Blackfell Primary School

Welcome to Year 4

Welcome to Year 4! We began our journey with making a promise to our self and each other about what we will promise to do and achieve this year. We all want to improve our handwriting and times tables but we also will make sure everybody in year 4 and our school feels safe and happy. What a great start to our year!

Evil!

As part of our topic into Egyptian Folktales we have been creating our own good and bad characters. We created our own bad character and thought about the language we would use. We decided to use dark words instead of happy words. We then used these to create expanded noun phrase to improve our writing. We really got into our evil characters.

Lights, Camera, Action!

We have begun an exciting new unit in our literacy lessons. We are going to become script writers. To begin our unit we looked at all of the different features of a play script. Then we looked at different scripts and added what was missing. We then worked in groups and created our own drama following the script and the added information.

Horrible Histories

What a fantastic morning we had with Grace from Horrible Histories. We began our session by washing our hands in the River Nile. Did you know Egyptian people were very hygienic? They were always well presented. We then went on to play in the Nile out the Nile game. We learnt all about the class system in Egypt. Servants were the least powerful while Gods were the most. We made our own name plates using hieroglyphics. What a fantastic morning we had. We have learnt a lot about the Ancient Egypt.

Perimeter

As part of our Maths Investigation morning we have been exploring perimeter. We had to create different shaped gardens with the same perimeter using cubes and then draw them to scale in our books. We had lots of fun investigating perimeter.

Respect Web

Together we worked together to created a web of respect in year 4. We began our web by choosing someone to speak about and then telling the class what we respected about them and then passed the web to them. It was great fun and we created a giant web of respect.

RNLI

We had a visit from the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) who came to talk to us about staying safe in and around water. They taught us lots of important facts including: what the different colours of the flags mean and how this impacts our choices in the water, what the lifeguards do and what they wear so they can be easily spotted, what you should do if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation in water, and how to float correctly and call for help if you fall into cold water. We learnt lots of important, life-saving skills and were given leaflets to take away to remind us of what we were taught.

Christmas Jumper Day

It has been lovely to see all of the different Christmas jumpers and t shirts. We are feeling very festive in Year 4 with our Christmas tree and festive Party Time activities.

Party Time

Year 3 and 4 had a fantastic party on Tuesday afternoon. They took part in lots of dancing, musical statues, traditional corners and a couple of games of icebergs. All that dancing was washing down with a nice drink and snack. All the children and staff enjoyed the Christmas party and are ready for more festivities.

Dilemma Drama

Today we have been thinking about different problems and their solutions. We worked in small groups with our friends. We were given a problem and had to create a freeze frame scene to represent it. We then worked together and talked about what would do in this situation. We then created another freeze frame to show the solution. We enjoyed acting out our scenes!

Pitch

As part of our science topic looking into sound we have been exploring the features of pitch and how characteristics of an instrument can affect the pitch. If it is small and light it is usually high pitched. If the instrument is bit and dense it is usually low pitched. We enjoyed exploring pitch in our science lesson.

Mummification

We have been learning about the ancient tradition of mummification. We now all know each step on how to preserve an Egyptian. The most interesting fact we learnt was that the Egyptians put a hook up your nose to remove your brain! YAK. So we decided to try the process. We used a paperclip and a tomato and removed the tomatoes brains! We then covered them in natron (natural salt) and we are leaving them for 50 days! Keep checking our page for the end result!

Durham Oriental Museum

What a fantastic day Year 4 have had with Emily from Durham Oriental Museum learning more about the Ancient Egyptians. We amazed her with all of our facts we already knew! We looked at some artefacts and even got to handle some. We had to search the museum to find information about the different artefacts the museum had in it collection. We role played a real mummification process, unfortunately our mummy did not make it to the afterlife. Our favourite part of the day was seeing two real mummies and learning all about their history and having our questions answered. We all had a fantastic day!

Egyptian Headdress

For part of our Class Assembly we have been making some Egyptian Headdresses. We looked at designs that could be found on death masks and decided that they are normally two colours and in stripes. Look out for them in our assembly on the 28th of November.

Acrostic Poems

After all of the discussions about what we respect about ourselves and others we used our ideas to create some acrostic poems. We then read them aloud to the class. It was lovely to share all of our ideas in poetry.

Egyptian Class Assembly

Year 4 enjoyed sharing all of their learning about the Ancient Egyptians in our class assembly today. We shared our diary entries, sang songs and talked about our learning this term. Year 4 have loved learning all about the Ancient Egyptians.

The Christmas Story

We have been learning all about The Christmas Story this week. We then recreated our own version using drama and performed it to our friends.

Egyptian Holiday Homework

We have been sharing our learning on the Ancient Egyptians from our holiday homework. We all worked very hard to find our some amazing faces. We presented our homework in a variety of ways. Some of us made made a video, power points, posters, information leaflets, arts and crafts and even an Egyptian game! We enjoyed sharing and listening to our learning on the Egyptians.

Rich or Poor?

We are enjoying exploring the Ancient Egyptians. This week we were set the activity to answer some questions using research from book and ipads. We had a set of questions where we had to find answers for both the rich and poor. We learnt it was not good to be poor in Ancient Egyptian times.

Cartouche

In our design and technology lessons this term with Miss Clarke we have been learning all about cartouches. They were placed in the tombs of mummified Egyptians. They had hieroglyphics on them so people knew who was in the tomb. After our research we designed our own and then created it using clay and tools. We painted them and decorated them. When completed we evaluated our creation. It was fantastic fun!

Eat Like an Egyptian

This week we have been following a traditional recipe of Egyptian bread. In small groups we worked together to follow the instructions. We took turns measuring the ingredients, mixing and kneading. After proving an d baking we tried the bread the next day. It was mixed reviews but it was great fun to make. 

Anti Bullying Week

Respect

We began our learning during Anti Bullying week by talking about respect. We spoke about how we respected ourselves and each other. We then  wrote what we respected about the people in our class and shared it with each other.

Socks

We have also been celebrating everybody being different but having respect. We have each designed our own respect sock. It reflects us and our thoughts about respect.

Bah Humbug

What a fantastic production year 4 and 3 put on! All of the children worked so hard learning their words and songs. We are very proud of how well they done. The children performed twice to proud family and friends. Well done, you taught us all the meaning of Christmas.

Making Wreaths

We have been looking at the traditional wreath. We have learnt about the meanings of the different candles and how the white candle is Jesus and his light. We reflected on what we thought was important and who is the light in our life. We enjoyed learning about the traditions of the wreath and creating our own.