Key information:

4RJ will have indoor PE on Thursday and outdoor PE on Tuesday. Please ensure your child comes into school in the correct kit.

Words of the week: exuberant, basking and sacred.

Times Table of the week: 3s and 11s

Term 4 

World Book Day - (Article 29 Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities. It should also help you learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people.)

On our World Book Day, we came to school dressed as a character from a book. We were extremely fascinated by other people's costumes. Our friends dressed up as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Christiano Ronaldo, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Dalmatians, Where's Wally? and The Mad Hatter from Alice and Wonderland. After we looked at everyone's costumes, we went to the hall and listened to a story. The book was the true story of Winnie-the-Pooh. We really enjoyed listening to this story. When we came back we did 'Book Speed Dating' where we sat with someone from Year 6 and discussed our favourite book. We had to persuade them to buy our book in one minute. It was quite tricky! 

In the afternoon, we shared a poem with the whole school called 'The Rascally Cake' by Jeanna Willis and Korky Paul. We created actions to go with our poem to help us remember it. We performed it in front of the whole school and Miss CJ was very impressed. We loved sharing our love for books with everyone in our school and can't wait for next year. 

PE - (Article 24: You have the right to the best health care possible...and information to help you stay well.)

This term's outdoor PE is athletics. We were really excited to start our new outdoor PE as we are all very competitive. To start, there were 5 different exercise stations. We were put into groups of 5 and our group was set up at a station. We had to choose a leader and then our leader would pick an exercise for us to do. We then had to do this exercise for 3 minutes before moving onto the next station. We then moved onto the next station where we would pick a new leader who would choose a new exercise. We had a lot of fun and learned lots of new exercises. For the main activity, we partnered up and labelled ourselves A and B. We were going to be racing - our focus was speed! We had to begin our run using the starting position. To make it fair, we counted 4 Mississippis to see how far our partner could run. Our partner then placed the cone and we had to beat it. We kept taking it in turns to try and get a personal best. We absolutely loved this and were really worn out by the end of the lesson. 

WOW! (Article 27 You have the right to food, clothing, a safe place to live and to have your basic needs met...)

We had a wonderful start to our Year 4 enquiry with our WOW. We had 3 different activities. The first activity we became explorers and went on a fact-finding mission around the school to find out about different forms of electricity. The second activity we became investigators. Our teacher put wires, bulbs and batteries on our tables and we were told to explore. We managed to light the bulb and added more batteries to make the bulb brighter. For our last activity, we became researchers so we created a presentation informing people how to stay safe when using electricity. We really enjoyed our WOW and can't wait to keep learning about electricity.

Term 3

"What would happen if humans only ate one type of food?"

Article 24: 

You have a right to the best health possible, food, clean water and medicine to keep you healthy. You have a right to information that will help you to stay well.

Enquiry Overview: "What would happen if humans only ate one type of food?"

This term, we will  continue to learn about the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on Goal 2- Zero Hunger. As a planet, it is our aim to achieve zero hunger by 2030. We couldn't believe how many people don't have enough food to help them survive, even in this country! To help with our learning and understanding, we are going to learn about balanced diets, what we need as humans to make sure we are healthy, food choices people make such as being a vegan or vegetarian, why people don't have equal access to food and how much food is wasted around the world. At the end of our enquiry, we hope to have a better understanding of our diets and to make sure we don't waste food.

Our text this term is 'Under the Hawthorn Tree' by Marita Conlon-McKenna. This book is about the struggle during the Irish Potatoe Famine and the daily struggles to find something to  eat. This has really brought it to life with our enquiry 'Zero Hunger'. 

Computing - Article 8: You have the right to an identity... Article 16: You have the right to privacy.

On Tuesday 11th February it was Safer Internet Day. We spent the day learning about our identity and how our identities can reveal quite a lot about us. We spoke about the importance of keeping ourselves safe online and making sure we speak to our parents if we are ever worried about something. As one of the activities, we filled in a spin wheel with details about how we use the internet. From the information given, we had to work out which spin wheel belonged to which person. It was actually very easy to figure this out and our detective skills really impressed Miss CJ.

