Spring 2022

5/01/2022

Happy new year from year 4! Wow! Year 4 have come back after their Christmas break refreshed and ready to learn. We jumped straight back into learning with both feet. First, we were in charge of solving a very important crime. The Mona Lisa has been stolen from the Louve in Paris. Our year 4 detectives had to solve the case looking at the evidence we had. They loved getting their detective heads on and picking apart an example of a mystery story to find the features. We then got 'cracking' with our Science topic of rocks. The children were looking at the different classifications of rocks and seeing if they could identify which type of rock we had in our school samples. For computing the children have been researching the creator of the internet and we can wait to find out more. After this, we swapped our detective hats for backwards facing caps and became rappers in music, learning a rap with a powerful message to stop people bullying!

17/01/2022

This week year 4 have had a jam-packed week. We are very very lucky to have someone coming in till easter from Carlisle Utd to teach us different PE and PHSE skills. This week we have been looking at what makes a good team and a bad team. We have been applying these skills, not only to our PE work but how we (year 4) work together around the school to help each other and others. We had lots of fun pretending to be a robot in PE learning about verbal and non-verbal communication. Some of us were extremely strict robots who only behaved if their partner gave incredibly specific instructions. In maths we have turned things up a level and have moved onto multiplying 3-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers. We are now super speedy with our short division and multiplication. We have been continuing with our mystery stories having a go at re-writing an example we have read. To help us plan what happened next, we acted it out on our tables, and we produced some super tense situations.    

24/01/22

This week we have been very busy in year 4. We have been learning all about the area of shapes in maths. 

Art- This week in art we have been looking at different mediums to create art- we were looking at how we can vary the amount of pressure applied to create different densities of colour. We have been using colouring pencils, pastels and water colour pencils. 

PE- We have had another exciting session with Nick from Carlisle United. He has been working with the children on teamwork and building resilience in and out of the classroom. These sessions are such fun for the children and seeing them work together is so lovely.

Science- This week in science we have been looking at how fossils are formed. We looked at the cast and form fossils and demonstrated this by making our own fossils. First we put plasticine into a paper cup forming a layer at the bottom. We then used dinosaurs to create a print in the plasticine. After this, we filled them with plaster of paris. This was lots of fun and we can now see (on a much much smaller scale) how fossils are formed. 

31/01/2022 

Read all about it! This week year 4 have been learning how to write a newspaper article. We have linked this with the book we are reading at the moment- The London eye mystery. In the story a young boy called Salim gets on the London eye but does not come off. We have put our journalist hats on and are writing newspaper reports to report on the disappearance of this poor young boy. In maths we have had a fraction frenzy. Year 4 love fractions as it can be applied to all the best things-Cake and pizza! On Friday, it was number day to raise money for the NSPCC. We took part in a teamwork activity using all different areas of maths to get the location of a puzzle piece. The first team to put together their puzzle correctly won. Everyone did a super job of this and the way the children worked together was brilliant. In PE we have been looking at types of rolls. The children did this well and were able to focus on which muscles helped them with certain balances/rolls. 

7/02/2022

This week we have been writing up our newpaper articles for the Rockcliffe report. The children have loved being journalists and have written some excellent articles, worthy of the times. In RE we have been looking at the last supper and what happened on Maundy Thurday. We reinacted this and even had our own bread and wine (grape juice). 

21/02/2022

Year 4 have definitely recharged their batteries since they've been off and have come back supercharged and ready to learn. This week we started our new writing unit on instructions. We looked and what good instructions need and what makes bad instructions bad. We followed some instructions on how to make a paper hat out of newspaper. The first time the instructions were very vague and we were not successful in completing the task. We realised that the instructions needed more detail so looked at a different set at everyone succeeded in making a paper hat. We launched our new topic all about the stone age and we realised that this was an awfully long time ago compared to where we are now. 

28/02/2022

To continue with our instruction writing unit we needed something to do to write about. Seeing as it was shrove Tuesday, it would be mad not to make pancakes, right?! We were flipping fantastic, as were our instructions. For RE this term we are looking at the theme of forgiveness around the Easter story. We looked at the days within holy week and why each of them are important to Christians. Carlisle Utd are back too teaching us all about our healthy life choices. I think everyone in the class agreed that we would be more efficient if we made certain life choices. 

07/03/2022

This week we have been finishing off our fractions. Safe to say we have a solid fraction foundation! The children have been really enjoying learning about the art of Stephen Fowler and having an experiment with different types of printing. This week we have been doing potato printing and we have made some awesome shapes. We have also wrapped up our instruction writing unit this week by writing a set of instructions of our choice. There were some excellent examples of these. Year 4 have used some excellent imperative verbs so be careful that they aren't bossing you around. 

14/03/2022

We have started learning about decimals this week in year 4. Although we are now fraction pros, decimals are still fairly new to us so we are enjoying learning all about this. In English we have started learning about biographies. We have enjoyed learning about the lives of lots of famous people and have started to create a life map of a person in our classes' lives.