Year 4 Blog

Reading Plus

This week has been  very exciting for all the Year Four team and all of the pupils. Everyone has been introduced to our new reading programme , 'Reading Plus'. We have all completed our online assessment and questionnaire and are ready for the off to improve our reading. We want everyone to use the online programme at home as often as you can, as well as in school. GET READING!!! 

Snow White Pantomime

What a treat we all had on Friday. We all watched the pantomime  of Snow White. We all joined in with the songs and laughed and laughed at all the jokes and funny actors. The funniest part was when Mr. Jardine, Mr. Benson and Miss Batey were asked to join in the dancing.

New Year 2020

Happy New Year to everyone from all of us in Year Four!

We have had a very busy start to the year. Spelling assessments have all been completed and we have started our new topic of The Tudors.

4J have started coaching sessions, delivered by South Ribble Sports Development Team on Tuesday mornings, we will be focusing on athletics skills; running, jumping and throwing.

Merry Christmas Everyone

We've had an exciting week. We have been making Christmas pictures to represent the Christmas story and writing about our pictures.

On Tuesday we made felt Christmas tree decorations. We chose a tree colour and stitched them with our chosen thread, after sewing them we stuffed them and added a star decoration and some pom poms for decoration- hopefully they made it onto your tree at home!

Wednesday afternoon was great fun, we had a party with games and dancing. Have a look at our pictures...

The Year 4 team wish you all a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Such a proud moment to see all of Year Four playing in, the end of year brass concert. They were fabulous.

Christmas is coming

At the begining of the week we all thoroughly enjoyed watching Year Two perform 'The Landlord's Cat' nativity play. All of the performers got their lines 'purr'fect. It was amazing. Well done Year Two.

Sewing practise

We have started practising our sewing techniques, ready to make a Christmas decoration. We have been working on perfecting our running stitch and back stitch. 

Dragon's Den

In our English lessons we have been focusing on persuasive writing. Our teachers made it very interesting for us all and asked us to write a sales pitch for the product we wanted to sell.

We created a mind map with great adjectives, interesting and unique selling points. We designed a poster to advertise our toy and then in groups we created a sales pitch and presented it to our teachers and all of Year Four. Before we did this we watched a video of Dragon's Den that gave us clues and techniques on how to put on a great presentation.

Our teachers and class mates gave us feed back and told us things that we had done well and things that we could do to improve our presentation. It was a fun and exciting experience.  

Learning to tell the time

During this half term we are concentrating on learning to tell the time. We have been studying the analogue clock and digital time. In addition we have been learning to convert between seconds, minutes and hours. 

Fun Science Lesson

In Science we are learning about 'states of matter'. This week we we observed how solid chocolate could be melted into a liquid but then reversed back into a solid. As part of the experiment we learned some scientific language such as 'viscosity', which we found out means - thick and gluey in its texture. This was a fun experiment. After melting the chocolate, we mixed rice crispies into the chocolate to make crispie cakes. 'Yummy'. 

Assessment Week

Bake Off

What a success the P.T.F.A. Bake Off has been. Lots of children from Year Four and other year groups baked big cakes, biscuits, cup cakes and tray bakes. Everyone who entered, paid £1 to enter and the cakes were judged by the P.T.F.A. A certificate was given for the first, second and third place and a small prize for each of the category winners was given. At the end of the school day the cakes were sold off, to raise money for our school. We were very proud that the winner of the big cake and the overall winner of the competition was a Year Four pupil.

Well done to William Ball.

 This week The Lancashire Sports Development Team have visited 4S to teach Athletics. Our tutor is called Dave and he has been teaching us different running skills, such as: Sprinting, long distance and relay running. The class were praised for their excellent work and behaviour. Thomas and Corey were awarded team tokens for their excellent answers, during the session. We are looking forward to next session.

In English, all of Year Four have been learning about Haiku poems that originate from Japan. Each poem has three lines. The first line has got five syllables, the second line has got seven syllables and the third line has got five syllables. We have enjoyed writing our own Haiku poems, especially the ones about Autumn. 

