Week 8: 25th October

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One World Week

A fabulous week of learning in Year 4 as we studied Madagascar as part of our topic work.

Please look below to gain an insight into some of the things that Year 4 got up to this week:

Locating Madagascar and developing our understanding of using 4-figure grid references was one of the activities that the children learnt about.

Making a chameleon and learning about the wildlife of Madagascar gave the children insight into how it is home to some of the most unique and unusual species of wildlife in the whole world. Madagascar hosts lemurs, fossas, aye-ayes, and a number of other species found nowhere else in the world.  Most of the species found in Madagascar are endemic, meaning they cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Our Madagascan Wildlife Display.
The children also learnt to play a 700 year old Malagasy Game: Fanorona (Malagasy pronunciation: [fə̥ˈnurnə̥]).  It is a strategy board game for two players and is indigenous to Madagascar.  The children loved playing it and felt that it was challenging, exciting but that they needed to be tactical in playing it.  I have sent home the outline of the game for you to play at home as well!
Even Ms Hilton was challenged !

We continued our Topic Work on finding out about the Vanilla Trade and Madagascar’s economy.

In RE we finished our work on psalms and our act of worship today was focused on the remaining days of the Extraordinary Month of Mission.  Each of the children received a special Missio bookmark and prayed that they will continue to spread God’s love among those they meet – keeping God’s mission alive.  Thank you to Darcie for taking photos of our prayer time.

Finally, it was lovely to see so many of you today at the Harvest Assembly and afterwards in class for your child to celebrate their learning with you.

Thank you for your generous contributions.

Have a wonderful half-term.

Mrs McNamara    Ms Varga

 

 

Week 7: 18th October, 2019

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This week we have continued to enjoy writing towards our non-chronological report on Joan Procter.  The children have been adding subordinating conjunctions and relative clauses to improve their writing further.

In RE we have been looking at the importance of being a missionary as this is the extraordinary month of mission.  They have been discussing about prayer and how they pray.  The children have also examined the rosary as another way to show the importance of prayer and have created some lovely pictures about the various mysteries.

Missio Prayer 2019

In Maths the children have continued with practising their timetables and moved from rounding to a strategy called ‘think 10’ to assist them in solving addition and subtraction calculations.

There’ll be more of this in the week to come.

In History, the children have learnt about Roman Roads and were fascinated in plotting the major roads that were built by the Romans using an atlas.

Home Learning is based on our focus for One World Week: Madagascar.  Please encourage your child to research things about this country and create either an information poster, fact file or leaflet of their choice. There is no Mathletics set for this week or Spag.com.

As was mentioned to you during Parent Consultations a link to pay for the timetables booklet has been organised.

The cost of the book is £1.00.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McNamara

Week 6: 11th October

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This week in Year 4 we have continued with our focus on Joan Procter the Dragon Doctor.  The children have examined and researched about her life as they will be writing their own Non-Chronological Report about Joan next week.  In grammar, they have been working on understanding the use of factual adjectives and fronted adverbials which they will use in their writing also.

In Maths, we are continuing with the work on rounding to the nearest 10/100/1000.

In Science, the children have continued with their work on investigating sound using balloons, tuning forks, metre sticks and tennis balls!

In History, the children did a role play activity on Emperor Claudius to find out why he decided to leave sunny Italy and invade cold, wet Britain!  They were to act as advisers to Claudius and convince him to invade. Mrs Heymoz was  in the hot seat as Emperor Claudius and was delighted by their reasons for invasion.

This afternoon, the children took turns to use our new climbing frame and it went down a treat!  Thank you to FOPPS and all parents who have helped in raising money through the various events during the year.  It will be an added bonus to our play times.

Home Learning is:

Mathletics (Rounding) and SPAG (Fronted Adverbials).

The children will be having their spelling test on Monday on the following words:

buy, by, reign, rain, flour, flower, great, grate, cereal, serial.

Have a lovely weekend.

 

Mrs McNamara  Ms Varga

 

Week 5 October 4th, 2019

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With many things happening this week, the children have been kept busy busy!

One of the highlights for the class this week has been their class assembly and the reptile and skipping workshops. In English we are studying a non-fiction text: ‘Joan Procter, The Dragon Doctor’ – the woman who loved reptiles by Patricia Valdez and in Maths we have begun our work on rounding.  In RE we have continued to look at the importance of stewardship, discussing what Pope Francis has asked us to do – to care for our common home. This linked well with our assembly on St Francis.

