur sprites to dance!!  They finished off their afternoon, enjoying their fruit kebabs!

            

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara

 

Please see your Home Learning below:

	Due Tuesday, 27th April 2021
Spelling	Please spend some time practising this week’s spelling words then complete your test. https://spellingframe.co.uk/spelling-rule/44/26-Word-list-years-3-and-4—br–to-ce-
Reading	Please log onto your Read Theory account and complete 2 activities. https://readtheory.org/
Timestables	Please log onto Hit the Button and spend some time practicing your mixed division facts. In our fraction learning, it is essential that children have a solid knowledge of their division facts to calculate equal groups of the whole. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
RE	As a preparation for our RE learning based on the symbols we use in Mass to refer to the Resurrection of Jesus, we would like the children to research the Paschal Candle (one of the object in Church, we are going to look at next week). We would like the children to present their learning on an A4 piece of paper (handwritten or typed) with pictures-if possible- as we are going to stick these into their RE books. Some useful links: https://www.zieglers.com/blog/the-paschal-candle-everything-you-need-to-know/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PnqIEwb3c8

 

Our last week (before the holidays) in Year 4 has been another busy one.

The children have spent time this week learning about Jesus’ Passion according to Mark’s Gospel and finding out more about Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  Yesterday, the class watched online the very reflective Stations of the Cross service lead by Year 5 and 6 from Our Lady and St Vincent’s Church.  This has been recorded and will be available from OLSV website.

In D&T the children continued with their project, applying a second layer of paper-mache followed by  additional details such as wings, beaks, paws, etc to personalise their bedside lamp structures. Some excellent designs coming along!

           

During the week, the children participated in several Lenten Charity events organised by the Year 6 house captains.  On Wednesday, they completed a  Lenten word hunt on the field whilst on Thursday, they took part in an obstacle course. They also took part in a Fairtrade chocolate and banana morning on Wednesday.

In PE the children have worked on General fitness and Team-building over these last few weeks and they have really enjoyed completing their daily Golden Mile.

Today, the class used twigs, stones, berries and other ‘treasures’ found on the school grounds to decorate their Lenten Pots which will bloom later just in time for Easter.

We wish all of you and your families a safe, healthy and blessed Easter!

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara

P.S.: During the holidays, please keep  reading and update your reading logs on the stories you have completed.

It’s been a wonderful week in which we have welcomed the children back into school.

They have been working extremely hard….catching up with all their peers and embracing their learning.

The health and wellbeing of the children is our priority over the coming weeks.  We have a series of planned activities woven into our curriculum to ensure that we are managing as positively and as sensitively as possible the transition back into school which may well be a challenging aspect for our children to face. Our aim is to make the transition as smooth as possible for each and every child.

As part of this transition back, each day we have walked or run many laps of the school field – completing our school mile!   We have noticed that the children have become a little faster at getting around the field…keep this up children!

On Thursday we celebrated World Book Day – the children were dressed in an array of costumes – Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara came as characters from ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’!

 

 

 

 

Home Learning this week.

Focus is on:  St Joseph.

The feast of St Joseph is on Friday 19th March. Earlier this term, we learnt about some of the
characteristics of this special saint. He trusted in God, he listened to God, he looked after Mary and
Joseph and he brought Jesus up in his faith.
There are many different images and paintings of St Joseph created by many different artists.

We would like your child to create their own A4 painting /drawing of St Joseph, using any medium they like and bring their work into school by Friday 19th March and give it to Ms Varga.

Some of them will be displayed in Our Lady and St Vincent’s Church.

Click here for the school newsletter.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day.

 

Ms Varga and Mrs McNamara