In Year 4, we have been learning about ceramics, including what materials are used and how different pots are made. We focused on making a slab pot, by cutting out squares of clay, decorating them and then joining them together. We started of by practising cutting out the squares and experimented with different tools to create different effects in the clay.

Once we had decided our decoration for the outside of the pot, we began making our slab pots. We cut out five square slabs, using a variety of tools and decorated them with our chosen pattern. We then joined our slabs together using a hatching method and a clay-water mixture called slip. We are now ready to paint our slab pots, check back to see photos of our finished product.

It has been so lovely to have the children back in the classroom, following the Spring lockdown. They have enjoyed spending time with their friends and settling back into school routines. Since returning to school, we have been working really hard in all subject areas. Year 4 have been particularly engaged with rehearsing and performing their own version of ‘Chocolate Cake’ by Michael Rosen. We have also enjoyed fundraising for Comic Relief and celebrating World Book Day.

Last Friday, we completed activities, in our class, to raise money for Comic Relief. The theme this year was to ‘Raise a Smile’. In class we came up with our own jokes to share virtually with our Buddy Class. Reception also shared with us their funniest and silliest faces. It was a fun afternoon had by all with lots of giggles from the children and adults.

This week, Year 4 have been investigating the importance of brushing our teeth by examining the effects of different liquids on the enamel when left over time. We used eggs to replicate this and placed them in water, milk, orange juice, orange squash and coca cola. When setting up this investigation most of the children predicted that coca cola would damage the shell of the egg the most. However, when we examined the eggs after leaving them over 3 days, it was the egg in orange juice that had began to disintegrate. We spoke about how we could ensure that we drink a range of liquids to look after our teeth and decided it is best to ensure we drink some water throughout each day. Year 4 also realised the importance of brushing their teeth twice a day, to remove the liquid and stop it from damaging the enamel. Take a look at our investigation below.

Mrs Dempster and I have been so impressed with the children’s positive attitudes towards returning to school and settling into new routines. We are looking forward to a fantastic Summer term together.

Mrs Dempster and I would like to say a massive thank you for all of your wonderful efforts with ‘home learning’ over the past few weeks – you have all been absolute superstars and should be very proud of yourself. We know the past few weeks have been quite tricky and we have all had to adjust to a new way of working but you have all shown great resilience and you have been able to produce some wonderful pieces of work! We are looking forward to welcoming you all back into school and continuing our Year 4 learning.

Below I have attached some of the fantastic pieces of work I have received through google classroom, I wanted to share and celebrate your wonderful achievements. It has been lovely to be able to catch up with you all through comments on posts in google classroom to our weekly google meets- thank you so much for taking the time to attend them.

I would like to say a MASSIVE well done to you all for your OUTSTANDING efforts with home learning over the last few weeks. Keep up the fantastic work and remember

Both Mrs Dempster and I would like to wish all of the children in Year 4 and their families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope you enjoy yourselves even though Christmas will look very different this year. Stay safe and we will see you all in the new year.

Above you will find our Year 4 Christmas performance, you will need to enter the password provided separately to access the video. We hope you enjoy our singing, dancing and acting. Both Mrs Dempster and I were so proud of how the children practised, performed and coped with performing our pantomime in such a different way. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed performing it,

In Year 4, we have been learning about emotions and how they can change when things happen. We have talked about the different emotions we may feel and how this can make our body feel and react. We have learnt different strategy’s for copying when our feelings change and what we can do to help ourselves to regulate our own emotions.

This week, we discussed anger, what makes us angry and how it makes us feel. We also discussed what anger feels like within our body and how we know that it is anger we are feeling. After establishing what anger feels like, we discussed strategies which may make us calm again including counting to ten, deep breathing and concentrating on something else. We then made glitter jars to keep in class to help us when our emotions change, we discovered that watching the glitter swirling in the jar takes our mind away from the problem and allows us to calm. It was also very fun using lots of glitter to make them!

You could make one to help you when your feelings change. All you need is a plastic bottle, water, clear glue and glitter. You could also try using glitter glue. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

On Halloween, Year 4 were set a task to review the fairness of Smartie packs. We had to start by separating the packs into colours and working out the fractions of each colour. We then used our knowledge of adding fractions to find out whether the packs were fair. This was great practise for us.

We were very undecided whether or not they were fair as it depended on which our favourite colour was. Therefore, as a class we decided that the packs were not fair as they didn’t have an equal amount of each colour and as people have different favourites it would be best to have the same amount. Although, we did say that this wasn’t enough to put us off eating them in the future.

Above you will find our Year 4 harvest performance, you will need to enter the password provided separately to access the video. We hope you enjoy our singing and signing. Both me and Mrs Dempster were so proud of how the children practised, performed and coped with the new situation.

In Year 4, we have started our new topic all about plants. We have started learning about the different parts of a plant and the different parts of a flower. We have also began learning about their functions and why they are needed. We carefully pulled apart different plants and flowers to have a closer look.

Prior to this topic, Miss Hawtin gave all of Year 4 a sunflower plant that had just began to grow. This was so that we could have the experience of growing a plant before we started our science topic. It is great to see that some of us have done a super job of providing the plants with everything they need to grow and could even explain this to the rest of the class. For the children’s plants that didn’t grow we have reflected on why this may have been and we are going to use our plant knowledge from the topic to try again with another plant. Look at our sunflower plants.

In Year 4, we have been learning about complimentary colours in art and researching artists which used them in their paintings. We looked carefully at the work of Henri Matisse, noticing his use of colour.

We started by using primary colours, mixing them to create secondary and tertiary colours. We then learnt that complimentary colours are the colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel and are used to create bright, contrasting paintings.

We then experimented with different complimentary colours to find our favourite, looking for the two colours that worked well together.

Finally, we used our knowledge of complimentary colours to create a final piece. We sketched different flowers and painted them using colours we had mixed ourselves. Look at our wonderful display outside the classroom.