Class Assembly - Article 13: You have a right to find out things...

This week, we had our class assembly. We were so excited to show our parents what we had learned so far in term 3. We set up 5 stations: Teeth, Malnutrition, Digestive System, Food Chains and Healthy Eating. We used the ipads and what we knew already to make each of stations informative and interactive. Through the use of effective team work and communication skills we were able to creative fantastic stations. It was so much fun and really hope our parents loved it as well. 

Mental Health Week - Article 27: You have the right to a standard of living that is good enough to meet your physical, social and mental needs.

This week, we have been focused on mental health and what it means to be brave. We have had a range of activities each day which made us think about how to be brave and what helps us be brave. We also brought in things to share with our classmates and explained how it supported us through more challenging times and how it represents bravery.

Science - Article 28: You have the right to a quality education

This term in science, we have been looking at the digestive system. In doing this, we looked at teeth and the importance they have. We discussed the different type of teeth we have and why each one is shaped the way it is and the function they all have. With this, we discussed how it is important that we look after our teeth. Using eggs, as they have the same make up as the enamel on our teeth, we experimented to see which drink would cause the most damage. We placed an egg in lemonade with zero sugar, orange juice, coke and water. Have a look at the pictures below to see the outcomes. We were all very shocked at the results. 

Playpod - Article 31: You have the right to play and rest.

At our school, we are extremely lucky as we have a Playpod. It's a containers full of unwanted things like wheely chairs, push-chairs, suitcases, skateboards, scooters and bikes. We had so much fun playing with our friends and creating new games with the amazing equipment. We can't wait to start using it more regularly! 

PE - (Article 24: You have the right to the best health care possible...and information to help you stay well.)
 This term in PE, we are fortunate enough to have Bristol Sport teach us football. To get us started, we played a game of stuck in the mud but with a football. We had to help our friends who were stuck by kicking the ball between us 3 times. We then played a game of fish, fishermen and sharks which was really fun and again got to use our control and passing skills. We can't wait to put what we have learned into a game!

WOW! - Article 24: You have the right to clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that you can stay healthy. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

To start our new enquiry, we began by discussing what it meant by 'Zero Hunger'. We thought about places all over the world where hunger is a huge problem and the more we thought about it, the more we began to realise it's a problem in all countries. We were shocked to find out that there are children in our country who don't have enough to buy food and this was something for us that hit us quite hard. We discussed the idea of food banks and why these are so important to those who don't have enough money.

In the afternoon, we then created our own adverts to raise awareness for people who don't have enough money and to try and persuade people to donate money or food to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Take a look at some of the adverts we created. 

Term 2

"How can one person make a difference?"

Article 12: 

You have the right to your opinion and for adults to listen and take you seriously.

Enquiry Overview: "How can one person make a difference?"

This term, we will learning about the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on Goal 13- Climate Action. We will be focusing on people who carry out peaceful protests, how individuals make a difference and how we as individuals can make a difference. We are also going to explore a different range of artists, mainly Banksy, who create messages in their artwork. As our challenge, we are going to create our own artwork creating a message behind what we make. 

Challenge 'How can one person make a difference?' - (Article 12 - You have the right to give your opinion and for adults to listen and take it seriously). 

For our challenge, we had to create a piece of artwork with a message behind it. Using the people we have studied; Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai and Paul Stephenson, we created our very own pieces of artwork. These were either based around climate change, equality between different races or equality between girls and boys. Banksy was our focus artist this term so we used the style of graffiti and even got to use spray paint. We had such an amazing time and are so impressed with what we have achieved. Take a look at what we have created:

Ukulele Concert - (Article 29 - Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities...)

After all of the hardwork we have put in for almost two terms, we finally got to show our schools to our parents and Year 3 our fantastic ukulele skills. We played a variety of songs including The Beatles - Yellow Submarine and even Spongebob Squarepants (which was a popular one with Year 3). We played with confidence and worked so well as a group. Thank you to everyone who watched! You were a fantastic audience!

Library - (Article 28 - You have the right to a good quality education...)

