Friday 22nd December 2023
Merry Christmas!
We have had a lovely week filled with Christmas crafts, games and music! We had our Christmas party on Thursday afternoon which was fantastic (as the photos show!). We played musical statues, pass the parcel, Christmas corners, won prizes and enjoyed a Christmas movie with cake and juice. The children (and I) loved it.
I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas, New Year and a lovely break :)
Mrs Graham.
Friday 15th December 2023
Enrichment Week- ‘A Cover is not the book so open it up and take a look’
Enrichment week this week has focused on reading and promoting a love of reading for pleasure. We have had lots of fun doing a range of activities!
We started the week with a ‘Book Blanket’. This consisted of a range of books that children may or may not have seen or read before. It included poetry books, non-fiction and fiction books and books from authors that they probably would never normally choose to read. We had a great discussion around the books/ authors and the covers of the books. They then chose a book to read for the week and completed a book review on this.
We also made our very own ‘Reading River’ display for the classroom. This showcases everything that we have read so far this year (it is a lot!). The children also made their own ’24-Hour Read’ poster. Prior to this, they took a worksheet home and were tasked with thinking about everything that they had read in the past 24-hours; the purpose of this was to show the children that reading is not just ‘reading a book’.
To end the week, we did some ‘paired reading’ with the Reception children. This was lovely and they all thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you for a lovey week. Have a nice weekend :)
Friday 8th December 2023
Prayer space and a visit from Adam Bushnell
What a fantastic week we have had this week! On Tuesday, we attended a Prayer Space where we listened to the story of how Jesus was born and then took part in a range of activities such as making foil angels, rainbow scratch art and a Christmas quiz. It was a lovely morning! :)
On Wednesday, we were then extremely lucky to receive a visit from the author Adam Bushnell. This was a fantastic experience and the children loved it! The focus was Christmas but with a twist! The aim was to write a Christmas themed Romeo and Juliet. The children began the session by writing a sonnet all about their favourite part of Christmas. This was very funny! Some children wrote about pigs in blankets, building snowmen, eating turkey, spending time with family and of course, opening presents! They then moved onto developing their main characters for Romeo and Juliet. There was a range of characters ranging from Romeo Elf, to Juliet Pudding, to Tybalt Grinch, to Elf mam. The creativity and vocabulary that was used by the children was outstanding! There was also some drama in there with the children acting out the plot of Romeo and Juliet! What a fabulous session it was, I think we all learnt lots from Adam and we always really appreciate his time when he visits.
We have had a brilliant week and the class have worked really hard! Mrs Graham.
Friday 1st December 2023
Marble Jar Treat
Well done Asia for filling your marble jar! This is down to your great listening skills, working as a team and working hard. To recognise this fantastic achievement, we had a pyjama and movie morning. Myself and the children thoroughly enjoyed this!
What a perfect day, the first of December, snow and the Grinch!
Well done :)
Mrs Graham
Friday 24th November 2023
Fire Safety Assembly
Today, we were very lucky to get a visit from the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service to deliver a fire safety session. This was very informative and covered general fire safety advice such as the importance of smoke alarms, a fire escape plan and how to call 999.
The children really enjoyed this and were very involved. I was very proud of how they interacted and asked and answered questions!
Well done Year 4
Thursday 16th November 2023
Art
Over the past couple of weeks in Art, we have been focusing on recreating portraits of two Tudor monarchs- Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. This links nicely with our History topic of the Tudors and Stuarts.
The children were shown a portrait of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and they were then each given a square piece of the picture to recreate. Once finished, we then put them all back together to create a collage of the original portraits. I think the children have done brilliantly and the level of detail that they put into their work is outstanding! I am very proud of them and I am sure that you will agree. :)
Friday 10th November 2023
PE
What a lovely first week back we have had! It has been really nice to hear what everyone got up to during the half-term :)
This week in PE, we have focused on Dance and Fitness. In PE, the children unleased their inner spy by learning the chorography to a dance called ‘The Spy’. We discussed words that are associated with spies and how they think they move. The children thought of some fantastic words such as ‘creep’, ‘roll’, ‘jump’ and ‘sneaky’. Why don’t you ask your child if they can remember the steps and to show you the dance?
In Fitness, we explored 4 components of fitness; speed, agility, strength and balance. We then incorporated these components into a carousel of activities. We started with a warm-up which included squats, sprinting on the spot and balancing on our tip toes! We then took part in sprints, shuttle runs and bean bag flicks. It was a great session!
