Welcome to Neptune 

      Year Four and Five

As we eagerly leap into the new term, hopefully the Summer sun will appear soon and we embark on another exciting journey of learning.

We were all exceptionally fortunate, as we were visited by two wonderful ladies this week. Rachel Goodison and Lucy Jago, who guided us through both a sculpting and poetry workshop. Inspirational and brilliant.

We always enjoy our Tuesday's with Mrs Maple, particularly when we play the glockenspiels.

We were also lucky enough to start the term with a fantastic visit to Bristol museum and art gallery, where a great time was had by all.

New term and a new book for us to enjoy together. 

History is predominantly the basis for this term's topic, as we explore Ancient civilisations; specifically the Sumerians and Egyptians. Perhaps you could talk to someone at home about your understanding of both, then again at the end of the term to see how your learning has flourished.

In English last week and just before the holidays, we returned to our favourite and focused authors this year, The Fan brothers. Lizzie and the Cloud has proven a fantastic stimulus to fuel our creative spirit, enabling us to make predictions, continue the story, write detailed descriptions and some fantastic instructional pieces. We have subsequently been thinking carefully over our grammatical understanding, punctuation and spellings. 

In Maths we continue to consolidate and strengthen our arithmetic skills, ensuring immediate mental recall continues to be accurate. We've also examined decimalisation, reinforcing our place value appreciation. Perhaps you could write some worded problems at home, that involve tenths, hundredths and thousandths. Maybe you could write some problems to share with the class involving fractions. 

What a fantastic day at the zoo we had!

What a wonderful exclamatory sentence I wrote!

Would you believe we have also been exploring the absolute importance of superb grammar, spelling and punctuation knowledge, within our writing. Apologies for the lack of Year Five photos. Mrs Gibbons seconded the camera and was accompanying the Year Four children. 

Halfway through the year!

Within the blink of an eye, we have reached the mid-point of the year. Our abilities throughout all areas of the curriculum continue to shine, as we radiate enthusiasm for all elements of our learning. On the final Friday of term we explored colours through the medium of stippling, which represent different moods or atmospheres.

We also contrasted and compared two different paintings from two different artists, looking at style and mood.

The Drum Bus - what a wonderful treat!

Year Four Science

Can you explain our little experiment to someone at home? What were we investigating? Did we require much equipment? What did we discover? What did we conclude? Which strand of Science are we currently exploring?

A truly fantastic start back, after the Christmas break. We are all proving excited about our new class reading book and intrigued over the disappearance of Dr Bartholomew Cuttle. Two chapters in and we are all hooked.

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The Norman Conquest

We finished our history topic with an examination of William the Conquerer. We created our very own story boards detailing the events.

Perhaps talk to someone at home about the chronology we have investigated over this term. Where did it all begin? Who left Britain? How did England and Britain develop or alter over that time period?

We even drew a section of the Bayeaux Tapestry, which depicted the Battle of Hastings. Here are selection in their early stages.

Fantastic effort from all with your learning at home. I was totally impressed by your enthusiasm and creativity. 

We even shared two of the power points, that were produced, all about reindeers.

EXCITING HOME LEARNING

Tuesday 5th December 2023

Hope you are feeling fantastic and ready to enjoy a day of learning from home. Anything and everything you produce; I will gratefully receive on Wednesday back at school. Make sure you bring it with you! Remember all the suggestions below are just ideas for the day – they do not all have to be completed. Enjoy!

Maths

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/times-tables/coconut-multiples

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/504/Super-Maths-Bowling-Multiplication

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/multiples-and-factors

• If you are not feeling the need for screen time, then please have a go at applying all of your wonderful maths skills and knowledge to creating the following number 2500. Remember you can use up to three numbers but are limited to two operators ( +  -  x  ÷ ). Can you challenge yourself to write at least 20 different calculations?

               For example – 150 x 10 + 1000 = 2500

                                      2500 = 1.5 x 2000 – 500

              Now try the same with 8900 and then for a challenge 13450

• Perhaps you could you write some worded problems involving additions and subtraction… they could definitely be multi-step.