Can you believe how lucky we are? We have our very own library! We went to look at all of our brand new books. We feel so fortunate to have these facilities in our school and cannot wait to use it again. 

PE - (Article 24 - the right to the best health care possible...and information to help you stay well)

This term, we are learning how to play netball. We started our first lesson off discussing what netball is and if anybody had ever watched it or played it before. We then learned our first pass which was chest past. We had to stand a certain distance from our partner and pass the ball in a specific way. The following lesson we practised our chest passes and then learned how to do a bounce pass. This mean simple passing the ball to our partner with a bounce in the middle. 

Gym morning - (Article 24 - the right to the best health care possible...and information to help you stay well)

On our first day back, we were so fortunate to go to our local gym. We spent the morning there learning about keeping ourselves fit, different ways to exercise, keeping our mouths and teeth healthy, ways to meditate and breathe to help us relax and about our muscles and how to look after them. We really enjoyed ourselves and worked so hard. We were exhausted by the end of it all! The staff were amazing and at the end of the session, they kindly gave us a huge bag of fruit! 

WOW! - (Article 12 - the right to an opinion and for adults to listen and take it seriously)

We have had so much fun today! This term we are looking at the Global Goal: Climate Action. This is all about educating people about saving our planet from global warming, making sure we are breathing clean air and helping our wildlife. To start our wow, we looked at protests and discussed why people protest. Then we read about people such as Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai, Karim Wasfi and Paul Stephenson. We spoke about the protests they held and why they felt the need to protest. We then looked at the word 'peaceful' and what we felt this word meant. We put peaceful and protest together and decided the people we looked at carry out peaceful protests.

To enhance our understanding about protests, we were then given time to design our own protest posters. In the afternoon, we painted them. We have all done such different and amazing designs. What a way to start our new enquiry!! 

Term 1

Enquiry Overview: 

Computing

Computing this term was wonderful! We did a presentation based on Greta Thunberg. Some of us chose to write about her life and what she has done, some decided to talk about her journey across the Atlantic in her solar-powered boat and others focused on her protests. We are so amazed by what Greta has achieved and done for our environment. It has made us want to contribute and make sure our planet is looked after for our futures. 

Harvest Festival

Thank you to everyone who came to watch our Harvest performance. We had such a wonderful time showing you all what we had learned and we hope you all enjoyed yourselves as well. Looking at our food donations as well, we would also like to say a huge thank you as well! 

Ukulele lessons

This term, year 4 are going to be taught how to play the ukulele. We had our very first lesson this week and Miss CJ was very impressed with us. We actually sounded quite good. We learned a note to play and also put that note to a song. I'm sure many of our parents and guardians will know this song "Lime in the Coconut" by Harry Nilsson. We really enjoyed ourselves and cannot wait for our next lesson. 

PE

This term, we are learning how to play hockey. We started by learning how to hold the hockey stick properly (this was quite tricky). We then practiced dribbling, without a ball, around cones to start with. This helped us to get a feel when we were moving the stick. We couldn't turn the hockey stick around so had to move our bodies. Then we were put to the test and we were given a ball. We all tried our absolute bests and Miss CJ was so impressed with what we had done. 

Science

This week, we have been learning about States of Matter. We learned that there are three types of matter: solids, liquids and gases. To start off our new learning, we were shown lots of different pictures of 'things'. Using this we had to group the pictures in anyway we wanted. After, we spoke about what makes a solid, a liquid and a gas. We found out that they have different structures in their particles. As an activity to make sure we understood what the particles were like, we worked in groups to represent the different matters. 

Collaborative Learning

We have been learning about what a 'Purple Learner' is, with a focus on how to work in a group successfully. We considered what it looks like, feels like and sounds like when we work collaboratively. We understand we need to take turns, be polite, motivate and support one another. 

Wow!

We kick started our enquiry by making snow! It was great fun! We couldn't believe how it expanded to make so much when we added a few drop of water. After touching it, we created a bank of adjectives and verbs to describe snow to support our writing later.

We went outside and played with it while the sun shone which was a strange feeling! Who would have thought it could snow in summer?