Blackfell Primary School

Welcome to Year 4

Welcome to Year 4. It is lovely to have all of the children back in school. We have been involved in lots of fun activities. Keep checking weekly for what we have been up to.

Hansel and Gretel Story Sequencing

We have been learning about folktales this week. Our focus has been on the story of Hansel and Gretel. We developed an understanding of the story together. Then using pictures we sequenced the events of the story whilst retelling what happened at each part. The children also enjoyed improving sentences linked to Hansel and Gretel through adding a range of exciting adjectives. 

Recreating the Patterns of St Basil's Cathedral

This week in Art we have been looking at St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. We have been developing an understanding of the patterns used and the specific design of the building. We spent some time creating our own patterns with wax crayons followed by using water colours to fill in the spaces. The children had lots of fun starting this activity!

Supermovers!

We have been taking part in some extra exercise this week through following some dance videos to help us remember our times tables. The children have really enjoyed taking part in these dances, always keen to complete another one. Hopefully our times tables knowledge will develop even more!

The Taj Mahal

In art we are continuing our work on famous buildings. The children have been practicing their tracing skills through looking at the symmetrical design of the building.

Anti-Bullying Week

During Anti-Bullying week we discussed what bullying is, how it can make you feel and how we might be able to recognise bullying. The children created their own odd socks explaining what makes them unique and special by drawing pictures of things they like and their hobbies.

Christmas Movie Afternoon 

This afternoon was our pom pom in the jar activity. This time we watched Nativity and enjoyed some colouring activities as well as having snacks and juice. 

Library Visit

This week we enjoyed our first visit to the Key Stage 2 library. The children all enjoyed taking time to choose a book from both the fiction and non-fiction sections. We are looking forward to our next visit where we will choose another exciting book to read!

Investigating Invertebrates and Vertebrates

This week in Science we have been investigating whether animals are invertebrates or vertebrates. We found out the different animal groupings within the two groups and developed an understanding of their key features. We then designed posters explaining the different groups to help inform those who might not know this information. 

Retelling Hansel and Gretel

To finish our topic of Folktales this week we have been planning our own folktale based on Hansel and Gretel. The children have enjoyed writing a range of different paragraphs for their stories where they have included expanded noun phrases, excellent sentence openers and conjunctions in their writing. The children have worked extremely hard on this work through designing their own evil characters, to creating their own problems and resolutions. They should all be very proud. The stories have been a pleasure to read!

Pablo Fanque

This week we had a Black History morning in school. We researched Pablo Fanque and created a fact file all about his life. We discovered that he changed the show business industry through becoming the very first black greatest showman! We even designed a circus using our imagination, thinking about what a circus created by Pablo Fanque would have looked like in the Victorian era.

Joe Wick's PE

To celebrate Children in Need we took part in Joe Wick's live PE challenge which took place at the end of his 24 hour exercise challenge. The children enjoyed everything from kangaroo jumps to shooting spider web exercises.

Design a pop out

As part of our DT unit we are making a pop out story book. We are basing our book on The Christmas Story. The children spent this lesson investigating the different ways we can make an image pop out on the page and explored how they could create them ready to make their own books.

Grouping Animals in Science

Science has been exciting this week!  We have been learning about the different ways we can group animals. We looked at a variety of different pictures and worked as a team to decide on the different groupings we could use. The children had so much fun looking at the different features of animals, understanding their habitats and what they like to eat.

Understanding Character Feelings

As part of our Literacy topic we have been developing an understanding of the different feelings characters in Hansel and Gretel might experience. The children had fun working together to act out a feeling through looking at their movements and facial expressions. After preparing a short routine the children then performed this to the rest of the class. The children were able to guess which feeling each group performed and identified how they understood the feeling. 

Creating a Welcoming Environment 

In PSHE this week we have been focussing on how we might feel if we are made to feel welcome compared to if we were made to feel unwelcome in our classroom. We came up with some amazing ideas based on what we could do to make somebody feel welcome in our classroom.

What makes you happy?

We have been discussing what makes us happy. We have created a family portrait inside the shape of a heart. The children have enjoyed discussing their family and why they make them happy.

Design a Building

To end our Art unit of Famous Buildings we have created our very own design of a building. We have used all of our skills such as creating pattern, using symmetry and collage to create our own unique designs. We briefly planned how we wanted our buildings to look and then carefully created our final piece.

Christmas Dinner

Today we enjoyed our Christmas dinner with all of the trimmings. We all really enjoyed being able to wear our Christmas jumpers to school.