For example, Farmer Billy Bobster had 4346 sheep in his favourite field and 2368 sheep in particularly muddy field. To his dismay, he had to choose 564 sheep from each field to sell at market. How many sheep did he have remaining, in total, across both fields?  

 English

• Using your created characters, that we incorporated into a comic page last week, write a Day in the Life. How do you think they would spend their day? What would they do? Where would they explore? What adventures would they encounter? What trouble might they cause? Who do they meet and where?
• Alternatively – do some research and write an informative non-fiction piece all about Reindeers. Think carefully over your sub-headings. What could they be? There are three links below, that should help fuel your fact finding  

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/general-animals/reindeer-facts/ - facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqQLeH172Ho  - Science Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXsqn8cskZ8 – Reindeer for kids documentary

Reading

• Immerse yourself in a book of choice. Relax and enjoy… at least one or two chapters!

Music

• Create a percussion or string instrument using any items from your house or within the garden. Remember to take photos of any creation and send to the school office. They will look amazing upon the Class Pages.

Spanish

• Last week we started learning the Spanish for places in a town.
• Please draw a map of an imaginary town and label the places in Spanish. Here are the words we learnt. The second list includes new ones that you might find useful to make the town more interesting:

El supermercado – supermarket

El cine – cinema

La panaderia – bakery

La carniceria – butchers

La cafeteria - cafe

La farmacia – pharmacy

El estadio – stadium

El hotel – hotel

El parque – park

El hospital – hospital

La iglesia – church

El museo – museum

La biblioteca – library

El restaurant - restaurant

Remembrance Artwork 

Book Share

What an absolutely fantastic finale to the first half term... excitedly sharing all our hard work and efforts, over the last seven weeks, with people with love.

Harvest Festival

Apples of all shapes, sizes and colours was our class theme for this year's celebration. We created wonderful pieces of art and fantastic some poetry concerning this delicious fruit. I would like to congratulate and praise everyone who read in church, as they demonstrated great confidence and clarity. SUPERB!

Another Week has flown past!

We are thoroughly relishing The Barnabus Project and have written pieces which have proven thoughtful and fully detailed. We were even introduced to the term Juxtaposition. Can you explain to someone at home how this influenced our writing?

We also had the fantastic opportunity in creating our very own failed project. The realms of our imaginations were stretched, as we crossed two creatures together, thinking carefully upon their personality and traits.

Ordering chronologically and retaining factual information regarding the Anglo-Saxons has been our historical stance. We have worked with a partner to investigate and explore.

Computing has fired our enthusiasm, where we have examined the purpose of routers, switches and networks, alongside recognising the difference between The Internet and the World Wide Web. Can you explain to someone at home, what is occurring in the following pictures?

Uniqueness and individuality was discussed within PSHE. We even thought over the importance and benefits of sharing emotions, feelings or worries with someone we know and trust.

Spatial awareness, cooperation, communication and coordination are important skills in which particular subject? Can you tell someone at home? The pictures below might give you a little clue.

Great Start to a New Year!

The return was seamless for all; plunging straight back into learning with an eager air and lots of smiles. We are all loving the new classroom

and... even better the new carpet is looking smart.

We began exploring this front cover within our writing, making a prediction upon the story content and plot. We even had the opportunity to let our imaginations flow, as we wrote our very own version of the story based purely upon the front cover image. This book will continue to be the stimulus for our writing over the following few weeks.

Talk to someone at home about this book? What have we learnt already from the blurb and the opening chapter? Can you remember the characters introduced already? This book will be our class read throughout the Autumn Term.

We delve back into History under the premise of Invasion, investigating the time in Britain after the departure of the Romans, until the Norman conquest. 

Anglo-Saxons and the...

Vikings

Hope you had a fantastically AWESOME Summer!

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. The term and year promises to be an exciting adventure!

PE - is on a Friday afternoon. Please remember to wear black shorts, red PE t-shirt, trainers and red hooded top, if needed.

Spellings - will be given out on a Wednesday and tested on the  subsequent Monday. Therefore please ensure the blue spelling book is returned each week on the Monday.  

Reading - as much as possible at home, at least three times a week. We encourage children to read books from home or alternatively they can take books from school.