Year 4 Blog

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.