| This week the children have enjoyed an exciting week with a theatre trip and some exciting, 'hands on' topic work. This was very much needed after the Alfie tests at the start of the week! George's Marvelous Medicine: Monday morning saw the whole of Year 4 taking over the Madinat Theatre to watch a fantastic production of George's Marvelous Medicine. The production was really fun with great memorable bits like a growing and shrinking granny and giant chickens. There was even one scene which particularly stuck in everyone's memory ... the disco granny scene. We had a super time and some real laughs. A great experience for all! As you would expect, the children's behaviour was impeccable and they were a credit to the school and their families. Back to our roots: This week as part of our topic work the children have been learning about written communication through the ages from cave paintings, to using charcoal, wax tablets and letters and even email. The children thoroughly enjoyed getting their hands dirty trying out finger painting on our 'cave walls', and especially loved using clay to create more permanent messages. The photo's of this are included to the side. Diary Writing: Finally this week the children have been writing diaries as a character from the story, The Prince and The Pauper. The children produced some wonderful images using their senses to imagine how the character would feel. I am so pleased to see the progress that 4F have made as writers since September. Here are some sentences they produced that the children are particularly proud of. I think they really show that the children are thinking about their reader when they write. See what you think... " Extraordinary is just the word to describe what happens next. - Kyra Sluggishly I got dressed, the clothes were sooo itchy... but I went with it. -Eva I asked myself, what could he be here for? - Chloe. They were exactly like colourful statues. - Uzayr Then it reminded me about Edward living at my house and I became guilty... -Sam I tried to offer the waiter some food, but he was wordless. They were just like statues standing there. -Run Pu Suddenly the dad came and forced me to go out and beg. -Pia The aroma wafted through the air. -Himakshi And Finally My star of the week... Continuing the theme of wonderful writing my star of the week has made a noticeable improvement to both his handwriting and the content of his work. Well done Sol! Great job! |
This week the children have been busy as usual with a wide variety of activities going on throughout the week. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of the children who recorded their poetry performances and sent them to me this week. What super creativity and hard work you all showed! You really made me smile every time I watched them. Thank you! The Prince and The Pauper: During our English sessions this week the children have been following the story of The Prince and The Pauper, to look at how historical settings are created in literature. The children have begun to look at the feelings of each of the main characters when they swapped roles and will be following this up with a diary extract written from the character's point of view next week. We had some interesting discussions about the feelings and experiences of the characters and so I am expecting to see great things from 4F next week! Music Performances: This week, our usual Music lesson was moved to Thursday and the children were asked to perform a piece for the rest of the class. We had singing, piano playing, recorders ukulele and an oboe. I had the privilege of watching these performance and was blown away by their talent! Lots of the children had clearly practiced very hard at home. What a talented bunch we are! (photos at the bottom of this blog) Investigators: As a follow on to last week's 'Milk Magicians' experiment the children repeated the experiment, changing one variable to in order to investigate the impact of their changes. We made predictions and drew conclusions from our observations. Here are some of the results... To look forward to... I am sure that you do not need a reminder but just to 'jog' your memories, 4F will be visiting the Madinat Theatre on Monday 25th May to see what promises to be a fantastic version of 'George's Marvellous Medicine'. We are really looking forward to the trip! Finally my star of the week: I have to say that this week I was an incredibly proud teacher sitting in our JPS staff room when our French teacher came in especially to see me and say just how wonderful 4F have been! For that, I have to congratulate the whole class, you are all my stars this week! Well done!
Performance poetry:
This week, the children have been learning about poetry and we have been studying one particular poem, "Walking With My Iguana" by Brian Moses. The children have learnt about rhyme, half rhyme and syllables and how these elements help with performance. Having listened to Brian Moses perform the poem, the children then worked in groups to perform sections of the poem creatively for an audience. Their performances were great - really imaginative and you can tell how they have used the syllables to help them. Watch this space, because I hope to be able to put up some videos of the performance! (Once I have been trained!) Since then, the children have started drafting their own versions of the poem using their own choice of animal and rhymes. Rocket Science: This week the children created their rockets, adapting them to change their variables. They measured the distance that their original rocket travelled and compared this to their adapted rocket. They then drew conclusions about the impact of that variable. Timelines: This week the children used their research to create a timeline of one particular invention, tracking the changes to the design and use of the invention in chronological order. Children were amazed to find out just how recently the i-phone was invented! The children presented their findings and their final timelines to the class. Stars: Finally, the star of the week this week for her continued improvement in her writing is Sarah! Well done! Another Messy (but fun) week!
This week in our topic sessions 4F have been learning about the invention of the printing press and as a link to our art sessions, we have been trying out some printing techniques of our own. More about that later. However, I would like to say well done to the children for their super attitudes this week, I really get the feeling that we are starting to get ready for Year 5! Diary entries: This week in English, we have learnt about a new type of recount, a diary. We have learnt to use the first person and to include 'chatty' or conversational interludes in our work to move it on. The children learnt to empathise with characters from traditional fairy tales and have written diary extracts as these characters. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them, they are really entertaining! Printing: As I previously mentioned we have been looking at the printing press this week and how it revolutionized people's access to printed text. As a link into this we have experimented artistically with printing techniques, evaluating the precision, ease of use and just the element of fun involved for each technique. We have even taken on the role of being 'art critics' and given our opinions on famous works of art based on the seven key elements of art. Designing investigations: Continuing our theme of investigations this week the children have learnt how to design an investigation into improving the performance of their paper-straw rockets from last week. They have used their scientific questioning skills from last week to think about variables and how to test them. They have come up with a testing method which they will follow next week and have started to predict what they expect to see. Star of the week! This week, my star of the week is someone who always put 100% effort into everything she does. This is really showing in her work and in her lovely, positive attitude to school. Well done Eva for being a star!
