St Thomas More Catholic Primary School
Inspiration, Celebration and Education
Year 4 Esther
Welcome to Year 4!
Here you will find all of the exciting things we have been learning. This term, we are securing our times table knowledge to 12 x 12 and we will learning written methods multiplication and division in maths. We will be reading and writing about The Explorer in English, and learning about Lent, Holy Week and Easter in RE. In Science, we are looking forward to learning about Animals and Their Habitats! In History we will be learning about the Anglo Saxons, Scots and Vikings.
Homework and Spellings
Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
This week at St Thomas More has been a week like no other! We have had three days of Jubilee celebrations. From Royal arts and crafts, to learning about the Queen’s history with fact hunts and research, from Street Parties and fair ground rides to learning Morris Dancing. Here are just some of our highlights from the week!
Across the school we have been making a range of wonderful crafts to celebrate this special occasion. We have each made bunting to decorate our school, in a range of different ways. We have painted and printed our handprints into a Union Flag in Year 1 and drawn pictures of corgis, the Queen and crowns, to name but a few, in other classes. In Year 5, we have made fingerprint flags and sun catchers. Across the school we have made such a wide variety of crowns.
On Tuesday, we had a jam packed day, full of celebrations! We each got to ride on a Carousel and the Teacups! It was so much fun! We even welcomed the residents from Monkscroft Care Home to come and join our fun. It was so lovely to see them! We then had a street party where our hall had been completely transformed with decorations and we ate our dinner in rows, just like a traditional street party! We spent the afternoon in the sun completing lots of games and activities ran by each teacher i the school. It was a brilliant day that we will remember for a long time!
We ended the week learning a traditional style of dance. We had so much fun with our bells and scarves learning to Morris Dance! There was lots of waving, jumping and moving from side to side. We had to try hard to stay in unison with each other!
We have had a wonderful week celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and learning why our Monarch is quite so special! We have learnt so much about our history and have made memories that will last a lifetime!
All Things Wild!
From seeing the animals, to the Barefoot Walk, to the dinosaur trail to the adventure playground, we had a fantastic day at All Things Wild (the best part was when we had to herd the goats back into their enclosure after they managed to escape!!). We learnt about animals and their habitats, endangered species and how animals have adapted to their environments.
We thoroughly enjoyed learning about specific animal habitats and adaptations in our Animal Handling Workshop and got to hold a gecko, a tiny egg eating snake and an armadillo!
The children represented St Thomas More so well and made us all very proud! Their awe and wonder was beautiful to see!
Our Maths Mantra
English - visit from author Andy Seed
RE - visiting the Stations of the Cross
PE - Our sponsored circuit event the GB high jumper, David.
Geography and Science trip
We walked to Benhall Park. During our walk, and at the park, we identified the human and physical feature in our town (Geography). We also looked at changes to the environment and how this affects living things (Science).
Geography - sorting the physical and human features of a city
Science - creating our own identification key
DT - Creating our torch prototypes
Red Nose Day
Ukraine School Appeal
Science - Invertebrate hunt
We used a classification key to identify a range of invertebrates.
National Science Week - Fizz Pop Science Show
Snowball the Hamster helping us with our Guided Reading
Music
RE - Our Lent Promises
DT - Torches - Exploring how a switch works
PE - Yoga and Relaxation in the sun
Our first play on TT Rockstars on our new tablets!
Book Week - Buddy Reading
Book Week - Traditional Tale Drama
This afternoon, we worked in groups to act out traditional tales. Our friends then had to guess what story we were performing. Our acting skills were fantastic!
Book Week - World Book Day
Book Week - Creating our own 'Wild Thing'
In English, as part of our book week, we have designed our very own ‘Wild Thing’ based on Where the Wild Things Are. This afternoon we are bringing our designs to life using clay.
Translation viewed by 1 parent
Book Week - Where The Wild Things Are dance and drama workshop
This afternoon, we had a drama and dancing workshop where we retold the story ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ with our bodies. We had so much fun!
Year 4's performance in our whole school Singing Showcase
Music - Improvisation
Children's Mental Health Week - Dress To Express Day
Safer Internet Day
Today, to celebrate Safer Internet Day, we had a workshop all about our Digital Footprint.
