Kingfishers - Yr4

Welcome to Year 4.

Welcome back, we hope you've had a great summer - we certainly enjoyed the chance to recharge our batteries!

We are the Kingfisher class. Mr Good is our teacher and Mrs Barker is our teaching assistant. We're really pleased we have Mrs Barker this year, as she knows the children really well from last year.

Our  door is always open and we are more than happy to meet with you to discuss any concerns you may have. Please feel free to pop in and introduce yourselves or come for a chat at the end of the day. 

Please see the attached newsletter for details of PE sessions, homework, guitar lessons and the whole school reading challenge.

Art with Mrs Barker!

We looked at the beautiful art work of Vincent Scarpace and designed our own fish using his techniques.

We also made our own sea creatures using a special plasticine which needed to be baked in the oven!

Aren't they great?!

Sheringham

What a fantastic time we had away in beautiful Norfolk. Even though the weather was a little on the wet and chilly side , we all had a brilliant time.

The staff were really impressed with the behaviour of the children. We were even more impressed that they all slept really well through the night!

Well done Year 4.

Head over to Red Squirrels page to see a few of the memories.

Something fishy is going on!

For our'WOW' lesson to introduce the new topic 'Blue Abyss', Mrs Barker ( very bravely) agreed to let the children carry out observational drawings of real life fish in her art lesson! 

We had a real array  - mackerel - sea bass - sardines - sprats and squid. What a stink!

The children drew some amazing sketches, along with many excited squeals!! Some even got the gloves on and dared to touch them. 

Pirates versus Mermaids

Year 3/4 production

Heave-ho and away we go on a fantastic musical journey, where the seven seas just aren’t big enough for our pirates and mermaids! 

Filled with catch-of-the-day fresh songs - the boys will show off their swaggers and the girls will sparkle – so hoist the sail and come aboard!

The first performance went really well this afternoon. You all looked like you were enjoying yourselves and we could hear every word! Well done to all - some very sassy mermaids and ferocious pirates!!

Sports Relief 2018

We had a great day today raising money for Sports Relief. We all came dressed in our sporty gear , had a cake sale, took part in a circuit session with Mr Betts and then ran four times around a circuit of the field and playground. Some of the parents joined their children on the fun run and some even came in fancy dress!

Kinetic Theatre Company

The Kinetic Theatre company came to visit us. KS2 learnt about different science concepts through drama, song and dance. We learnt about shadows, the water cycle and the planets in the solar system. We also had a visit from a dalek! All great fun and we learnt a lot! Mr Good even had to demonstrate being a 'tree'!

Fractions of Smarties

We enjoyed using Smarties in our Maths lesson today. We tried estimating how many would be in the box first. We sorted and recorded our findings on a frequency chart using a tally. We then found fractions of amounts. The best bit came at the end, when we could eat them all!

Spring term

Welcome back. We hope you had a lovely Christmas break. Thank you very much for our presents at the end of last term. We really appreciate your generosity! 

Please see below our Spring newsletter telling you all about the new exiting topics for the term.

We appreciate you!

Today we watched the Sainsbury's Christmas advert about peace on the war front on Christmas Day in World War One. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KHoVBK2EVE

It made us think about soldiers who may have to be on duty on Christmas Day.

We thought about all the people that will probably have to be working this year on Christmas Day to help others -  ambulance crew, doctors/nurses, care workers, firefighters, Police, soldiers, hotel staff, prison officers and many more.

We wrote  and sent letters to these people thanking them for giving up their precious time to help care for others.

Lift the flap books!

Mrs Barker has had a busy term making these amazing body books with the children. Each layer shows the muscles, the bones and then the digestive system. Aren't they great?

Teeth

We have been learning about the different types of teeth and their functions. For homework we designed posters on how to look after our precious teeth.

We set up an experiment to look at the effects of different liquids on our teeth. We used egg shells to act like our teeth. We placed the shells in water, milk, vinegar, fresh orange juice and coca cola and left them there for a week. 

Our classrooms did start to smell and we were glad to get rid of the beakers by Friday!

 We found out that water was definitely the best fluid to drink, as the egg shell stayed the same. The vinegar , coca cola and orange juice all cracked and stained the egg shell.

It made us think about what we drink and how it can affect our teeth.

Children in Need Day

We had a brilliant day today raising money for Children in Need. We all came dressed in spots or Pudsey outfits and ears! We even had a twirl to show off our outfits in assembly!

Then throughout the day, we made Pudsey biscuits, put pennies on a giant Pudsey face and entered into a raffle draw to win a Pudsey bear.

Stem Day at The Magnus Church of England Academy

What a fantastic day we had on Tuesday!

We had a brisk walk down to The Magnus and when we got there, we were split into three groups. 

We had  4 different activities:

• Build a bridge that can hold a bag of coins.
• Build a structure that will protect an egg when it drops out of the second floor window!
• Measure the speed of a paper aeroplane.
• Make predictions about balloon rockets.

We had time for breaks and lunch and enjoyed being at a secondary school. We all thought it was a lovely school.

At the end of the day, it was award time and children received medals.

The teachers commented on our children's excellent behaviour, enthusiasm and manners. Mr Good, Mrs Barker and myself were extremely proud of our children. They were all fantastic ambassadors for our school.  Well done.

Homework!

This year, as a school,  we decided to try something different with homework.

Each year group has designed 9 creative homework activities that can be completed in any order each week.

Our activities tied in with our class novel - Charlotte's Web and our topic on Potions. The activities ranged from covering our homework books, making a spiders web, designing and making magical potions, fact files on spiders webs and much more. 

The children have been so enthusiastic about their homework and have been really proud to show off their work. (It has also been great to see all the adults getting involved with the shared projects too! ) Thanks!

Viscosity!

We had another exciting science lesson this week testing the properties of liquids. We set up a ramp and poured different liquids down them and timed how long they took to reach the bottom. We tested : syrup, custard, ketchup, water, vinegar and cooking oil.

We found out that different liquids have different properties and not all liquids are the same. Some are thin and flow easily- these have a low viscosity. Others are thick and gooey and have a high viscosity. It was fun!

Our exciting new science topic this term is Potions.

Potion: a poison, a mixture, an aromatic brew, a vapour, a liquid or a sticky goo.

Welcome to the amazing magical world of potions and their properties.

Use what you know about materials and their properties to create incredible potions.

Wow!

We had a really exciting lesson to start our topic on potions. We carried out a variety of experiments. One experiment we used bicarbonate of soda and lemonade and watched the mixture effervesce as the gas escaped. 

When we added cooking oil to the mixture , we noticed that the mixture separated and the oil formed a layer on the top ( it reminded us of lava lamps!) 

Then for the really exciting last experiment, we all had to go outside.

Mr Good filled a big bottle with vinegar and then added bicarbonate of soda. It was amazing watching the mixture bubble and foam and eventually topple over the top of the jar like a volcano! It was very smelly too!

We had so much fun!

Here are some of the comments the children wrote on 'post its' afterwards!

"It was amazing, exciting and interesting!"

"It was like a chemistry lesson - I learnt loads"

"It was amazing when it exploded - it was a very strong smell!"

" It was my favourite part of Year 4 so far, I was a bit scared when the vinegar bubbled up!"

"It was so bubbly and exciting!"

Year 4 expectation meeting

Thank you to the parents that attended the meeting on Friday. We hope you found it useful. We really appreciate your support.

For those of you who were unable to make it- you might find the powerpoint attached below useful.