Year 4

W E L C O M E

to Year 4

Autumn I 

Thursday 26^th March 2020

Good morning year 4! The sun is shining again and I you will be able to enjoy spending some time outside.  Remember to follow all the current guidelines.  Yesterday, I spent some time, like a number of you, in my garden.  I was struck with all the examples of new growth which I always find exciting at this time of year.  I’ve uploaded some photos of what I spotted.  An additional challenge for you today is to see what examples of new growth you can find.  Please send me any photos and I can upload them so everyone can see them.  It was good to see quite a few of you enjoying the outside.  If you haven’t seen the photos from yesterday do click on 25.03.2020.  Whilst in my garden I found something very interesting in a nesting box at the bottom of my garden (it reminded me of the strange going ons in Fly Me Home) – have you watched the video clip?  I will have another look today!  Do visit the Salisbury Cathedral website and have a look at the nesting peregrine falcons – quite amazing!  I've heard a number of you are learning a new language.  Click on this link if you're interested in learning Korean!

Wednesday 25^th March 2020

Good morning!  We have been so fortunate to have had such nice weather.  Hope you are making the most of it and getting out; going for a walk or playing in the garden.  A couple of new websites to draw your attention to – Draw with Rob and Puffin Schools.  More information about these can be found in the ‘Surprise Activities’ section below.  In addition to these a website I have used before is The Children’s University of Manchester.  I’ve used it when teaching ‘The Eye’ in science; I found the animations really helpful.  There’s a whole section on micro-organisms which includes a small section of viruses.  I’ve uploaded some instructions (Surprise Activities), written by CE, on how to decorate and egg – thanks CE!  There are some new videos in the ‘Mini Movies’ section.  Do take a look.  One last site – This is for those that like David Walliams books – The World of David Walliams!  I hope you have a great day.  Remember to take regular breaks from your screen.  Try out some of the good old classic games: noughts and crosses, boxes, hangman.

Tuesday 24^th March 2020

Start your day by listening to this - inspiring!

Good morning!  I do hope you all slept well.  Thank you for all the photos.  Do have a look at them in our Y4 Home Learning Photo Gallery.  I have also set up another sub-page called ‘Mini Movies’.  There is one of an inspiring musician trying out one of the Y4 activities.  Your challenge is to ‘Guess that tune!’  Great effort but I’m still guessing … I hope you’re up to date with the news.  Do click on Newsround.  There’s some also some helpful advice if you’re worried about coronavirus.  There’s also some top tips from an astronaut about how to self-isolate.  If you’re not sure what social distancing is all about watch this video.

I’ve uploaded some more English and Maths activities for today.  Don’t forget to have a look at the non-negotiables.  I’m waiting for some more Time Table Rock Star challenges to come my way.  Jamie Oliver has set up a new show called, ‘Keep Cooking and Carry On’.  After seeing pictures of some culinary delights you might want to have a look at this.  The easy tomato sauce looks nice!

Have a great day!

Monday 23rd March 2020

Wow, what a day!  Well done everyone - you are all STARS especially your parents!  Do have a look at all the amazing photos I've been sent.  Click on this 'link'.  Make sure you all get plenty of rest before it all starts again tomorrow ...

Good morning, I do hope you had a good weekend.  I went for a bike ride with one of my daughters.  Isla, our Cocker Spaniel, had a lovely weekend - more than the usual number of walks!  Have you seen the rainbows that are springing up in people's front room windows?  It's part of a new craze called, 'Chase the Rainbow'.  Today, you could draw or paint your own rainbow to stick up.  Send me a picture of it and I can put it in our photo gallery - mine's already there.  If you do go out to get some fresh air see how many rainbows you can spot.  Remember to go with an adult and keep a safe distance from others.

Our class page is full of really good activities - do have a look.  Many of the activities are online so it will be really important to have regular screen breaks and do other things including plenty of exercise.  Don't forget Joe Wick's workout at 9:00am.  Please do look at activities on other class pages.  Don't worry about giving the other pages a few more clicks - they'll be clicking on ours too.

Have a great day - Mr Chandler

Welcome to the Year 4 class web page.  I hope you find the activities and learning I upload engaging, helpful and fun.  In these strange times we are all learning together.  Please do let me know by email how you are doing and interesting activities you come across so I can share with others.  I will put these in the 'Surprise Activities' section - see below.

Routine and structure is going to be really important.  At the same time we need our days need to have some flexibility in order to allow us to help around the home and enjoy the time with our family - playing games, going for walks, chatting, watching films together etc.

The home learning letter will help you understand our expectation of you - please do read this - see below.

A possible structure you might want to follow is this:

Morning

9:00 - 9:30 - Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) workout

9:30 - 9:45 - Rest & Read - you'll need this if you do the full 30 minutes!

9:45 - 10:00 - Times Table Rockstars - practise your tables in the garage and build up your speed in the studio.  If you've forgotten your login details email me.

10:00 - 10:30 - 'morning break' - you can have half an hour not 15 minutes!  You could use this time to watch the news or do some jobs around the house.

10:30 - 11:00 -  Read along with Mr Chandler, Mrs Chandler, junior Chandlers or even Isla the dog!  We will be reading 'Charlie Changes into a Chicken'.  You should have a copy.  If you don't you could order it from Amazon.  If you don't want to listen to me you can listen to is through Audible (Amazon's Audible book tool) - you could sign up for the 30 day free trial and get this for free!  At the end of the reading session there will be some questions to answer (English Activities)

11:00 - 11:15 -  break

11:15 - 11:45 - a range of maths questions (Maths Activities)

Afternoon

Choose an activity from the Year 4 Learning Grid

Listen to Mr Chandler read the next chapter of 'Fly Me Home' by Polly Ho-Yen

Enjoy the rest of the day - have fun and be creative!

