Year 4

Published on 22nd June

Year 4 visited the British Museum in order to see the Benin Bronzes as part of their topic Benin: A Lost Kingdom. They were amazed at the detail and the craftsmanship of the plaques in particular - they really are stunning in real life! The children recognised lots of the artefacts from our work in class. They then took part in a workshop about the Edo people and how we know about the Kingdom of Benin from the artefacts that have survived, as they had no written language.

Published on 16th June

Aquila Class experimented with different recipes to make giant bubbles as part of Science Week. They worked in groups to try different recipes, then used pipe cleaner wands to try and make the bubbles as big as they could! The best recipe used guar gum, glycerin and baking powder along with washing up liquid and warm water. Finally, they put the mixtures together into tuff trays to see if they could make them even bigger using hoops and sticks with string attached!

Published on 8th June

Today, Year 4 watched a livestream event with the author of Varjak Paw, SF Said. We have been reading Varjak in class and based all our reading and writing lessons around it this half tem, so we are big fans! He was talking about his book Tyger, which has just won the British Book Awards Children's Fiction Book of the Year, and they children loved it when he read an extract from it. Tyger took him 9 years to write!

Published on 20th April

Aquila Class started off their Eurovision topic with a flight from Loseley Fields International Airport - they had to have their bags screened by security, walk through the X Ray machine and fill in their passports before they could board their flight around Europe, piloted by Captain Kermit. They had to pay close attention to all the safety instructions before take-off, then could see the varied landscapes of Europe from above. They learned all about the different countries of Eastern and Mediterranean Europe, as well as the physical features, including the mountain ranges, rivers and seas. They also started listening to this year's Eurovision songs and scoring them out of ten.

Published on 20th April

Year 4 have been immersing themselves in all things 'Space' this half term! As part of their music lessons with Mrs Johnson, they listened to Holst's 'Planet Suite' and painted pictures in response to the music for Mars. They have used globes and torches to understand how the seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt; made a scale model of the Solar System using toilet paper and different sized balls; designed and made their own Mars Rovers; and created space watercolour paintings.

Published on 15th December

This term, the childrne have taken part in the Delight in Watts perogramme in conjunction with the Watts Gallery and artists from Paintbox. They started the project to a visit to the Watts Gallery and a collograph printing workshop, then worked alongside professional artists over three days to produce a painting on the theme 'Neighbourhood Nature', which links with our science work on ecology. The project culminates in an exhibition of the children's paintings at the Watts Gallery - parents and carers came along to our grand opening and the children all dressed up in their finest outfits. The work they have produced is fabulous!

Published on 15th December

In literacy this half term, we have been inspired by Hermelin the Detective Mouse by Mini Grey. After learning all about Hermelin's detective adventures and making lots of inferences about the chracters living in Offley Street, the children wrote their own sequels to the story - The Mystery of the Missing Moggies. They took great pride in producing their own 'casebooks' for their stories.

Published on 15th December

In history, we have made links with the National Civil War Centre in Newark. The curator there has been writing some materials for KS2 about the Civil War, so Aquila Class have been trying them out for her! They learned all about the different kinds of soldiers, how to besiege a garrison (Basing House in Hampshire) and what life was like under siege. They also took part in an online workshop with Denise, the curator, where the children had to take the parts of real people from Newark and discover what happened to the town and its people when it was besieged.

Published on 3rd November

Year 4 have started the year learning about Shackleton's Journey, using the wonderfully illustrated book by William Grill. They were each assigned a character from the crew, wrote letters of application to Shackleton and have been writing diary entries about different points in the expedition. This week, they debated whether or not to move on after the Endurance sank. Shackleton, Worsley & Wild gave a motivational speech to spur the crew on, and next week the crew will move to safer ice to try and make it back to civilisation...