The children have loved the last two weeks at Forest School! This week they enjoyed making a Christmas tree. They started by sawing their base from a larger branch before adding a fir cone and decorating with pom-poms. They have also enjoyed the swing, hammock and mud pit! We look forward to next week’s activity!
The children have settled back into this half term beautifully and enjoyed our hook lesson on M0nday where we set them the challenge of making a river in a tray to start off our new Raging Rivers project.
The children made the riverbed shape out of foil, then went outside to see what we could find to make the landscape around the river. They then added water to our river and watched it flow down the riverbed.
Our first geography lesson then focussed on ‘What are the features and processes of a river?’ We started by identifying the features including, river, mountains, mountain tops and land around the river.
After this we learnt that a river is divided into three main sections, the upper course, middle course and lower course. Can your child tell you which sections these are and what happens at each section.
We went on to learn about river meanders. During this lesson the children learnt that:
– All rivers have a source, mouth, upper course, middle course, lower course.
– All rivers have erosion and transportation.
– All rivers have meanders.
– The size of river features can be different.
What can you child tell you about their learning so far?
Upcoming dates for Year 4:
Forest School:
Our knowledge organiser and topic web can be found here:
Today, the teachers and assistants had our training, ready for next half term’s forest school! We are very excited and hope the children will be too! Here is all the information that you need (it was also sent as an email earlier today):
Dear Parents/Carers,
We are very excited to start our Forest Schools Education this year. We have an amazing school woodland area which is the ideal location for us to go out and explore, have fun and learn lots!
Forest School is an inspirational concept providing learning opportunities through practical activities in an outdoor environment. Children enjoy the freedom to explore and experience the natural world in all seasons and in all weathers. Forest School embraces an approach of nurturing, supporting and developing the selfesteem of its participants. It is an ideal environment in which to develop innovation, problem solving, risk taking, creativity and teamwork. We have now embedded this into our St Mark’s curriculum and will be for all children across the school, one year group at a time.
Our Forest School sessions will be led by Mr Calver who has a Forest School Leader qualification. The children will be accompanied by the adults from their year group as well. The safety and welfare of the pupils
participating in Forest School is paramount. All tasks are age-appropriate and risk assessments have been carried out for all activities prior to taking place.
Your child’s Forest School sessions will take place on:
Clothing:
The correct clothing is essential for Forest School sessions. Your child will need to come into school wearing their Forest School clothing on their Forest School day (see above). If the correct kit is not worn then your child might not be able to take part in that session. The Forest School clothing must include:
• Long trousers and long-sleeved top which ideally isn’t school uniform (even if the weather is warm)
• Trainers that are suitable for being in the woods. Wellies would also work!
• Jumper or Sweatshirt (if it’s cold)
• Waterproof coat and trousers if you have them (if it is raining)
If it looks like rain, please can the children also bring a spare set of clothes (including pants and socks) and small towel in their school bag as Forest School sessions continue in the rain.
If you have any questions about Forest School, including if you need any support with the clothing requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us. We hope your child gets excited about this exciting opportunity.
Kind Regards
Mrs Woods, Miss Burgess and Mr Calver
The children have continued to embed themselves into our Anglo-Saxons project. They have been learning lots of new things. Why don’t you ask them some of these questions and see what they can remember:
In art, the children found out thatAnglo-Saxon brooches were know as dalc or spennels. They were often found in pairs and used to fasten dresses or cloaks. Thank you for sending in lids, the children loved making their own brooches.
Can you guess who these runes belong to?
Can you work out our new project from the message above? No? Why don’t you ask your child/ren to help you decode this message. On Monday, the children were presented with a strange alphabet, they had to use this to first decode words and find their next clue to help discover where Hilda and Edmond were from. Once they had decoded these and collected all the pictures, they then had to have a guess at what they thought the artefacts were. Some were easy, some a little harder. After the children had worked out our new project is Anglo-Saxons, they used their new alphabet skill to create their name in ruins (Pictures to follow soon).
Your children have enjoyed writing notes using this aphabet. Why not write a note for them to help embed their learning. ⬇️
We have been extremely pleased how the children have settled back into school routines and especially in the heat we have had this week. They have started a new sentence stacking unit in English where we watched Disney’s short film ‘The Feast’. The children enjoyed watching this and have started using pronouns within their writing. In maths, we have started with a place value unit where the children have been representing numbers to 1000.
Dates for Diary – Autumn Term:
You can email the Year 4 team here: year4@stmarksce.org.uk
What are you going to apply for? Click here.
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