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Developing Independent Learning in a Caring Environment

Year 4 - Mrs Carpenter

Year 4C Enterprise

Every year each class decide on an Enterprise topic to study so that the children begin to understand how businesses work and all the factors that contribute to making a business successful. This year, Year 4 have decided to hold a biscuit workshop linked to our Rainforest Topic where other children in school can come and decorate their own biscuit with toppings and coloured icing. This week we have created persuasive posters and presentations which we have shown to other year groups to persuade them to take part. It was great fun.  Photos of the workshop to come soon! 

Public Speaking

This week all of our Ellison children throughout the school have been taking part in their own public speaking presentations in class to show how passionate they are about a topic that interests them and to develop their skills of speaking in front of others. Here are a few of the children from 4C as they presented to the class.  Mrs. Carpenter was extremely impressed with all of the presentations and how much progress everyone has made with their confidence and enthusiasm.  Well done 4C! 

The Water Cycle

This week the children learnt all about the different stages of the Water cycle.  We discussed each stage and the meanings of the new Vocabulary such as evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection then we used this to create our own water cycles in air tight plastic bags to observe and measure over time.  We were very lucky to have help from Emily and Abbie- Grace from Year 5 who had also learnt about it. It was great fun!

Stoke City Penalty Shoot Out

 

Today we all had a go at scoring goals against Stoke City.  Some children even had an opportunity to go up against Pottermus!  We really enjoyed this and are looking forward to collecting our sponserships which will be shared equally between the school and Stoke City Community Trust. This means all the funds that are collected will be invested in further opportunities for our children! 

The Rainforest, Philosophy and Geography 

This afternoon Year 4 had a philosophical discussion about the plight of the Rainforest and used all of their geographical knowledge to apply to their discussion.  They decided a 'big question' they wanted to discuss further and by following a set of rules had a very serious and thought provoking discussion. Each child had three lollipop sticks so that they could use these to put their point of view across and everyone had the opportunity to speak. Each time they wanted to speak they gave in a lolly pop stick and if they were reluctant to speak they could give their stick to a friend who would speak on their behalf.  Their only complaint was that the time went far too fast and they had to stop!  

 

Wind in the Willows.

Today in our English lesson the children used drama to tell the chapter about Toad and his new craze which was a car!  We used the technique freeze frame to freeze during different scenes to say how each character felt, thought or what they might say.  We had lots of fun and lots of expression was used! Please enjoy these photos to show all of our hard work.

Rainforest poems with Mrs. James.

As part of our Rainforest topic we had a visitor from Mrs. James today.  She read some of her poems about different animals from the Amazon rainforest and explained lots of amazing facts about these. The children had a go at using personification, similes and description to write their own poems.  It was a fantastic afternoon.  Thank you Mrs.James!

Mrs James 1.mp4

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Mrs James 2.mp4

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Golf practice

Today in school the children were given the opportunity to have a try at fun golf.  They each were shown how to hold the face, position their feet correctly and swing using 'tick, tock'.  They really enjoyed their time and wanted to practice more!  

Gladstone Pottery Museum

Today Year 4 visited Gladstone Pottery Museum and were wowed by everything they saw.  We had two fabulous guides who took us around the museum and who shared everything they knew with the children.  We were taken through every stage of the pottery making process and learnt all about how children had to work, the heavy pottery they had to carry and all of the dangers of working in the 1800s. It was a magical visit and we all loved it!

Clay Roses

As part of our learning about Pottery and how people used to live we had a go at piece work making a clay rose.  We tried very hard to make the clay look like roses or flowers. What do you think?

We decided that we couldn't make 60 of these in an hour like the ladies would have to at Gladstone!

World Book Day (or Ellison Book Day due to Snow!)

Year 4 had a fabulous day on the 29th of March.  All the children looked amazing and bought in pillows to sit on while they read their books.  As you can see from the photos we had a fantastic time.

Our Easter bonnets and Eggs proudly displayed by Year 4C.

Stem week: Rocket Mouse!

