Welcome to Maple Class homepage
For information on the Year 4 MTC, please see curriculum tab 'Multiplication Tables Check' or click here!
Science
This half term the children have been learning all about States of Matter in science. They have explored the molecular structure of solids, liquids and gasses and have investigated different behaviours of all three states of matter. What type of matter do you think custard might be? How about shaving foam? We had our own ideas, why not ask your child and see what they think.... and WHY!?
Maths
Learning maths is so much fun when you incorporate games and practical resources! Maple class have been using board games and place value counters to explore their understanding of division and multiplication this half term and what a great job they have done with it!
PE-Gymnastics
'Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork' at NFJI and Maple class certainly showed this in their PE sessions this half term. They have worked hard on their gymnastic skills and ended the learning journey by showing off some of their partner balances. These show great strength, trust and focus. All key aspects of gymnastics. Along with this, children have looked at different jumps and rolls to develop their understanding of shapes and control in this sport.
Literacy/Music
We have enjoyed enhancing our literacy by learning cross-curricular with music this week. We have looked at famous composers (eg Scott Jopin) and well known authors (Dickens and Shakespeare) along with the silent movies of Charlie Chaplin. We have combined these elements to consider how we can design a soundscape for our class novel The Firework Maker's Daughter. We used percussion instruments to create the repeated rhythms needed for the main sections of the story: Strong and loud for the initial argument, fast and excited when Lila sets off on her journey, dark and foreboding as she enters Razvani's cave. We then looked at how comic relief is used by authors and decided Scott Jopin's 'The Entertainer' would be the perfect piece of music to represent the section where Lila meets the pirates. The children worked in groups of 3 to learn the notation for the music and the results were super!
ICT
Maple Class enjoyed learning all about coding programmes using Scratch on the Ipads. They created an algorithm in order to design an erupting volcano. Children designed their own backgrounds, drew their own volcanoes and edited each page of their scratch creation to show evolving lava. Through deliberate and careful adaptations of pigments on the screen, they were able to develop the accurate colours for their designs before ensuring that no begs required debugging in their script. I'm sure you will agree that their end products are phenomenal! Well done Maple class!
Maths homework due daily... Literacy homework due Wednesdays.... PE Outdoors - Friday..... YEAR 4 Swimming Thursday.... Spellings Friday.... Times Table test Friday
To Remember!! AUTUMN 2 please remember that Forest school is taking place every Wednesday afternoon throughout the autumn 2 term. Children will need to bring their forest school kit every Wednesday and ensure that it is weather appropriate for this time of year!
Children in LKS2 will be expected to learn the common exception words for year 3/4 by the end of their two year cycle. These will need to be seen within their writing across the curriculum. This is something we discuss regularly in class. If you can practise these with your children at home. You will be supporting the development of their vocabulary, spelling and attainment in writing. Little steps like this can make a huge difference to a child's attainment. Please see below a copy of the year 3/4 common exception words.
Science Morning
The children in Maple enjoyed sharing their classroom with the adults that were able to join us on Science morning. We spent the day learning about how to set up and conduct a comparative science experiment. We considered how changing one variable can effect the growth of plants. We also recapped previous learning by organising fruit and vegetables into a Venn Diagram to show which part of the plant we eat.
PE
During our outdoor PE sessions, we have been looking at how we use different movements to travel across a space. We have learnt how we can use our bodies to make large and small shapes. See if you can work out which word we created as a team. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the answer.
Clay Workshop
We have been very lucky to take part in an organised workshop to develop our techniques working with clay. The children considered their prior knowledge children had about clay to design and plan what they imagined their creation to be. We were given the title 'River Coil Pots'. The children worked with Andrew Hill to look at different styles of clay coil pots before using rolling and shaping skills to form their own pots. Once these were created, they used a Monet inspired image to add detail to their pots. We have really enjoyed the learning in this topic and we can't wait to see the finished products on display in school showing a solid progression of skills from across the school. Here is a sneak peak into Maple class Coil Pots.
PE answer: MAPLE!!!