Class Teacher: Miss MacMahon
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Cockcroft
Welcome to Class 4/5. This Class has a combination of Year 4 and Year 5 children and is part of Upper Key Stage 2.
Please check this page regularly to see updates of what we are learning.
In English, we are reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, a Sherlock Holmes mystery. We will be creating our own character and writing our own stories based on this mystery.
Recently our English and DT topics have been linked together as our DT project was to design and make a cross out of clay. We decided to make African crosses because in English we have been reading “Journey to Jo’burg”; a story about two young children who journey across Africa during the apartheid.
Some images of the pupils making and painting their clay crosses and then the final display which we are extremely proud of.
In English, we have been reading ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare. We used Talk for Writing to retell the story and also drew story maps. As well as creating our own characters and describing the setting, we have written our own modern day versions of the story.
Throughout the Autumn term, we have been reading ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. We have written a character description based upon our first impression of Scrooge. We will soon be focusing on creating a new setting as part of our creative writing.
Recently in Maths, our year 4 pupils have been learning how to find equivalent fractions, simplify fractions and we are now moving on to adding and subtracting fractions. Here is an example of how to find equivalent fractions.
Before this we learnt about how to multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers using our known multiplication facts. We then learnt how to divide 3 digit numbers using different mathematical strategies including inverse operations. We are now able to solve mathematical problems by using our mathematical knowledge.
We have been practising our times tables up to 12 and our recall is getting much faster. Please continue to learn these at home as this will help to progress learning in all areas of mathematics.
Please continue to practice your timetables at home using this fantastic app. It is a fun, exciting way to learn your timetables so please encourage your children to practice regularly. We have some extremely competitive children who are all aiming to be the Times Table Rockstars Champion!
We have been learning about States of Matter. This includes identifying the different properties of Solids, Liquids and Gases. We have sorted different objects into the correct state and learnt about their melting and freezing points. We then carried out an investigation to see if we could change a solid into a liquid. Using solid pieces of chocolate and different temperatures of water, we investigated which temperature of water would melt the chocolate the quickest. We have learnt about the process of evaporation and condensation which will be linked to the Water Cycle.
We carried out an investigation to see if we could change a solid into a liquid. Using solid pieces of chocolate and different temperatures of water, we investigated which temperature of water would melt the chocolate the quickest.
We have been learning all about the reign of the Tudors Monarch’s and how they came into power. We learned about the Battle of Bosworth and created the Tudor Family Tree. We have researched Henry VIII and his 6 wives and identified facts about how the Church of England began. We will be looking at Tudor crime and punishment to end the topic.
We have been learning about the time when Jesus met with his disciples for the Last Supper. We thought about a time when we had shared a special meal to mark an important occasion with our family or closest friends and how that is something which we remember for a long time. One of the pupils wrote, ‘ At my auntie’s house, on Christmas Day, my whole family gathered and we ate a turkey and talked about what we had done during the holidays.’
We then thought about how we would feel if someone betrayed our trust. One pupil wrote, ‘I would feel let down because they had broken my trust in them so I may not be friends with them anymore.’
Nathanael played the part of Judas and the rest of the class asked him questions such as, ‘Do you feel guilty for what you did to Jesus?’ and ‘Why did you take the silver coins?’
Our topic for RE is understanding that Jesus is the son of God and how he has demonstrated his power and authority. We have learnt about the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36). After reading the bible stories, we looked at artists interpretations of these events and then produced our own artwork to show the transfiguration.
Throughout the Autumn term, we have been learning about Jesus being ‘the light of the world’. We have had lots of fun making Christingles and learning about what they represent.
Jodrell Bank was fabulous! We had lots of fun in workshops learning about the planet Mars in the form of a quiz and also competing in teams, against the clock to design a landing parachute for our robot.
In the afternoon, we did a range of experiments and recorded our results. We followed flow charts to identify different rocks and tested the acidity of samples of sand.
We were given a task to research bridges and look at the design and purpose of each bridge. In groups of 3, we then had to design and build a 30cm long bridge that a car could travel across. The only materials we could use were : card, straws, string and sellotape. The results were outstanding!
The children wrapped up warm and went out in the snow! They had so much fun!
The pupils in class 4/5 have worked hard during their enterprise time to create Christmas crafts to sell at the Christmas craft fair. We had a very successful afternoon selling our hand made Christmas Cards, gift tags and pine cone elves. Thank you to everybody who supported this enjoyable event.
We had lots of fun doing an experiment to help us to understand how the digestive system works. The year 1 pupils joined us and we were able to explain the different parts of the digestive system and demonstrate what happens at each stage.
We had a fabulous day in class 4/5 celebrating World Book Day. The theme was ‘Dragons’ and we completed different activities in a special booklet including, designing our very own dragon, writing a character profile for our dragon (including a setting description of where our dragon lived), writing a set of instructions on how to train our dragon, writing a Kennings poem to describe our dragon and finally, we made our very own dragon bookmarks.
We have been concentrating on balancing in gymnastics.
The children have been playing some games in French to help them to remember some of the words they have been learning.
A secret visitor came to school leaving a trail of clues including hay and carrots. The children were excited to discover that it was ‘Lightning’ the reindeer. We learned all about him and even got a chance to stroke him!