During our STEM week our school all took part in the Rocket Mouse investigation finding out how to get the mouse to move the furthest.  We decided to investigate what angle of launch would make the mouse go the furthest.  We had lots of fun designing our mice and then launching him using the bottles and protractors to make sure our angles were correct. Look at how much fun we had!

 

Rocket mouse 1

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Rocket mouse 2

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Rocket mouse 3

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Forest school learning

In forest schools for the last few weeks we have learnt all about how sound travels, how vibrations cause this and that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. As you can see we had a lot of fun learning and got to make a lot of noise too!

This week as part of our sound topic we made panpipes and listened to the different pitches we could make with them.  It was really good fun!

Welcome to Y4C!

To end our Julius Caesar learning we wrote Mark Antony's speech in our own words using lots of persuasive features. We then performed them to our class. They were so persuasive even Mrs. Carpenter became emotional!  

This Spring Term we are looked at and performed Julius Caesar.  The children really enjoyed performing the different scenes and discussing the themes of conspiracy and betrayal.  

We used lots of different drama techniques such as 'Whoosh!' and 'Freeze frame' to discuss how the different characters would feel or think in each scene and used the lines from the play to practice how they would speak.  

Julius Caesar Puppets!

Today the children made puppets of the different characters from Julius Caesar.  They made rod or marionette puppets from recyclable items from home and tried really hard to ensure their puppets had moving parts, facial expressions and showed their puppet's character.  The children had really good fun and learnt that making puppets is not as easy as it seems!  We hope you like looking at our puppets.

Maths reasoning and problem solving with fractions

Materials and states of matter.

 

As part of our new Science Topic the children took part in drama linked to states of matter.

Can you guess what state of matter the children are showing in their drama poses?

Forest schools apple carving and Dehydration!

In forest school as part of our Science and Outdoor learning we learnt how to carve apples for Halloween and we left them outside to see what will happen to them when they dry out.
In Forest school this term we are looking at food chains and learning all about producers, predators and prey. We searched around the playground for evidence of these and had a very intense discussion about what would happen if there were too many predators.  

In Year 4 our first topic this year was the Vicious Vikings. 

 

We read the text 'How to Train Your Dragon' to learn all about Hiccup and his adventures on the island of Berk and used this to create our own fantastic stories that included lots of exciting narrative features. 

   

                                      

 

We also learnt all about why the Vikings came to Britain, how Vikings lived in their settlements, what they used the land for and how the beer they drank affected their teeth.

 

We carried out an experiment to see what happens to food when it enters your mouth and the journey it goes through using banana, weetabix and a pair of tights!

 

These are just a few examples of all of the exciting learning that took place in Autumn Term.  

 

The fun never ends in Year 4!

 

 

Our Dragon Reports

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As part of our Topic the children wrote non-chronological reports about different types of dragons. They worked very hard and at the end of the week presented their report to the rest of the class. The children all tried hard to use expression and tone and each presentation was evaluated by their classmates. We think they were all fabulous. We hope you think so too!

Dragon reports

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Dragon reports

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Dragon reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Dragon Reports

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Our Visit with Bran and Gilly from White Cross Vets.

As part of our learning in Science Year 4 have learnt all about human teeth and also animal teeth. We invited in Bran and Gilly to tell us all about how dogs teeth are different to human teeth and how they need to be taken care of.  Gilly showed us some amazing pictures and Bran showed us how she got her teeth cleaned using sausage toothpaste which she loved!  

Rockstar Times Tables

 

As part of our learning in Maths Year 4 have become Rockstars to help with their times tables.

The link to these is below.  Each child has been given a username and password that is personal to them and the tables that they can make progress with have been added to their account so they can have fun and learn at the same time by competing with others in their class or year group. 

So the dudes and dudettes in 4C can have fun and get better at their tables! :) 

On Wednesday 6th December our school all made Christingles which were used at the Christingle service that evening at St. Andrew's church with Father Chris and Reverend Allison.  We all enjoyed making these and the service was beautiful.

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