Week beginning 21st April

Welcome back! I hope you had a lovely Easter holidays!

English- this week we have continued our unit on personal narratives, based on the book Jabari Jumps. The children have through in detail about the different features of a personal narrative, especially power or three and dialogue (and how to punctuate it correctly!). 

Maths- this week we have moved onto mass. The children have been learning about the relationship between grams and kilograms and how to read these on a scale.

PE- we have started a new unit of Athletics! This we we practised running at a steady pace over a longer distance. The children timed themselves running at a set distance and then doubled their distance and time and attempted to keep that same steady pace. They also did a HIT workout, participating in stations of: burpees, star jumps, plank...

Drumming workshop- we were so lucky to have a visitor into school on Friday to lead an African drumming workshop with us! It was fantastic. The children were all so excited to be able to have a go at playing their own drum and creating their own rhythms as well as learning some from him!

Well done on a great first week back Kingfishers!

Week beginning 31st March

Colchester Castle Visit

As an end to our unit on the Romans, Kingfishers headed to Colchester Castle. We had a fantastic day! We began by looking around the museum and completing an activity pack to help us look at a timeline of information about the Romans all the way up to Boudica. We then had a go at building a roundhouse and Roman home. After lunch we then went down into the Roman vaults and learnt all about how Colchester Castle became the building it is today and what part Boudica played in the story! The children were an absolute credit, we were so proud of them and thoroughly enjoyed watching their enthusiasm for such a super topic end on such a high!

Have a fantastic couple of weeks off for Easter!

Mrs Graves and Ms Reeves

Week beginning 24th March

Science Week! This week the children have been engrossed in a week of forensic science. We began our week with a workshop to engage the children in what forensic science looks like in the real world and to give them the opportunity to learn some different ways of collecting and interpreting forensic evidence. On Tuesday, the children then arrived at school to find a crime scene in our library- the books had been stolen and there was evidence to be found. Throughout the week, the children identified adults around the school who they thought were guilty, questioned them, collected finger prints, watched CCTV footage and looked at footprints before coming up with one final culprit. The guilty party was then revealed to us at the end of the week.

What a fantastic event! Thank you to Mrs Trigg-Hayes for arranging such a wonderful, inspiring week!

Week beginning 17th March

This week we have had our class assembly. The children all did really well to learn their lines and spoke really clearly to their audience. It was lovely to see them sharing all they have learnt so far this term. Well done Kingfishers!

Assessment week- this week the children have worked really hard in a range of tests in reading, maths and SPaG. Well done everyone, we are really proud of the progress you are making!

Science- this week we have been looking at animals which do not have a spine and we learnt that a lot of these are insects. We learnt about exoskeletons and then went on a mini beast hunt in our outdoor area.

PSHE- today we learnt about how to stay safe online, specifically when sending and receiving emails. We learnt how to send an email and how to open and respond to one we have received from someone else.

Well done on a great week Kingfishers!

Week beginning 10th March

English- wow! What a week! The children have been writing persuasive speeches about an issue of their choosing that they would like changed around school. Some have written about school uniform, school meals, the lack of recycling on the playground... the list is endless! The children have been using alliteration, emotive language, second person and rhetorical questions to persuade their chosen audience and they have all done so well. I am so, so proud of the writing they have produced!

Maths- this week we have started thinking about fractions. We have learnt about the denominator and numerator and what these mean within a fraction. We have looked at shading parts of a whole, writing fractions to go with images and understanding a fraction which means a whole.

Music- we have been playing recorder and perfecting a song for our class assembly, focussing on the notes B, A, and G.

PSHE- this week we have been thinking about charity. We spoke about what it means to be charitable and then researched a charity that was of interest to us personally.

RE- we have been learning about the Easter story. We have learnt, in detail, about what happened in Holy Week and why it was important to Christians.

Next week is our class assembly, please support your child at home with learning their lines.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week  beginning 24th February

English:

This week we have begun a new unit on persuasive writing based on Stella and the Seagull. We found out about Stella's aim, to persuade people to stop dropping litter on the beach and then we have begun to think about an issue we would like to persuade someone in our school to change. We've had some fantastic ideas and are already making people pause to think! This week we have designed persuasive posters using: alliteration, factual information, rhetorical questions and the second person! It's been a fantastic week of English!