Don't forget to read the 'daily joke'

Don't forget to email any pictures of what you've been up to

Practise your juggling? Top tips here!

Think of one thing today you are thankful for.  Perhaps you could keep a list in the back of your exercise book.

Please see below a letter I've written to the children of Year 4.  Wishing you all the very best.  Mr Chandler.

Today (12.02.2020) the children started using Times Tables Rock Stars.  This is an online activity that allows them to practise their times tables.  For more information about it looked under the 'Maths' section in 'Our Learning'.

Today (23.01.20) has been a day of chocolate!  In maths Mr Chandler helped us understand tenths by dividing a 1 whole Mars Bar into tenths!  The lesson went on to look at how to represent sums such as '3 ÷ 10' as decimals (0.3) and as fractions (3/10).  Needless to say we all enjoyed a tenth of a Mars Bar!

In the afternoon we investigated the temperature that chocolate turns from a solid to a liquid.  Fortunately, there was enough of the chocolate bar for us all to have some.  Click on the 'Science' page below to have a look at the pics.

We're rapidly coming to the end of the Autumn term.  It's been a fantastic term with so much accomplished.  In my search for half decent 'Christmas Cracker' jokes I came across this website.  There's some good jokes and lots of other Christmas related activities.  I enjoyed looking through the 'Christmas Traditions and Customs' page.  Now I know what a 'Jesse Tree' is ...

Christmas Jokes (whychristmas.com)

Children from Y4 are helping to keep the school site free from litter!

It's been a busy day (15.11.19).  We kicked started the day with a morning workout - Joe Wicks's 'Big Morning Moves'.  This was followed by a session learning all about Children in Need.  The children then carried on being physical by heading outside for a tag rugby session.  After lunch we had a guided reading session based around Children in Need and then learnt about Puja (Hindu worship).  The following BBC Bitesize website has some helpful information about Puja.

Puja - a form of Hindu worship

We also learnt where Hindu's worship takes place.  Whilst designing our own shrines we took it in turns to create a wood effect for the front of a 'shoe-box' wardrobes.  Isabelle's was so realistic it looked exactly like the wooden table we have in our classroom!  Have a look at the pics below ...

This week is anti-bullying week (Monday 11th November - Friday 15th November).  We spent this afternoon (13.11.19) finding out exactly what bullying is and the different forms it can take.  We looked at some resources produced by the Anti-Bullying Alliance and explored their theme: Change Starts With Us.

This short video has lots of create ideas that we can all do to make our school an even better school?

Change Starts With Us

Here are some other useful links:

Anti-bullying week (CBBC)

Bars & Melody's Britain's Got Talent anti-bullying song (YouTube)

Why People Bully (CBBC)

Life as a Roman soldier

These websites have lots of useful information.  You'll find this useful when we come to create our fact sheets about Roman soldiers.  Have a look:

Weapons (Primary Homework Help)

Equipment (Primary Homework Help)

Shield (Primary Homework Help)

Roman army training (Primary Homework Help)

Formations (Primary Homework Help)

Roman army facts (DK)

What was life like in the Roman army? (BBC)

The Roman army (Primary Homework Help)

Life as a Roman soldier (YouTube)

Lest we forget

On Thursday 7th November 2019 we enjoyed spending the afternoon constructing simple electrical circuits and learning how to draw precise circuit diagrams.  Here are a few websites that are worth a look:

• Drawing electrical symbols (BBC)
• What is electricity? (BBC)

Today, (25.10.19) we enjoyed answering questions we wrote about Ben's albino pumpkin.  We found out it had a circumference of 98cm.  When Mr Chandler tried to weigh it on his scales it was too heavy.  Fortunately, we worked out another way to measure its weight - see pictures.  Ben also came up with the idea of weighing half of the pumpkin and then doubling it - great thinking!  We actually weighed a quarter of it and multiplied this by 4 - 4 x 2.494kg = 9.976, almost 10kg!  Pumpkins take on average 120 days to grow.  To make a pumpkin grow really big you need to remove all the side stems and feed it!  Ben must have green fingers!  Some of the children counted 48 seeds in 1/8 of the pumpkin.  Roughly, how many seedsis that in total?

Today (23.10.19) we enjoyed a wide range of activities inspired from our class story book - The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.  We had great fun cooking scones - the same recipe Mr Tumnus used when Lucy had tea with him.  The children produced 'Wanted' posters on behalf of the White Witch for Sons of Adams or Daughters of Eve.  Throughout the day the children took it in turns to colour in a huge picture of Aslan and painted black plant pots ready to be planted with spring bulbs.  In Narnia, it's always winter never Christmas ... until Aslan shows up!  The children also made their own paint brushes from 'Narnia' fir trees and painted their own fir trees with them!  What a day!

Today (26.09.19) we visited Verulamium Museum in St. Albans.  We enjoyed a 'Market' workshop learning about many different Roman objects.  Did you know that the Romans used oil to wash themselves with!  They also created underfloor heating.  We were able to see this at The Hypocaust.

Juggling

During the first two days we used 270 balloons and 4kg of rice to make juggling balls - three per child.  Mr Chandler has set us a challenge - to become 'expert' jugglers by the end of the year!

For some tips and advice click on this link juggling.