This is a poem that Janelle wrote about Autumn:

Ancient Greece

Over this half term we have been learning about Ancient Greeks. As part of our Art and DT lessons, we have been experimenting with clay and have made pots using different techniques. Our pots have been painted in a terracotta colour and decorated with black patterns. We are all looking forward to half term and hoping for some decent weather.

Year Four

In Year four, we have settled into our new year group really well.

We are pleased to welcome our new teacher 'Mr Jardine, who was previously a pupil at our school. 

One of our main focuses in Maths is to learn our times tables. In English and Topic we have been studying Greek Mythology, which has been great fun.

Welcome to Lostock Hall Community Primary School, Mr Jardine.

Pop up Fun!

We have now started our new topic in Design Technology - Pop Up Books. We began today by investigating a range of different pop up mechanisms, and created our own examples of each one. Some of us found the 'bird's beak' pop up mechanism a little tricky but we got there in the end!

Wonderful Homework Tasks!

The Year 4 children have again produced some excellent homework tasks this half term. These have included word clouds, learning new languages, times tables practice and creating personal coats of arms. It's also been lovely to be able to sample a range of delicious cakes which the pupils have created as part of their home learning.

Thank you Mr Tempan and Scopes4SEN!

Many thanks to one of our ex-teachers Mr Tempan who came into school to set up our new telescope (donated by Scopes4SEN charity). The Y4 children were shown how to use the scope and we observed a little bird sat on a branch all the way across the school field!

Creative Arts Week

We have had a fantastic Creative Arts week in Year 4! We have been looking at different land marks in the UK such as the Angel of the North, Blackpool Tower, The Giant's Causeway, Big Ben and the White Cliffs of Dover. We have created our own collages of Blackpool tower using coloured straws and also worked with our visiting artist Sarah to create prints of different landmarks. It has also been fun to listen to and sing a range of songs from around the UK, and also to learn a Scottish dance.

Year 4 - Fun in the snow!

We certainly could not resist getting outside and having a play in the snow. All the children were very excited...well so was I too!! :-)

Sikhism - The 5 Ks

Year 4 have been learning about the 5 Ks in Sikhism:

1) Kara- A bracelet to remind Sikhs that god has no beginning and no end.

2) Kachera- shorts that are worn underneath clothing.

3) Kirpan - a small sword to represent defence.

4) Kesh - the Sikh belief that hair is a gift from god and should be left to grow and not be cut.

5) Kanga - a small wooden comb.

Science- Sound Experiments

Year 4 have been carrying out investigations all week in science. In this particular lesson the children made the classic string telephone!

Welcome back!

After a great 2 weeks off, children in Year 4 were ready to get stuck into some mathematical written strategies!

Brilliant Brass

We all really enjoyed performing in a brass concert for all the juniors. Firstly, we sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Following this, class 4S played a tune on brass instruments called, 'Dee Cee's Got the Blues.' Next, class 4B played 'Jingle Bells.' Our finale was a performance of the Abba classic, 'Mama Mia!' It was great to be able to perform to other children in the school and to show our developing brass playing skills.

Comments from our musicians:

Edward: 'It felt amazing to perform in front of so many people.'

Lilly: 'I really enjoyed playing the cornet, I would love to be able to perform to an audience again.'

Toby: 'I liked playing 'Mama Mia' best, it was great fun.'

Wonderful Homework Tasks

Year 4 have created some excellent pieces of homework this half term. We've had fantastic ancient Greek shields, dazzling firework art work and fact files about a range of animals. Well done to everyone!

Creative Clay

We have begun our art project based on ancient Greece. For the last few weeks we have been examining a range of designs shown on Greek pottery. Today we created our own pinch pots using modelling clay and etched a range of designs into them. We also added patterns onto our pots using a contrasting colour of clay.

Speke Hall Visit

We all really enjoyed our recent visit to Speke Hall in Liverpool. It was fascinating to see inside a real Tudor house and imagine what it would have been like to live there over 400 years ago. We learnt lots about the Norris family who built this impressive mansion. One of our favourite parts of the day was seeing Dylan and Lillie dressed up as a Tudor lord and lady!