Maths:

This week we have been learning about length: mm, cm, m and km. We have been converting between different units of length and finished the week on adding and subtracting lengths.

French:

We have begun a unit on French used in the classroom and this week we began learning words and phrases used as commands in a classroom- I was really impressed at how quickly Kingfishers picked it up!

PE:

Netball is our new topic and this week we focusses on passing- mainly the chest pass. The children learnt how important it was to communicate with each other before passing the ball.

RE:

This term we are working on the Easter story. We began the unit by thinking about Maundy Thursday and the last Supper and its significance to Christians.

Well done on a great week Kingfishers!

Week beginning 3rd February

English- this week we have begun to plan our own 'wonderland' setting for our own main character to visit like Alice did when she went to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. We have thought about what it would be like for each of our senses to be there and then created a magical character for our main character to meet while there.

Maths- this week we have moved onto division. We have learnt how to divide up to a three digit number by a one digit number using either a place value grid or the part whole model. We shall be continuing this next week to think about dividing with exchanging and remainders.

RE- in RE this week we continued our thinking on sacrifice but this week for people who did not believe in a god. We learnt about the humanist approach to life and how they would respond to sacrifice.

PSHE- this we we have thought about rules that we have in school and why these are in place. We thought about whether we agreed with the consequences of breaking certain rules and then discussed whether we felt rewarding people for following the rule would be more powerful than punishing people for breaking the rule or visa versa. There was some fantastic discussion!

Year 4 Superstars- this week all the Year 4s went to Melbourne Stadium and took part in a range of different activities against other school. We did activities like: basket ball dribbling, throwing, scooting, sprinting, jumping... The children all had a fantastic afternoon and represented our school really well!

Have a lovely weekend!

Week beginning 27th January

English: this week we have begun a new unit on Alice in Wonderland. The children have used prepositions to describe the White Rabbit's journey into Wonderland and done some setting descriptions of the weird and wonderful places Alice finds herself in.

Maths: multiplying a 3 digit by a 1 digit number. This has been tough this week but wow have the children persevered! We've gone completely off timetable this week and spent a whole week focussing on learning the written method so that we all feel secure! 

PE: this week we have moved onto learning cartwheels and handstands in PE. Some children were already confident in these and could share with other's their method. Some of us were a little unsure so began with bunny hops over benches. We all worked at a level we were confident with but all children did really well!

Science: we have been working on different types of diet including: omnivores, vegetarians, vegans and pescatarians! There children all showed a brilliant understanding!

Music- the children have done really well at learning the notes B, A and G on the recorder. They then used these notes to perform a song with different rhythms to follow and reading the notes off sheet music! I'm really impressed!

A super week- well done Kingfishers!

Spring Term

Week 1:

Welcome back! It has been so lovely to see all of Kingfishers back this week, refreshed and ready to learn!

English- we have been studyring the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus- the children's homework is a cartoon strip to ensure the story is now embedded as we will be continuing work on this next week.

Maths- what a fantastic week of AREA! The children have grasped the concept and can work out the area of rectangles and some rectilinear shapes.

PSHE- we have been thinking about our environment and the impact of recycling and reusing. The children have through about what they reuse around the house to help the environment.

PE- we have begun gymnastics. As it was our first session together getting out all the equipment, including the wall bars and ropes, we spent a lot of time learning how to do it safely and expectations of behaviour. We then had time to have a go on all the different stations we had set up.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week 5

English:

This week we have continued our work on non-chronological reports. The children have planned what they want their reports specifically to be about and they have then researched those areas. They have now begun to write them in first draft, beginning by working on their introductions, trying to include the 5ws (who, what, where, when and why) and being challenged to use a rhetorical question.

Maths:

This week has been all about times tables! We have covered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 looking forward repeating patterns and relationships across different times tables e.g. the 8s is double the 4s which is double the 2s!

