Class 4

Welcome to Year 4's Class page.

Our Lady's School is a caring family, where, with Jesus in our hearts, we value everyone and encourage them to be the best that they can be.

Here is some general information to help you with our school and class routines: 

• Mrs. Wilkinson is your class teacher. Mr. Blundell and Miss Devoy are our Teaching Assistants. 
• PE:There will be two hours of PE per week (Wednesday and Friday). You will need to come in to school in your PE kit (this could be anything suitable to do P.E. in such as tracksuits, leggings and trainers etc.). You do not need to bring in your school uniform. This term's unit is : Striking and fielding - Cricket.
• Homework:  Please access it through Seesaw and Purple Mash. Codes were sent home at the beginning of the autumn term.
• Reading: Try to read regularly and choose books you enjoy! Access a range of books using our GetEpic code and Accelerated Reading resources. Home readers and Accelerated Reading books can go home. Please bring your book bags with your home reader and accelerated reader to school every day. Books will be changed weekly-usually on a Friday. Children can also borrow and enjoy a range of books from our well-resourced school library.
• Spellings: New rules in spellings are introduced at the beginning of the week and we practise the words daily using different activities. These will also be set as homework on Seesaw.  The spelling test will be on Fridays. 
• Times tables: Please keep up with your times tables practice upto 12 x 12 and particularly practise the 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 times tables which are new to year 4. Don't forget to recap the rest of the times tables too. There will be a national MTC check in year 4 in the summer term. This is a speed test hence fluency in all the times tables is important.
• English: 'Stories with a theme'. Our focus text: 'The Mousehole Cat' written by Antonia Barber and illustrated by Nicola Bayley which is set in picturesque Cornwall.  Based on the legend of Cornish fisherman Tom Bawcock and the stargazy pie, it tells the tale of a cat who goes with its owner on a fishing expedition in rough and stormy seas.We will be exploring the plot, characters and setting.  Our end of unit outcome: To be able to write a story based on the original plot structure.Our second unit of English is: Persuasion. We will be exploring the features, structure and language of persuasion. Our end of unit outcome will be to create a persuasive advertisement and a poster for a product of our choice using persuasive devices. We will also produce a cross-curricular piece of writing to persuade others to save water and avoid water pollution to link with our topic 'Water, Water Everywhere'. Our oracy objective of carefully considering the words and phrasing to express our ideas will be linked to our outcome.
• Topic: 'Water,Water Everywhere'. Our lead subjects are: History, Science, Art & Design and Geography. We will be exploring the key aspects of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation in History. In Science, we will be grouping and classifying materials as solids, liquids and gases based on their properties. In Art and Design, we will be exploring waterscapes. Our end of unit outcome will be to create a painting of a river or a waterfall. In Geography we will be focusing on describing and understanding the key aspects of physical geography including rivers and the water cycle with the first hand experience of our local river, River Darwen.
• R.E. Our topic is 'Pentecost'. Pentecost is a Greek word meaning ‘the fiftieth Day’.  At this feast the Jewish people celebrate Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks.  We will be learning about the 'Coming of the Holy Spirit'. This was the time of year when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and Mary. 
• PSHE: 'Life to the full'. Our first unit will be based on 'Religious understanding' :We are created individually by God who is Love, designed in His own image and likeness, Me, my body and my health: Similarities and differences between people arise as they grow and make choices and Emotional Well-being: An understanding of our feelings and how positive actions help emotional well-being.
• Computing: Effective Searching and Animation
• Maths: Week 1: Measures, Week 2: Measures, Fractions 
• MFL- Spanish:We will be learning how to say days and dates. The next unit will be on food and drinks. We will be learning how to say singular and plural food and drinks. We will also be giving our opinions about the food and drinks.

Parent guide and useful links to help you practice your times tables

Observing properties of 'difficult' solids and water:

We carried out activities to observe and explore their properties and that of water. These solids could be poured just like water but they formed a pile instead of a pool!  Then we used magnifying glasses to look at 'sand' and 'salt' particles closely. 

Science- Wow launch - Making Cornflour Slime!

We really enjoyed making the cornflour slime and how observing how it could change its state from solid to liquid and vice versa! The mess was worth it!

English- Ping Pong using magic microphones

We enjoyed finding and saying facts from the information texts using our microphones.

Our autumn Geography outcome : posters for 'Looking after our environment':

Our posters have been displayed in public areas in Blackburn with Darwen. We are very proud to share our important message with the wider community. Posters made by our class included how we could help our planet and environment in our own

way such as using the 5Rs , following an educational talk and litter picking organised by Ms Sally Booth, the Education and Environmental Officer at BWD Council.

PE- Cricket - Catching and underarm throwing skills

We enjoyed our PE lesson and the glorious spring sunshine!

DT: Learning types of stitches

There were definitely moments when we were in stitches today! We all had some funny, some frustrating moments whilst exploring types of stitches but no one gave up! There were some amazing samples of stitches! We also explored fabrics and fastenings. Well done everyone!

World Book Day!

Everyone looks amazing and we have enjoyed reading books and listening to stories! 

Listen to our amazing class story! Great teamwork everyone!

Enjoy!

Father  Ged's visit- 13th November

We learnt a lot and really enjoyed Father Ged's lesson on our Parish Community and all the jobs within. We were amazed at the number of people involved in the smooth running of our parish community from the Parish priest to Catechists to Acolytes and Sacristans to Eucharistic ministers and many more! A big thank you to Father Ged!

Aut2 - Art and Design- Working with the local Printmaking Artist Julia Swarbrick

We enjoyed  our printmaking workshop with Ms Swarbrick on Tuesday the 30th of November and learnt a lot. It was very exciting because we had real life animal skulls to draw! We learnt how to do relief printing, trace mono printing and textile printing using stamps. Apart from amazing pieces of individual artwork we also created an amazing whole class collaborative piece on textile. It was a fantastic learning experience! Well done to everyone and a big thank you to Julia Swarbrick !

Aut2 - Geography fieldwork/first hand experience- The Great Plague

We enjoyed our talk by a special visitor - Miss Sally Booth, the Environment and 

Education Officer. We asked lots of questions about landfills, amount of rubbish in BWD, where it goes and the recycling centres in our local area. We learnt a lot about caring for our environment and what we could do to help. A big thank you to Miss Booth for a fantastic, fun and educational afternoon!

We also went litter picking in the school and church grounds. 

Watch this space for our final outcome - persuasive posters to help our environment!

Autumn 1 : DT Outcomes

DT outcomes: We are very proud of our products!

Well done everyone!

Our Electricity songs and raps:

We created our own digital music using 2Sequence on Purple Mash and then wrote the lyrics. Finally we rehearsed and performed our songs. You can access our videos on Seesaw.

DT - Prototypes

We have made our prototypes and are now looking forward to making the real thing next week!

R.E. - Domestic Church - Prayer Service

We have been learning about Jesus' family tree and his ancestors.

The children planned a lovely prayer service. We enjoyed the drama and all the different aspects that the groups covered such as the prayers, going forth gifts , and our focus. Well done to all the groups!

DT- Exploring torches

We have been exploring existing designs of torches and thinking about our product, purpose and user. We have been talking about aesthetic (What does it look like?) and functional appeal(Does it work?).

Transition days :

We have enjoyed our first couple of days and had a lot of fun! Now we are looking forward to learning and working together in year 4.

Maths - Sequence of learning - 2021-22

PSHE - JIGSAW OVERVIEWS PUZZLES 1-6