The children have had a hands on start to Year 4!
We have started the year by learning all about Italy with a particular focus on Rome. To start the topic, the children created a tomato pasta dish to give them a taste of Italy. Over the next few weeks, Year 4 gathered information about the famous landmarks of Rome. Then, they used their research to plan and create travel brochures for a trip to Rome on the Comic Life app. To round off our topic, we took a trip to Pizza Express to learn how to create the perfect pizza. We brought our pizza back to school and had a picnic lunch in our classroom.
Our class text in Term 1 was Leon and the Place Between. We started off by having a circus themed lesson where we thought about the sights, sounds and smells of a fairground. We then read through the book slowly so to we could take part in reading theatre sessions, art based sessions and acting in role. Using all these sessions, we then wrote a story from the perspective of the rabbit character from the book.
This was on top of African drumming, learning new netball skills, making musical instruments, calculating with column addition and subtraction and studying the artwork of Giacometti.
We had a brilliant first term together, and we’re excited for the next!
Year 4 have had a busy second term as we started off with two trips in a week!
The first was our annual trip to Mojo Active, where we had a Roman themed morning of team building and sports. We made our own Roman shields and practised our military manoeuvres; counted up to 50 in Roman Numerals; built working aqueducts as well as becoming archers and using bows and arrows.
Our second trip was to Caerleon in Wales. We visited the remaining ruins of the Roman Amphitheatre and Barracks, before going back in time to take part in a Roman lesson. The boys were taught how to count and add while the girls got to relax as the Romans didn’t think that girls needed to learn.
At the start of term, our classroom was ransacked by Roman soliders! We had to investigate who they were and what they had done in our classroom. We used our findings to write a newspaper report to warn others of what the Romans had been up to.
We started our chocolate topic with a delicious chocolate tasting session and we all had the chance to try white, milk and dark chocolate. Most of us liked white and milk but found dark chocolate bitter. This was the beginning of our study into the origins of chocolate and we have discovered how the Aztecs and Maya enjoy chocolate.
In Maths, Year 4 have learnt how to divide. First, we used counters to divide using the ‘Real Story’ and then transitions into using the ‘Maths Story’ by dividing using the bus stop method. By using the real story, we were able to really embed our understanding of division before using the bus stop method to divide with numbers including remainders.
We spent a morning at St Bede’s at a Science lecture led by Bristol University. This was linked to our Science topic of ‘States of Matter’ as the lectured focused on gases in the air. We especially enjoyed watching the hydrogen balloons explode!
This term, year 5 have been continuing their topic of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by becoming engineers and designing and building their own model bridge. This involved precision and understanding of the structure of a bridge, whilst also evaluating which materials would be the strongest and the easiest to secure.
We finished our Brunel topic with a fantastic and engaging trip to the SS Great Britain and Brunel museum. The children began with a tour of the ship with an outgoing tour guide who really brought the ship to life! They were then able to live like a Victorian in a workshop where they tried on costumes and played with Victorian toys.
In English, we delved into the gripping play of Macbeth, where the children re-enacted the famous scene where Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost. They used their descriptive language and development of characters to create their own version of the fatal story.
In Computing, the children created their own songs using Garageband, where they learnt about sound loops and how to build instruments on to a bass line.