Homework Superstars!

Well done to Year 4 for producing such excellent pieces of homework this half term. We've had delicious cakes, personalised coats of arms, letters to our favourite authors, created our own dances and much more. 

We have been enjoying creating our own group drama sketches in English, based on the Pixar animation entitled 'For the Birds.' We enjoyed using our voices, movements, facial expressions and gestures to convey the different characters' feelings and emotions.

Our Wonderful Homework!

Here are some examples of our spring term homework tasks. We produced some excellent work including a range of creative and beautifully decorated Easter cards.

Creative Arts Week- Tudor Printing

As part of our Creative Arts Week 2018, Year 4 were delighted to welcome local artist, Sarah Hicks into our class rooms. All children took part in a fantastic workshop where children created images of Tudor Houses and Henry VIII. Here are some examples of the work produced!

Super Gymnastics

We have been very lucky this term as we have had the opportunity to receive 5 weeks of wonderful gymnastics coaching with, Tanya, from our South Ribble coaching partnership! Each week we built on previous learning and had the opportunity to perform routines in front of our class on a number of occasions.  

Year 4's Fabulous Homework

This term for our homework we had the opportunity to complete a range of different activities. These included making a musical instrument, drawing a portrait of Henry VIII, doing a sketch of somewhere we have been, making some Tudor clothing, and many other activities. One of the most popular activities was creating the portrait of Henry VIII. In addition, we also had a piece of Maths homework, along with completing a family activity. We all really enjoyed our homework!

Year 4's Poetry Performance

In our topic lessons this term we have been learning all about The Tudors and specifically, King Henry VIII. In our English lessons we have written a range of different poems based on our topic. The styles of poems included kenning and acrostic poems. 

After we had all written different poems the teachers had difficult decisions to make as we could only perform 3 from the whole year! The teachers chose Becky Collins' acrostic poem and used a mixture of lots of children's work for the kenning poem.

We then had to all learn the poems off by heart in only 10 days! On top of this we had to learn a poem from Horrible Histories based on Henry VIII wives. 

After lots of hard work we finally learnt all of the poems and had the opportunity to perform to the whole school. It was scary at first but we all loved it! 

Sound and Hearing

Our new topic for Science is all about 'sound and hearing'. We have been exploring how sounds are made and have learnt that we hear sounds through vibrations. When sound is created the sound waves move particles in the air, causing them to vibrate. This is the same for particles in solids and liquids to! We decided to experiment making our own telephones. After making lots of predictions, we found that as long as there is tension in the string we were able to hear our friend through the other cup.

4S and 4C Christmas party

We have all been enjoying a Christmas party in our classes today. We started off with some party food and Christmas songs in the hall, together with year 3. We then had a carousel of activities including; playing bingo, an Xmas quiz and even pin the carrot on the snowman! One of our favourite games was the chocolate game and all games ensured all went home with bellies full of chocolate or Haribo!

Our six week homework projects.

We have been making lots of exciting things at home over the past six weeks, particularly linked to our Ancient Greek topic. Some of these creative activities include; building our very own Parthenon, designing board games and even having a go at cooking with our families. Our teachers have been really impressed with the quality of the work we have produced.
 

New Technologies Week

We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to explore some fantastic technology, from hand held gadgets to wireless games. We are looking forward to spending the rest of the week becoming more familiar with lots of interesting pieces of technology.

Making Magical Potions!

In 4S we have been reading The Worst Witch, so we decided to join Miss Hardbroom's potion class and create our very own invisibility potions.

In 4C we have been focusing on Stitch Head, we transformed ourselves into mad professors to make mysterious elixirs.

Welcome to Miss Horder 

We are all really pleased to welcome Miss Horder to Year 4. She will be working with us until January as part of the School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) programme.

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Creative Clay

In Art we have been having fun creating our own 'pinch' pots made from coloured clay, inspired by ancient Greek pottery. Firstly, we rolled our piece of clay into a ball shape, then we used our thumb and fingers to shape a small pot. Finally, we added a range of patterns to our pots. We are looking forward to creating and painting larger pots from air drying clay in the next few weeks.