Here are some of the fantastic things we have been learning this year…
Health Week
Year 4 have had a blast this week during Health Week! They have took part in lots of activities and had so much fun along the way.
Climbing wall
We began the week on the climbing wall and the children were so brave. Lots of them climbed all the way to the very top. They said everyone looked like tiny ants when the looked down.
Fruit tasting
Next, we had a fruit tasting session where we were able to taste 15 different fruits. Some of them we had never tasted before or even heard of. Some of the fruits were not to our taste but our teachers were very proud because we tried them.
Handball
We also worked as part of a team during a handball session.
Zumba
We finished off the week with a Zumba dance class. This was so much fun but very tiring! We definitely raised our heart rates and so did our teachers!
Sports Day
We also had great fun at our sports day. It was all about the taking part and it was great to hear everyone cheering for each other. Thank you to all of the adults who came to support us!
World Music Day
Year 4 learned about the modern day composer John Williams. He is not only a famous composer but a conductor and pianist too. Did you know he has been composing for over 70 years? We discovered that he has composed many movie scores over the years – many of which we recognised. He works in ‘leitmotifs’ which means themes. He assigns a musical score to different characters in movies, he sets the scene using music to create mystery, suspense, magic, love etc. We explored many pieces of his music, we listened and appraised, created emotion art focussing on his leitmotifs for Star Wars characters and discussed how the music changed and why. We then composed a musical rap assigning a leitmotif to the character names we used. Some of us also created a double page spread about him in Literacy. Here is some of the work we produced:
We can listen, appraise and identify elements of music.
Foundation of Light – Disability awareness
Year 4 have had the privilege of working with Phil from The Foundation of Light learning all about disability sport awareness. In week 1, the children learned about how sport can be adapted for people with learning disabilities, week 2 focused on hearing impairments and this week we focused on visual impairment. The children were so lucky to meet Dan, a blind footballer who actually plays for the England blind football team. He has played for the country in The World Cup and the Paralympics.
Dan spoke to the children about his career and how his disability has affected his life. The children were gripped and asked so many wonderful questions.
Next, they had the chance to watch him in action. They took part in some adapted PE where they wore blindfolds and used footballs with bells inside them to see what it would be like for a blind footballer.
River Wear walk – 14th June 2023
Today, Year 4 walked along the River Wear observing the structure. We have recently learned all about rivers; what they are, their structure and their uses. The children began their walk at Roker therefore they were able to observe the mouth of the river. As we walked on past The National Glass Centre we were also able to observe meanders.
Whilst walking, we stopped off at St Peter’s Church and discussed Bede as we had recently learned about him during our Anglo Saxons topic.
The children had a great time and walked so well considering the high temperatures.
Take a look at some of our photos.
Coronation Celebration!
Year 4 have had a lovely day celebrating ready for the King’s Coronation tomorrow. We have all designed and made our own crowns and wore them to lunch.
We also prepared our very own afternoon tea, complete with cucumber sandwiches.
Castles fit for a king!
Whilst Class 10 were out on strike, Class 11 were busy designing and making castles fit for a king. With the coronation not far away, the children thought about what kind of castle they would want to live in. They worked well in small groups to create their castle designs. Take a look at their creations.
Class 11 had 100% attendance!!
As a treat for having 100% attendance, Class 11 had hot chocolate and biscuits with Mr Robson. Well deserved everyone. Let’s try and get it again next week!
Mrs Stephenson’s literacy group
Mrs Stephenson’s literacy group have been completing a tasty project! They have designed their very own chocolate crispy cake and then written a persuasive advert to persuade people to buy their cake. They learnt all about what should be included within a persuasive advert and why. We then included these features and created our very own advert and packaging for our cakes.
Take a look at our crispy creations!
Science Week – Forensics
This week a crime was committed at Southwick Community Primary School!!
A very expensive globe was stolen from the school hall and the suspect left behind lots of clues. The whole school are going to use different forensic techniques to try to solve the crime.
Year 4 are focusing on the finger print that was left behind by the thief. We have learned all about finger prints, including why and when they are used. Before investigating the finger prints, we read the various witness statements from the different suspects and then made a prediction about which member of staff we believed to be the thief.
We then learned about the 3 different types of finger prints before taking our own prints and analysing them. We compared them to our friends’ prints to look for similarities and differences.
We then compared the finger print found at the crime scene to those of different members of staff to find the culprit. Once we had analysed the prints, we made another prediction about who we believed to be guilty. Our predictions were totally different to the ones we made at the beginning of the investigation because we had actually focused on the evidence. We now understand the importance of forensics when solving a crime.
