Autumn 2 2020

In geography this half term, we will be looking at the Great American Road Trip. We’ll be using compass points and coordinates to locate different states and cities using atlases and also electronic maps. We will be comparing different cities and geographical features from across North and South America. 

Our new science topic is Eating. We will explore the journey of food from mouth all the way through our digestive system. We will also look at the teeth and diet of other animals.
Through investigations we will learn how to take care of our teeth and even create a model of our own digestive system! 

Violin Lessons

Today, we have done a dress rehearsal for our final performance next week.

This will be videoed and published on social media for all of our friends and family to watch!

WB 23.11.20

This week we have created our own digestive system and follow the journey our food takes through our bodies. It was definitely one to remember! 

We also have had our half term Spelling Bee- congratulation to our contestants from this half term. There was some amazing spelling!

WB 16.11.20

This week is Anti-Bullying week, so on Monday we came in our odd socks to show the importance of being different. This year we have been focusing on cyber bullying, we created laptops which showed how to protect ourselves from cyber bullying and what to do. We then created a tanka about cyber bullying.

Tankas are a form of Japanese poetry which focuses on the number of syllables in each line. 5,7,5,7,7 syllables. 
 

WB 9.11.20

This week we completed our tooth egg shell experiment. We learnt about how we can keep our teeth healthy. 

We also loved watching the video on Science Enquiry prepared by our Year 6 Science Ambassadors. 

Today we learnt about ‘Blues’ music and its origins.

We learnt to play ‘The Skeleton Blues’ by heart. For part of the performance, we had to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings.

Year 4 violin lessons

Today we learnt all about the dotted minim, which lasts three beats.

Music which has 3 beats in a bar is often called a ‘waltz’.

We were challenged to play the dotted minims with one bow in our new piece called ‘Katie’s Waltz’.

This week we’ve started our new science topic learning all about Eating- from our teeth all the way through the digestive system. We’ve begun by setting up an investigation to look at how drinks can affect our teeth. 
 

Year 4 violin lessons

Today we practised our bow hold and playing with control. We practised crossing strings clearly, without touching another string.

We practised following the bowing signs, telling us whether to use an up-bow - V, or down-bow - П.

Today we learned two new musical words, pizzicato and tremolo.

Pizzicato means you pluck the string with your finger.

A tremolo is when you move your bow back and forth very quickly on the string to make it ‘tremble’!

We used these two techniques to play a new piece called, ‘Hall of the Mountain King’.

Today we learned a new piece called ‘Snowflakes’ and rehearsed our other 2 pieces from last week.

We learned the minim symbol, which lasts 2 whole beats.

WB 29.9.2020

This week we have been looking at amplitude in science. We created an enquiry to look at how sounds changed over distances, luckily the weather was nice for us to try it out. We had to see how far away we could hear the ball bouncing, shaker shaking and then Miss Muir clicking.  

We have been studying 'Varmints' a book by Helen Ward.

We have used the book as a basis for our writing.

Read our descriptions of events at the beginning of the story. Can you recognise our use of fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases to add detail to our writing. Have we hooked you into reading more of the book?

We have been looking at and designing pantomime sets for traditional pantomime productions. Today, we started to create our own 3D sets. Can you guess which pantomimes our sets are from? 

Which is your favourite pantomime?

WB 21.9.2020

Class 9 have been looking about pitch this week in both science and also during their violin lesson.

We investigated which elastic band had the highest pitch, then applied this knowledge when looking at the strings on our violins.

WB 14.9.20

The Romans

We enjoyed using Microsoft Teams to take part in an online history lesson, where we completed our own Roman timelines. 

WB 7.9.20

The Ancient Egyptians.

This week we spent time learning about the Ancient Egyptians which was the history topic we didn’t get to cover in Year 3. We learnt about the River Nile and the hierarchy of Ancient Egyptian society. 
 

We have enjoyed being back at school and sharing our experiences of life over the past few months with our friends and teachers.

We thought carefully about the things which bring us joy and make us smile!

What makes you smile?