We built a digital toolkit to help us be safer online.
We learnt that our digital footprint will come with us as we grow and will get bigger and bigger.
We looked at pictures that had been posted online and looked for clues we could be giving away from a simple photograph such as our school and our age. We learnt why it is important to keep this information safe in our human life and our digital life.
We learnt that we should ALWAYS treat others as we would like to be treated, both in our humans life and our digital life.
We learnt the importance of keeping our connections small - just our close friends and family. We thought about 3 key thoughts before letting someone into our digital world - do we know them in person? Do we know them well enough to invite them to our birthday party? Do we know them well enough to invite them round to play? If we answered no to one of these questions then we shouldn’t connect with them online.
This led on to us learning about cyber strangers and the importance of keeping ourselves safe. We learnt that if someone says something that makes us feel sad or uncomfortable we should Zip It, Block It, Flag It.
We needed the session by learning the golden rule about cyber bullying - Speak Out and Tell Someone!
History - Roman Excavation
Today, in History, we have been archaeologists! The Archaeologist Society sent us some trays to excavated. We used paintbrushes to carefully uncover some Roman remains!
School Council Elections
Our School Council election happened this week. Our candidates presented their ideas and then we held an anonymous vote with our own ballot box!
Science - In Science today, we acted out being the particles in a solid, liquid and a gas.
History - Debating why the Ancient Maya civilization abandoned their cities
Science - States of Matter
So far in Science this term, we have sorted materials into solids, liquids and gases, acted out the properties of each state of matter and explored gases - focussing on how they fill every space. We experiments with water to see the bubbles of gas escaping.
Christmas Celebrations!
RE - Advent Prayer Stations
DT - We made our own money containers using running stitch, back stitch or over stitch. We fastened them with a button
Fun with Snowball!
History - We made our own Maya temple when learning about Maya cities
English - We followed instructions to make a Christmas Wreath
Science - Exploring pitch.
RE - During our Advent unit, we have made our own Jesse tree. We added to it throughout the season of Advent.
History - Ancient Greek Warfare
We learnt about Ancient Greek Warfare. We learnt about the Hoplite soldiers, what they wore and about their famous Phalanx formation. Ask us all about it!
RE - As part of our Prayers, Saints and Feasts unit, we went on a reflective Pilgrimage to St Thomas More Parish Church
History and PSHCE - To celebrate Black History Month, we had an African drumming workshop
Thank you for leading a beautiful Collective Worship
DT - Making ice cream! It took a long time to whisk.
Thank you for leading a lovely Collective Worship
A mystery intruder to our classroom! We have researched farm animals and written non-chronological reports to find out what could've left the mysterious footprints!
Wellbeing Week
We boosted our own and other people's wellbeing this week using the 5 Ways of Wellbeing:
Give - We wore yellow to raise money for Young Minds Hello Yellow campaign. We also delivered Random Acts of Kindness to our neighbours.
Take Notice - We took extra notice of God's wonderful world around us.
Be Active - We walked around our local area delivering our Random Acts of Kindness.
Connect - We spent time playing team building games with our friends.
Keep Learning - We learnt about the importance of caring for our mental health as well as our physical health.
Spanish Week
This week we have celebrated Spanish week by learning about Spanish culture, key phrases, making Spanish fans and learning some Spanish dance techniques.
Question and Answer session with Father Tony
DT - Aubergine Jerky. Ask us about our homemade marinades!
Music - Clarinets. We are really loving our lessons with Vicky!
Thank you for leading a thoughtful Collective Worship
Music - Clarinets. We have now learnt the C key too.
Science - Investigating electrical conductors and electrical insulators
Science - Exploring electrical circuits
DT - This week, for our American Food unit, we made chocolate chip cookies!
Clarinets - We have now learnt the E and D notes!
Maths - Recapping comparing 3 digit numbers before moving on to comparing 4 digit numbers.
Busy Beez
This week, we began learning the Clarinet! We learnt the E note.
History - Wattle and Daub in the Bronze Age
We acted out making a Bronze Age home. We collected sticks, mud and leaves to make our daub and mixed it with water (thankfully we missed out the key ingredient of daub - poo!). We used part of the trim trail as our wattle (woven sticks). We then picked up handfuls of daub and pushed it onto the wattle.