Author: Mrs Freeman

A few more photos taken on our recent visit to Herd Farm.

What an amazing few days we’ve had!

Year 4 were an absolute pleasure to take on residential. From the children, we saw great teamwork, resilience, (safe) risk-taking, maturity, kindness, good manners, stamina, determination, patience and I could list many more qualities.

All the staff had great fun alongside the children and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience!  Great weather too!

Below are the first selection of photos. There are more to follow.

Ask your child to explain what is happening in the pictures.

This week, we’ve been exploring and discussing our own feelings and emotions and those of others. We discussed that we need to be able to recognise, name and manage our own feelings.

Emotions are a natural, important and healthy part of being human. The children named lots of varying emotions and the effect they can have on our bodies.  We thought about some strategies to help us to learn how to  manage the effects of strong feelings such as anger, sadness or loss.

I was really impressed that some children wanted to ask their peers for advice on how to deal with certain emotions.

• “I’d like some advice on how to stay calm.”
• “Have you tried going to a quiet place or counting to help calm you down?”
• “I’d like some advice on how to stop getting upset so easily.”
• “Maybe think whether or not it’s worth getting upset about. Talk to a friend or take deep breaths if you feel yourself getting upset.”

DON’T BOTTLE IT UP!

Following this lesson, we thought about colours and how they can represent mood and emotion. Using a colour chart, the children thought of an emotion and then had to find synonyms for it. It  was amazing how many new words we found.  “I’ve learnt the word livid today.”

After that, we thought about making some shades of the same colour to represent our chosen emotion. Using a bottle as a base, the children began to shade lightly and then, as they got higher up the bottle, the colour of the chosen emotion intensified.

At the end of our lesson we discussed the phrase ‘Don’t bottle things up.’

This was our definition – To contain or hold feelings in, especially emotions, and not express or reveal them: If you keep bottling up what you’re thinking, we’ll never be able to help you. I was angry, but I bottled my feelings up.

Last week, we took full advantage of the lovely weather and took our maths lesson outside.

End of year 4 expectations for geometry and shape are that children can:

• compare and classify geometric shapes, including quadrilaterals and triangles, based on their properties and sizes
• identify acute and obtuse angles and compare and order angles up to two right angles by size
• identify lines of symmetry in 2-D shapes presented in different orientations
• complete a simple symmetric figure with respect to a specific line of symmetry

We focused on comparing and classifying 2D shapes. After discussing all the properties of various shapes, the children set to work on grouping them. It was great to see the class remember various ways of sorting from our previous topic

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We hope that you all have enjoyed the holidays. The spring term was a very busy one indeed. Below are a few quotes from the children’s most recent feedback forms.

• “I loved learning about past famous explorers.”
• “PE is great fun and we are really good at working in teams.”
• “I really like how much reading we do. We have lots of different reading types in our classroom.”
• “I feel that my fractions work has really improved. I wasn’t sure at first but now I get it.”
• “I find writing hard. The teachers help me and encourage me to check and edit my work.”
• “I love DT. We had made rafts, monsters, dens, been archeologists,  and lots of cooking.”

Our summer term, once more, is packed full of learning.

Mini-topic: Electricity    

Electricity is the theme for our learning for the next few weeks. We’ll identify common appliances that run on electricity, construct a simple electrical circuit, identify and name its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers.

Big-topic:

This term, we won’t be learning through a big-topic. Instead, we’ll have several mini-topics. In Science, we’ll learn about the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans. Also, identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.

In History, we’re going to study The Egyptians – a fascinating period of time to explore and discover!  

Reading:

We’re starting the term with a class set of our new novel ‘Ottoline and the Yellow Cat.’  

With a child each having a book, we can all follow the story much more easily and share the reading. We’ll explore the language, themes, context and our own opinions of this much loved story.

PE:

Kits are needed in school every Monday and Friday. Some children are not bringing the correct kit to school. Please ensure you are aware of the uniform policy. If you are unsure have a look on the website or check with one of us.

Herd Farm

We’re all very excited about our upcoming visit to Herd Farm. Please call in if you have any further questions regarding this.

As always, remember to call in if there’s anything we can support with – we are happy to help where we can.

A quick reminder that Year 3 and 4 will showcasing their production of ‘Darwin Rocks‘ at 2pm tomorrow and 6pm on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the children will need to return to school for 5.30pm. Please can you let us know if this causes a problem.

Both classes have worked very hard over the last few weeks and are very excited to perform to family and friends.

Please try to arrive on time as latecomers can be quite off-putting for the children.

We hope you enjoy the show.

 

 

Last week, our homework was a Talk Time: What is beauty?

Yesterday, we spent some time discussing this as a class. To start with, the children established that there is no right or wrong answer. We agreed that we would listen to and respect each other’s opinions, even if we disagreed.

The children passed a beanbag to each other and, on receiving it, they then stated what they thought about beauty.

I was so impressed how mature all the class were during our review. Lots of children had spoken to someone at home in great detail. Below are some of the responses:

• Zidaan – “Beauty is what is on the inside.”
• Alexander – “A painting can be seen to be beautiful by some people but not to others.”
• Eliza – “Beauty is an opinion.”
• Poppy – “Everyone is unique. You don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.
• Maggie – “There are different types of beauty. Some can be good and some can make people sad.”
• Eve – “Trying to be beautiful, could be dangerous.”
• Daniel – “Beauty is internal.”
• William – “Beauty is skindeep.”
• Gurnoor – “Beauty is fashion.“
• Milo – “Beauty is something that attracts others.”
• Eleni – “Beauty goes beyond the eyes.”
• Finlay – “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
• Henry – “Not everyone sees beauty in the same way.”