We had a lovely Wellbeing week last week. The children had a wide range of new experiences to try out and enjoy from creating stop motion animations, making pizza from scratch and trying out ballet. We had an afternoon in the environmental area where we lit the fire and made smoors, found a slow worm and explored the local nature. Sports day was a huge success, as was the family pic nic. What a great week. Check out the school Flicker account for more photos!
Posted 01 July, 2024
Father's Day
The children have been busy again over the past couple of weeks, getting back into the school routine after the half term break. We have completed out Multiplication checks, and the children all tried their best and worked hard to show us what they know. In Science the children have been completing STEM projects to design and build prototypes for bridges. We have been exploring which shapes are the strongest and how we can use them to support our structures. We had a great turn out for the Father's day biscuit decorating. It was so lovely to see so many of you.
The History team hosted a gifted and talented afternoon, where they got to dig around for artifacts.
Please find a link to the Forex Expedition Kit List below:-
Year 4 have continued to make incredible progress with their swimming skills, showing resilience and pushing themselves outside of their comfort zones! They have learnt to swim longer distances, use different strokes and some even jumped off the diving boards!
Back in the classroom, the children have been using their journalistic writing skills to write a newspaper report about Dr Baranado. We have been really impressed with the quality of their vocabulary and creative flair. During numeracy, as part of our money unit, we have been adding and subtracting numbers up to two decimal places, both mentally and using written calculations: a vital skill for later life.
Posted 23rd May, 2024
Swimming
Year 4 have been very excited about their swimming classes, they whole year group have been amazing at listening to instructions, getting dressed quickly and quietly and making the Riverside adults very proud! Some children have had to face very real fears with the water and swimming in front of their friends but we have been blown away at how well they have been getting on at learning such a vital life skill.
Back in the classroom, the children used their design skills and scientific knowledge of electrical circuits to create their very own night lights. They learnt to make their own switches and investigated what makes a good conductor in science.
Posted 10th may, 2024
NVV Incinerator
At the end of last term Year 4 went altogether on a field trip to the incinerator at NVV. The children completed 3 activities, a tour of the site, a quiz on how the energy is made from the waste they burn and how to get energy from lemons to light a bulb. The children were all very well behaved and did us proud!
Towards the end of last term, we also finished up our unit on gymnastics and the children worked in pairs to create a balance and movement routine combining symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes and balances with their partners.
Currently, in our ukulele classes, Mrs Smith has been teaching the children how to compose their own songs. The children have thought about what interests them and written their own lyrics and melody to match.
Posted 25 Apr, 2024
Space Odyssey
We have started the second half of the spring term with lots of hands on and interactive learning!
To kick off our Geography unit on sustainability, Space Odyssey came in to visit us with the mobile planetarium with 360° 3D digital experience with the learning objectives around caring for our planet and sustainability.
In Science, we have a new unit on teeth and the digestive system. We have been learning about the different type of teeth humans and animals have and how these are different depending on the diet of the animal. We have started an experiment on what happens to teeth (or eggs) when left in sugary drinks for a period of time. The children got to see how well they brush their own teeth by using the dental tablets to highlight the spots they may be missing when brushing so they can be more careful in the future.
For our Art unit we are exploring Monet and his style of painting. We have been learning about mixing our own colours from only using the 3 primary colours (red, yellow and blue) and changing the tone of colours.
In maths, the children have been flying through the subtraction pathway and are really impressing us with their effort and resilience when moving onto the symbolic method.
Posted 29th Feb, 2024
Geometric Patterns
In Numeracy, we have been exploring fractions and decimals. These can be tricky to understand but the children have shown great resilience and worked really hard. We are so pleased with their progress.
In Computing, the children have been creating shapes and learning about repeated loops to continue to make geometric patterns.
For Design and Technology, we have continued with our design brief on making a jewellery box for our Anglo-Saxon brooches. The children created nets, scored the card to make clean folds, decorated the boxes and strengthened them to safely hold the brooches.
Great work Year 4!
Have a great half term and we'll see you back here soon!!
Posted 8th Feb, 2024
Multiplication and Division Pathways
We have been very busy in year 4 so far this term! The children have been working very hard and are learning to be more resilient. In Numeracy we have been flying through the multiplication and division pathways. The children have learnt about number factors to make a product and exploring how many ways they can multiply numbers to make a given product.
In Design and Technology we are creating Jewlery boxes to hold out Anglo-Saxon styled broaches. We have been exploring nets and shell structures , both physically and digitally using Polydrons and an CAD design tool called TinkerCAD.
In PE we have been thinking about shape and balances in gymnastics. The children practiced their tucks, pikes and straddles.
In Science we have been learning about sound and this week pitch, the children made their own simple instruments and explored how the different sized rubber bands sound when plucked.
keep up the good work Year 4!
Posted 25th Jan
Anglo-Saxon Britain
So far this Spring term Year 4 have been learning about the Anglo Saxons. We started the term off by learning how the Romans retreated and left Britain and then the Anglo-Saxon tribes came in and took over. We looked at primary and secondary sources of information and explored artefacts. The children then went on to design their own Anglo-Saxon styled brooches from clay and in Design and Technology we will be designing and making jewellery boxes to contain our brooches.
In science we have started to learn about sound and how we hear. In computing we are looking at programming and creating shapes with reptation both online with the Turtle academy and with programmable devices ProBots.
Posted 19th Jan, 2024
Investigating living things in the local environment
Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been outside exploring the environmental area as part of their research into living things and what we have in our local environment. The children were very careful to be gentle with the creatures and not to disturb them too much!
In Numeracy we have been looking at statistics this week and the classes worked out how to represent the amount of food needed to feed Santa's reindeer throughout the year.
They have also been brushing up their literacy, history and geography skills in a cross curricula write to imagine they were American solders about to leave from the Saltash passage to travel over to Normandy to fight in WW2.
Well done on all of your hard work year 4! Keep it up.
Posted: 18 Dec, 2023
Science, Maths & Computing
Over the last couple of weeks in Science the children have been learning about living things and animal classification. We practiced our own classification skills by asking yes/no questions about the biscuits to classify them into groups.
This week's Maths learning has all been about time and converting analogue clocks to digital times. These boys have really impressed us with their progress and determination.
For our computing lessons, we have been learning how to edit audio on the app GarageBand on the iPads and adding different sounds to our recordings.