Spanish Superstars (2.3.23)
Year 4 have been practising their Spanish speaking and writing this afternoon. We have been working hard to embed the Spanish greetings and the children are very confident with these now so we have moved onto ages. The children have been learning how to ask ‘How old are you?’ and then to answer this question in Spanish. We discussed how words in Spanish are pronounced differently to how they may look. Take a look at our Spanish conversations.
Designers in the making!
Class 11 have learned all about the world of product design today. We became biscuit designers and designed our very own biscuit. We thought carefully about what a product designer would have to think about before making their product.
We thought about the biscuits that are on the market today, the ingredients they use and which are most popular. This helped us to think about our very own designs.
Once we had designed our biscuit, we thought about packaging and advertising. We looked at packaging on the market today and noticed that we needed our packaging to be simple but eye catching. We tried hard to implement these ideas in our own designs.
We thought carefully about the vocabulary that we should use in our advertising posters because we knew we had to persuade the audience that our biscuit was the best. We used superlative adjectives and rhetorical questions – knowledge we had from our literacy lessons.
Once we had designed our persuasive posters, we used our ICT skills to replicate them on the computer. We have recently been practising inserting pictures and text boxes and changing the font so we were able to put this to good use!
We have had such a busy day being product designers so we were treated to biscuit decorating before home time.
Archery
Year 4 had the opportunity to try out archery today and they had lots of fun!
Let’s connect
As part of Children’s Mental Health Week, we have took part in Let’s Connect sessions. Year 4 paired up with the children in Reception and made connections through a range of activities; such as bicuit decorating, colouring in and playing games.
We had so much fun and the children really enjoyed playing with people that they maybe don’t see as often. A huge thank you to Mrs Laverick for organising the event!
Anglo Saxon bread making
Year 4 had a great time today making Anglo Saxon bread. They worked in small groups to follow a recipe for both peasant bread royal bread that the Anglo Saxons would have actually eaten.
The children carefully weiged and mixed the ingredients before watching the peasant bread being cooked on the stove and sending the royal bread to the ovens.
They found that both breads were very soft but the royal bread has slightly more taste as there were more ingredients included in this recipe.
PE at The Beacon of Light
Today, Year 4 had the opportunity to visit The Beacon of Light and take part in PE sessions with some of the Primary Education students from Sunderland University.
They had so much fun and the students were very impressed with their hard work and brilliant attitude.
Snow Day
Year 4 had great fun playing in the snow!!
Children in Need
Year 4 have had a great time celebrating Children in Need. We dressed up and visited our school hall for a fantastic fayre. We even had a visit from the main man himself, Pudsey Bear!
World Cup geography
In Year 4, we have been completing World Cup related geography activities.
We have had so much fun using our knowledge of compass points to write satnav instructions to help Jordan Henderson travel from England to Qatar.
Some of us also used our understanding of grid references to describe the locations of different footballers in a grid.
Accelerated Reader star
This week, Class 11 won the Accelerated Reader challenge as they read the most books in the whole school. Maisie McCririe was also a winner, reading more books than anyone else in the school. Well done Maisie!
Working well with others
This weeks Jigsaw focus is ‘working well with others’ so our Year 4 children had lots of fun working as part of a team today. We thought about different roles in the community or in life where it is vital to work well with others and the children came up with some brilliant ideas.
They then worked in small teams to complete a variety of different challenges.
- Who could make the tallest spaghetti tower?
- Who could make the best spaghetti house for a toy dinosaur?
They had great fun and realised that by working as a team, they could share the workload and get the job done quicker.
We then tried the hula hoop challenge. The children split into two teams and stood in a line holding hands. The challenge was to see which team could transport their hula hoop to the end of the line the quickest without breaking the human chain.
Macmillan coffee morning
Year 4 had a great time at the Macmillan coffee morning today!
Ancient Egyptians
Today, we applied our mummification knowledge in another context. We are investigating the effectiveness of mummification using tomatoes. We mummified one tomato using salt and toilet roll but didn’t mummify the other. We are going to observe the tomatoes over the next few weeks to see what happens.
As part of our Ancient Egyptian topic, we have been learning about the process of mummification. The children found it very interesting! We even had a go at mummifying our friends.
Year 4 stars!
This week we have had some excellent pieces of home work and art work completed by our children. Take a look.
Ancient Egyptian bread
As part of our history topic, we made our very own Ancient Egyptian bread. We worked together to weight the ingredients and follow the recipe carefully. Some of our chose to flavour our bread with honey and/or dates. It was so much fun but very messy.