Each of the children spoke in the assembly and I was very proud to hear them speak in front of an audience.  They retold the story of St Francis well.  Well done!  They were very excited to have their family and friends at the assembly also…thank you for your continued support.

On Wednesday Richard came from the Reptile Workshop and the children thoroughly enjoyed this experience.  At first some of them were slightly apprehensive but over the session, they engaged and thoroughly enjoyed themselves!  Hope that you enjoy the photos.

Homework has been set:  Mathletics , Spag.com (direct speech) and spellings.

Spellings for this week are:

cereal, serial, by, buy, flower, flour, great, grate, reign, rain

Focus is homophones.

 

                         

 

 

23rd July, 2019

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Thank you children for being such a wonderful class this year.  We will miss you!

We would like to thank your parents for all the lovely gifts that we have been given.

Have a lovely summer and see you in September!

God bless

Mrs McNamara,  Ms Varga, Mrs Vieyra and Mrs Moccia.

 

Here are some of the pictures taken on Sports Day

 

 

19th July, 2019

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This week we watched in awe at the wonderful music concerts: Monday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon!

Well done to: Heston(cello), Emily and Dejon (piano) and Megan, Mathias, Patrycja, Bella, Ava (singing) who performed in front of their parents, Mrs Heymoz and the children from Year 3 and 4.  Their confidence has grown so much over the year and we look forward to seeing them perform in the new academic year.

Here are the photos from the Violin concert with Mrs Rodgers:

On Thursday we ventured out to St Albans amid the rain and had a lovely day finding out more about the Romans.  Thank you to Thomas’ mum and Mrs Moccia who volunteered to assist us on the day.

12th July, 2019

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This week – what a lot of things took place!

On Monday the children had their second transition session with Mrs Lines in the Year 5 classroom. Tuesday saw a fantastic effort from all at our Sports Day….well done to Alexis, Patrycja, Emilia, Natalie and Aisling who assisted in leading the Sports Day dance!  Thank you to Meaghan’s dad and Ava’s dad who assisted us at the football station and to Zackary’s sister who took photos of the children during the standing jump and shot put stations.  Thanks also goes to Angelo and Bella who took photographs too!

Do not forget to reply re the class trip to St Alban’s which is taking place next Thursday, 19th July.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

 

 

5th July, 2019

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This week, we spent time preparing for Sports Day and learning our Sports Day dance. In English, the children continued planning and writing their Roman Helmet narratives. In Maths we have been working on conversion in time (minutes and seconds etc..) and this afternoon we were visited by the Science Ambassadors from Dame Alice Owen’s school who led us in practical science investigations.  The children thoroughly engaged with the activities.

See you at the Summer Fayre!

 

Date for your diary:  Thursday 18th July. 

Year 4 will be visiting the Verulamium Museum in St Albans. 

Meet 8am at the school.    

 

 

Detectives in action :)

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Year 4 has enjoyed yet another busy and exciting week.

On Monday, the children  carried on with their tennis learning lead by Mr Mills, working on their serves and game. On Tuesday, the children took part in a Forensic Science workshop, organised by FOPPS. They learnt about collecting and evaluating evidence to solve a crime. From dusting for finger prints, to looking and comparing footprint evidence, the children tried their hands at all aspects of forensic science- well done for solving the crime! Mrs McNamara- you couldn’t hide from us 🙂

The children also took part in their usual violin lesson on Wednesday and started their Roman vases on Thursday  Really lovely models have been made by the class.

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga/Mrs McNamara

 

The Romans

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Year 4 have had a few busy days all centred around the Ancient Romans and their invasion of Britain.

During this week, they have constructed Roman helmets to help them with their creative writing which will continue in to next week. They have also designed and painted Celtic clay pendants.

In class they have read and learnt about Plebeian and Patrician housing and started researching for their Roman vase designs, a D&T project we shall start next week. (Thank you for sending in some plastic bottles and balloons).

They have also continued with their violin and tennis lessons with great success.

We hope to see you all for our Blessed Sacrament procession on Friday afternoon.

Homework this weekend is Mathletics and SPAG.com.

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga/Mrs McNamara