French:

This week we revised our learning of shapes and colours and also worked on how to ask what colour something was and be able to answer in a full sentence. The children then had to colour a tangram according to a set of instructions written in French before cutting out and enjoying the fun of trying to put it back together again!

We had a session with Windmill Theatre group and the children did some dancing and acting based on The Nativity. We had a fantastic session and the children all got involved with great enthusiasm!

Christmas:

We have been working hard on learning our songs, with lots of actions and sign language! Some of the children have now been given a couple of lines to learn, if they wanted to, and a few of the children have even volunteered to play the guitar along with one of the songs. Their guitar teacher has begun working with them on this!

Week 4:

English- this week we have begun a new unit on non-chronological reports. The children have been looking at the different features and layouts of the reports before starting to write their own next week.

Maths- we have moved on to multiplication and division. We have recapped what arrays are and looked at the difference between sharing and grouping in division.

PE- we have been continuing our Stone Age inspired dance routines. We started with a new group this week to share and build on ideas. The children were working on their synchronisation with each other.

Science- we have been looking at rocks and what characteristics help us to compare rocks, such as: layers, rough, smooth, crystals.

Week 3:

English- in English this week the children wrote their stories involving a Stone Age character. They did really well to follow their plans but adapt and improve them where they felt was appropriate. The children edited and improved their writing as they went along, through both self assessment, peer assessment and responding to the teacher marking. Well done Kingfishers!

Maths- this week has been our final week on addition and subtraction before we move on so we have done a little bit of revision of our written methods to check we are secure and then have thought about the most efficient methods of addition and subtraction to use in different situations.

RE- this week we have researched Sikhism and what it means to be Sikh. We have found out their god, their holy book, where they worship and some of their main beliefs.

PSHE- in PSHE we have been continuing to think about how to stay healthy and this week we focussed on having a healthy mind. We did some meditation and yoga to teach us breathing techniques to help this.

Week 2:

English:

This week the children built on the character they created in their drama work last week and planned a story where they would meet a Stone age character and take them on a journey involving a problem and resolution. The children then have begun their stories, writing the build up and met their Stone age character using dialogue.

Maths:

In maths we have been making connections between our knowledge of number bonds to ten, to finding number bonds to 100 and 1000. We have also used the inverse to check operations- understanding that if both calculations are correct, they will share all three numbers.

Science:

We have been studying how fossils are formed and the process of fossilisation. The children were able to order the events and then draw sketches to explain each stage.

PE:

This week the children used some of the shapes they learnt last week to begin creating short choreography of their own based on Stone age life.

Week 1

This week we have begun our new unit of The Stone Age. This will be reflected in a lot of our learning this half term but especially so in our writing and reading.

Guided Reading:

This term we are going to be reading Stig of the Dump during Guided Reading and answering a range of questions based on retrieval, inference, vocabulary, explanation and prediction. We will look at a different chapter each week.

English:

We have done some drama this week to introduce us to the idea of meeting a character from the Stone Age when on holiday somewhere in the UK. We thought about the setting of where we might meet them and how we might communicate together.

Maths:

We have been continuing our work on our written methods for addition and subtraction. We've mainly been focussing on subtraction this week, having to exchange in multiple columns.

PSHE:

Our unit this half term is thinking about having a healthy lifestyle. We started the unit thinking about the different food groups and how much of each we should be eating. Our homework this week is a reflection of this in a healthy food diary.

PE:

We are doing Stone Age inspired dancing this half term. We began our unit with a carousel style lesson where the children were expected to attempt some different movements inspired by the Stone age. This got our hearts pumping and our imaginations going!

Week 5:

English: we have begun writing instructions. We started by finding important features of instructions, like: imperative verbs, sequencing words, adverbs and numbered points. We then had a go at following instructions and made some slime- we loved this! We have ten continued the week by planning a set of instructions to brew a potion of our choosing, for examples a laughter potion. Next week, we shall begin writing these.

Maths: this week we have been learning to add one, ten and a hundred over a barrier. We have found this quite trick so have spent a while counting forward and backwards in tens over a hundreds barrier and have played games and completed different activities to try and amply this. The children have come home with homework to practise this further.