Have a lovely weekend :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 20th October 2023
Library Visit
We were extremely lucky to attend a workshop at Crawcrook Library today. The workshop focused on encouraging children to read for pleasure and to make use of their local library.
We were greeted by a spooky witch and presented with creepy tokens! We were then put into groups and took part in a Halloween and book themed quiz. The 2 groups with the highest score then competed to find the hoops hidden around the library and then the final winner had a chance at winning a prize by throwing the hoops around a witch’s hat. It was a lot of fun! We then had some free time to explore the books in the library, which was a lovely way to end the workshop.
Myself and the children thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!
Have a lovely weekend :)
Friday 13th October 2023
Torches
This week, we have continued working on our Halloween torches in Design and Technology and have moved onto the assembly part, which is very exciting! This week’s lesson was focused on making the housing and reflector for the torch. Next week, we will fit the circuitry inside the housing. Once complete, we will decorate our creations in a spooky design!
Have a lovely weekend! Mrs Graham :)
Friday 6th October 2023
National Poetry Week
This week in English, we have been focusing on Poetry as it is National Poetry Week. The theme of this year’s National Poetry Week is ‘Refuge’ and the poem that we have focused and taken inspiration from is called ‘At the End of the Day’ by Matt Goodfellow.
As a class, we have discussed what it means to take ’refuge’ in writing. We explored the idea that sometimes our thoughts can overwhelm us and make us feel a little ‘heavy’. Writing can help us by getting thoughts out of our head and onto a page; writing can be a form of escapism.
All of the children then wrote their own poems called ‘Things that are on my mind’ detailing all of the things that they were thinking about. We discussed that sometimes our thoughts can spark other thoughts and we can go down a little rabbit hole. These trains of thought are therefore reflected in our poems.
I was genuinely blown away by the poems that all of the children have written. They were all so enthusiastic about writing their poems and put so much care, attention and detail into them.
A few of the class even read their poems out in Celebration Assembly!
Well done Asia! :)
Mrs Graham.
Friday 29th September 2023
English- Losing Tale
Over the past few weeks in English, as part of the Primary Writing Project, we have been focusing on ‘Losing tales’. This unit began with learning our model text- David’s New Watch. To help us to learn and embed this, we drew a story map and learnt to re-tell the story with actions.
Whilst learning the structure and key elements of our model text, we have also focused on specific areas of grammar within the text such as adverbs, adjectives and using speech punctuation correctly.
The children have grown so much in confidence with their writing since the beginning of term, not only in using grammar but also in their word choices and ideas.
This week, the children have put everything that they have learnt about losing tales into practise and they have written their own losing tale.
I am so proud of their writing and I have enjoyed reading all of their stories! Well done :) Mrs Graham.
Friday 22nd September 2023
Design and Technology
In Design and Technology this half-term, we have a very spooky design brief- to make a Halloween torch that a small child could take ‘trick or treating’!
In order to help us to do this, we have been learning all about circuits and switches. Last week, we explored and made simple, series and parallel circuits and this week, we made switches and added these into our circuits.
The children have been fantastic and have thoroughly enjoyed learning all about circuits and electricity!
I cannot wait to see everyone’s final designs :)
Mrs Graham.
Friday 15th September 2023
French
Today we were lucky enough to have a very authentic French lesson taken by one of our Teaching Assistants Mrs Cornforth (who is from Bordeux in France)! The children absolutely loved this lesson!
They recapped French greetings, such as ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Coucou’ and numbers 1-10. They were fantastic at this and had remembered so much from previous years.
They then ended the lesson with a good old game of ‘snap’ of English and French numbers.
Well done Asia!
Have a lovely weekend :)
Mrs Graham
Friday 8th September
Welcome back everyone! What a fantastic first week we have had. All the children have settled in so well and it has been lovely to see them again!
We have had a very busy week of paper bridge building in DT, winning house team points in PE, writing and thinking about creating interesting characters in English, finding out about the North East in Geography, working chronologically through time in History, solving problems in maths and having lots and lots of fun during it all.
We particularly enjoyed creating mosaic art influenced by our class continent and creating doorway poetry inspired by our hopes and dreams for Year 4.
We hope you enjoy the photos of them.
After such a great start, we can’t wait to see what next week brings.
Happy weekend! Mrs Graham :)