A fun week had by all Here in 4F we have had a lovely end to our second term. As an exit point to our topic of explorers the children created some Mars Rover models to match their designs (with a little adult help of course.) We have also created some art work using oil pastels and we were very fortunate to watch a fantastic production of Pocahontas by our Year 6 children! Art work which is out of this world... To bring our focus on exploring space to a close, the children in 4F have produced some lovely art work based upon the Earth, Moon and Mars. We used oil pastels to create different textures in our work to show depictions of each planet / moon on a black background. We then added some facts about Mars and Earth to explain the differences that we know about. Here are some examples of the children's work. Mars Rovers: We had a great time on Monday morning making our Mars Rover models. Previously the children had designed their model and considered the materials that they were going to use. They then had 1 hour, and the help of numerous parents who came along, to construct their model. I was really impressed with how well the children 'got stuck in' to the making and seemed to really have a clear picture of what their product was going to look like in the end. The results varied greatly in size and there were some variations in shape but all included the key elements of a Mars Rover, which showed a great level of planning from the children. Below are some pictures of the children completing the task and of their finished articles. I would like to thank again all of those parents who were able to attend. We really appreciate the help and support that you give to us, it helps to make learning experiences more memorable for the children! Story writing... This week, to conclude our stories from other cultures writing, we have been beginning to draft and edit our own story. We have looked at the structure that these stories have and we have completed a really tricky challenge this week of writing what might have happened before the story even started! We looked at using a range of sentence styles to build tension, commas for clauses, emphasis and high level vocabulary. Here are some sentences written by the children that they are particularly proud of. Can you spot the commas for clauses? "Sadness melted away into pure fury as he slowly turned the door knob"- Kyra "I wish I never did it, I regret it." -Shenaya "we are a very poor village, in the middle of nowhere, so we cannot afford to buy food." -Imogen "The village was all out hunting and I was left, here, bored." -Craig "Moments before, I got a mind-blowing idea." -Maanya "Bang was the last sound that flooded in my head" -Himakshi "The village went deep down the hole, and I mean deep."- Hassan "The only thing I had left of them, since they were so kind, was a green hat my father wore." -Ansh And Finally... my star of the week... My star of the week award this week goes to Yusuf, whom I have noticed has been making progress in his lessons and has develop the confidence to start offering well-thought-out ideas and explanations in class. This is great to see, keep it up Yusuf! Well, it has been another action-packed week, with Sing and Swing performances, sporting activities and of course lots of exciting learning taking place.
English: In our English sessions this week we have been looking at stories from other cultures. We used Bug Club to look at the story 'Ampata and the Scarlett Macaws'. The children really enjoyed the story and were very talented at retelling it in their own words. We had a tricky task of writing a synopsis of the first two chapters in just 100 words. (give or take a few). The children found this really challenging and learnt to be selective with the detail that they included. Later in the week we compared the plot with another story by the same author, here we learnt to use words to suggest comparison "on the one hand....on the other hand", "although", "however". This enabled the children to construct some high level sentences about the two texts. Science: In Science this week we have had fun learning about how switches work within a circuit. We learnt about their jobs, we became a circuit as a class in a bit of drama to show how they worked before going to the lab. In our lab lesson, children were asked to make a working switch from a variety of materials that they were given. The children had to ensure that it switched the circuit on and off without them having to undo the crocodile clips. This was a tricky job but we got there in the end! We learnt about how a switch can cause the circuit to break, preventing the flow of electrical current. Well done guys! Topic: It is with great enthusiasm that we have started to learn about missions to explore Mars using rovers to investigate. The children have been captivated by the idea of discovering signs of life. We have begun our class mission of inventing a model of a Mars Rover, suitable to send into space! The children have developed their planning skills. They had to think about what the mission would entail, what the climate is like, how the machine would be powered and how it would land on the surface in one piece. They then created a labeled design, considering the materials that we could use to represent their ideas as part of our DT sessions next week. Their homework over the weekend is to collect their items. We begin our making sessions on Monday 23rd March and have invited in to school parents to help. We are very excited about this project and hope to see many of you there to join us! Star of the week: We have had such a good week this week in 4F that I had an incredibly tough decision to make to pick out just one person, the children have all been so involved in the projects and have come up with such great questions. So a huge well done to 4F for that. However, the person who has stood out the most this week has stood out for her excellent contributions to English lessons , that person is Amaaya. Well done Amaaya! Science Galore! This week in 4F we have really focused on our Science topic of electricity. Early in the week, the children looked at which materials are conductors and insulators, using circuits to test their predictions. We discovered that our conductors were mainly made from metal. We later looked at how this applies to wires and a 3 pin plug, where conductors are necessary for it to function and insulators are essential for our safety. Finally this week we had lots of fun in our lab moving objects using static electricity from a balloon and created some funky hairstyles in the process! (see photos). We learnt that positive charges and negative charges attract and that is why these experiments were possible. We were able to move a can, make crazy hair and attract tissue paper when we experimented.
And Finally... My star of the week this week is Zahir, for his excellent Maths homework this week! Great to see the extra effort being put in! Well done!
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May 2015
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