Spring 2023

Welcome back!

Welcome back to what is sure to be another fabulous term of learning. 
We hope that you have all had a wonderful break over the Christmas period.

This half term, we will be continuing to develop our chronological knowledge and understanding of 
British, local and world history. Our focus for Spring 1 will be looking at where the Anglo Saxons 
and Border Reivers came from.  This will start with a WOW! and our class trip to Tullie House.  We will take part in a range of virtual assemblies to support our learning too!  It is guaranteed to be an incredibly interesting topic.  

In English, we will be reading Beowulf.  The story of Beowulf can be split into three key sections, all of which feature a 
battle that shapes Beowulf’s life.  We will create our own mythical heroes using the 'power of three' to work on description skills.  

In Science, we will be focussing on light and shadows.  We will carry out lots of investigations before using our knowledge to make a puppet theatre and perform a puppet show!  Torches at the ready! 

Our Christian Value focus is FRIENDSHIP.  

Tullie House
Year 4 have begun their topic of Anglo Saxons and Border Reivers with a bang!  A trip to Tullie House saw the children being immersed in Border Reiver life.  They enjoyed learning about the dark and mysterious side of the Reivers, where they lived, famous names and what they got up to in day to day life.  Safe to say, they all can't wait to continue their learning this half term! 

Computing
Children had some 'Bug Fun' as they chose a creature to move.  They used loops to repeat actions automatically.  They identified how this helped them to be more efficient.  

Science
Children were introduced to our new Science Topic- Light and Shadows.  They began with an 'odd one out' activity before experimenting with items under a box.  They pierced one hole in the top of the box.  Why couldn't they see anything?  Children identified that their head was blocking the light source as they tried to peek inside the box.  They continued to pierce holes in the box until they could recognise the items. Of course, we need light to see! 

Christian Value- Friendship

During class reflection time, we have been taking a look at our value for this half term - 'Friendship'. We thought about the qualities which make a good friend and the qualities many saw in Jesus. We thought about the importance of having friends, how they enrich our lives and how we can nurture friendships. 

Design Technology
Year four explored and built a range of structures in their first DT lesson.  How could they reinforce them?  We discussed additional support and cladding.  Our next steps will involve planning and designing their own pavilion structure.  
Some of the children could not resist eating a few marshmallows as they worked! 

Can you identify any 3D shapes?  How many vertices do our structures have? Which is the strongest structure? 

Science 
Can we see in the dark?  
Yeat four investigated this by trying to find different coloured tissue paper in their dark cave!  They came to the conclusion that they needed a source of light to be able to see anything! 

They also identified how light is made up of different colours. 
 

Week commencing 13th February 2023

Maths

To round off the end of the half term and the end of our Length and Perimeter unit, we played Dicey Perimeter.  After deciding on a target score, we used the first letter of our first names to work out who would go first. Player 1 threw two dice and found their product.  They then had to draw as many rectilinear shapes as possible which had a perimeter equal to the product of the dice.  They scored 1 point for each correct shape!  Player 2 checked they were correct before taking their go.  The winner of the game was the first to reach the agreed target score.  It was such fun and a great way to consolidate our knowledge.

English 

We have been writing Kennings in our Writing lessons.  Firstly, when we'd identified the features, we practised writing about ourselves.  This opened up some very funny facts!  Following on, we invented a monster and developed a Kenning to describe the monster! To complete the poetry unit, we learned what a Quatrain was, identified the features and wrote our own.  We studied 'If I could Be a Superhero' by Steve Lazarowitz to help us write our own about Superheroes.

 

SPRING 2 2023

This half term, we will be escaping to Europe in our Geography topic! 
Our Art will focus on the artist Rene Magritte while we will focus on Sound in Science.  In English, we will begin by working on our entries for the Rotary Competition- some writing for Peace.  In week 1, we will be inspired by the International Prayer for Peace, using this to write our own extended poems.  Keep an eye on this page to see updates... 

We kicked off Spring 2 with a fantastic session with Carlisle United.  We discussed positive mental wellbeing- how can we stay healthy in body and mind?  Children came up with some brilliant suggestions. 
Year 4 then had a PE lesson on the MUGA to demonstrate the skills that they had learnt.  Thank you!

In Art, we were introduced to a new artist- Rene Magritte.  Children were initially perplexed by his unusual style but soon found out lots of information about the surrealist.  

In English, we are continuing to be inspired by the International Prayer for Peace.  Children are writing their own Peace Poems. 

In Science, we began our topic of Sound for this half term.  The first lesson was a silent lesson - yes a silent lesson!  We thought sbout whether anywhere in school would be silent, quiet noise and loud noise.  We then conducted a 'sound walk' visiting different spots and noting what sounds we could hear.

Week 2 
Year 4 children had their second session with Carlisle United.  They looked at how to have a positive mindset before considering the strengths of their team.  There was some fabulous communication and working together.  Well done Year 4! 

 

English 
Wow!  We have some beautiful, very personal Poems for Peace.  We are so proud of our wonderful children who were inspired by the International Prayer of Peace. 

We are now using key messages from our poems to write a short story. 
We started by identifying the features of short stories in groups.  

In Geography, Year 4 made a class jigsaw of Europe.  They had great fun cutting out, working out which county was which and then fitting it altogether.n  The teamwork was fabulous- well done all! 

Science

We are continuing our topic on Sound and explored how vibration causes sund waves that we can and can't see.  We did some investigations to see how this created sound.  All of us worked with a buddy to make string telephones to see how the vibrations make sound travel from one end of the other, but found the string must be taut for the vibrations to travel along.

Week 3

Geography

In our Europe topic, we have been looking into major rivers and mountain ranges.  We have been doing research on the internet to find some of them, which countries they run through and are in, what the highest peaks are, where they start.

Science

We have discussed pitch and volume this week and the difference between the two.  Looking at sound waves has helped us understand ths difference between them and we have drawn diagrams to help each other understand.

Art 
Children continued their journey with artist Rene Magritte.  They used a range of media to recreate the surreal apple.  Some children opted to use pencil while others used oil pastels.  It was wonderful to see children experimenting with media, style and colours.  

RE- Children wrote some wonderful poems about the events of Palm Sunday. 

We hope all mums had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Week 4

CUFC 
Children in Year 4 looked at the benefits of a healthy diet.  They sourced where different meals may originate from and which foods you would find in different countries.  They then played some fantastic team games outside. 

RE
Children are continuing on their RE Quest, reflecting on events of Holy Week.  

English

We have been planning our short stories this week alongside our reading of Esio Trot.  We are beginning to plan a new chapter for the book which will focus on Alfie and a day in the life of him.  After we had made our plans, we orally told the story to our group; we drew the setting on a whiteboard and used objects as our characters to act out the first half of the chapter.  It was a process to allow us to share good vocabulary and sentence structure to help one another.

Geography

This week, we have researched the country we each contributed to the class jigsaw for Europe.  We have been collecting important information about the country, including population, human characteristics, physical characteristics and currency.  Next week, we plan to use this information in writing a non-chronological report about our country.

Science

This week, we have learned about the speed of sound.  We discussed thunder and lightning storms to help our understanding.  We also thought about ears; how our ears receive the sounds and allow us to interpet them and how animals ears work too.

Week 5

Art 
Here are our finished masterpieces, inspired by Rene Magritte!

PE 
It was our final session with Mike (CUFC) this week and we focussed on self esteem.  Each child was given a post-it note from someone in our class.  On it, they had written something positive about them- children identified how this positivity from another could boost their self esteem and there were lots of smiles in the classroom.  This was such a powerful activity.