Science: we underwent an investigation to find out whether an ice cube would melt quicker in warm water or cold water. The children were very aware of making sure their investigations were done fairly and they did more than one attempt so they could back up their evidence. They worked beautifully and created some brilliant tables of results.

PE: the children created their own games to practise the skills we have learnt this term: dribbling, passing, tackling. The children loved teaching their games to other children and have requested we do this again next week.

RE: we finished our unit on Christianity this week by creating a poster on all the things we have learnt on what it means to be Christian and what their belief is based on.

Week 4:

English: this week we have written newspaper reports. We began the week by studying what features must be used when writing a newspaper: past tense, chronological order, headline, byline, introduction, photos and captions and then studied Harry Potter's first quidditch match. We then wrote our own newspaper reports. reporting to the wizarding world what happened in the match. They are now published and on display ready for your to see on Parents Evening!

Maths: we have rounded up to four digit numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000. We learnt the rhyme, '1-4 sit on the floor, 5-9 climb the vine' to help us remember whether to round up or down.

Science: we have planned an experiment this week. The children have made predictions for what they think will happen and they have thought about the variables which they must keep the same and which they will change to keep the investigation a fair test. They thought about what they were going to measure and how and the equipment they were going to need. Next week the children will find out, whether ice cubes melt quicker in cold or warm water.

Music- the children began studying a new piece of music this week and are beginning to get more and more familiar with where the different keys on the glockenspiels are. Their ability to follow a rhythm on mass is also improving!

Art and D.T- in art, the children deigned their own wands with the knowledge that in a few weeks they will get to make them!

Week 3:

English: this week Kingfishers have been learning to use speech punctuation to help move a story on. We have, obviously, been using this in re-telling part of Harry Potter. The children have retold the scene where the troll enters the girls' bathroom. We have found using inverted commas around spoken words straight forward but remembering to use a piece of punctuation before closing the inverted commas challenging. 

Maths: this week we have been placing numbers on an empty number line. This has involved finding the difference between the start and end number and then sharing that amount equally between the number of intervals on the number line.

Science: we looked at the changes between state: freezing, melting, evaporation and condensation and used this in statements with our previous learnt vocabulary. The children's knowledge on this unit has been great so far!

Art: this week we have designed our Christmas cards ready to come home soon for orders to go in for cards, paper, mugs... We have been inspired by the artist Rob Biddulph!

Have a lovely weekend!

Week 2:

English:

This week in English we have been writing informal letters. We have used Harry Potter as our inspiration and imagined that we were also joining Hogwarts and writing home to a loved one to tell them about what we'd done since our arrival. We wrote about the journey on the Hogwarts Express, the sorting hat and our first flying lesson! The children used their knowledge of layout and language to write a letter fulfilling their brief. 

Maths:

We have been continuing our unit on place value this week and have been partitioning numbers up to 10,000! We have done this both practically and using written methods. Hopefully the children's homework will reflect what they have learnt.

PE:

This week we began our unit on hockey. The children learnt how to hold a hockey stick safely and we then began learning how to pass a ball accurately to a partner using the 'push pass' The children we so well behaved an engaged throughout the whole lesson- I loved it and I really hope they did too!

Science:

Last week we looked at solids, liquids and gases. This week we looked at items which 'push the boundaries' and sometimes make it a little difficult to place them into just one category! See if your child can remember what any of these were!

Have a lovely weekend!

Week 1:

What a fantastic first week back we have had! The children have all settled beautifully into Kingfishers class and have all worked really hard- what a great first impression!

In English this week we have begun our unit on Harry Potter, writing descriptions of some of the main characters and settings. The children have used: adjectives, adverbs, alliteration and similes.

In maths we have been looking at the place value of numbers up to 1000.

In science we have begun thinking about properties such as solid, liquid and gas. We used water balloons to get a hands on approach to each of these.

In Art this afternoon we created our own mythical creatures which we are going to perfect and send off to a competition with the hope of winning a visit to the Harry Potter Studios!

Have a wonderful weekend!