Cedar Class has 30 bright, smiling, sociable, caring and enthusiastic children who have a great appetite for fun and learning. Mrs Giles is our teacher and we are very lucky to also have Ms Coverdale and Mrs Benny as our classroom assistants on hand to help. Aren't we the lucky ones to have our wonderful Cedar Class for another year! We are going to have such fun!
Please make sure you bring your own pencil case to school with you this year due to Covid!
In the event of your child needing to self isolate, please the use the above homework links provided for activities.
In the event of our class bubble isolating or a whole school closure due to lockdown, we will be using Teams online. Your child will need their username and password to access Teams.
We begin this term with a ‘Take One Tale’ focus followed by ‘Creepy Crawlies’, a science- based project.
For our week long ‘Take One Tale’ project, we have chosen ‘Anansi, the Spider’, an African and Caribbean myth. We shall be exploring and further developing storytelling techniques, resulting in being able to confidently retell the story. Cross curricular links will be made to art, history and geography too.
Our ‘Creepy Crawlies’ project will be exploring the characteristics and classification of minibeasts. Exploration of different local habitats is central to our learning as is the impact of human and natural changes on environments.
Please see the project overview for term 4 for a further breakdown of learning to be explored.
We begin this term with a classical music focus. Our project explores a piece of music in depth whilst making cross curricular links to history, art, drama, storytelling and dance. We shall be looking at the life of the composer and the circumstances, purposes and visions for the music. Characteristic sounds and motifs will be explored and replicated using body, voice and percussion instruments whilst learning further musical terminology. The class will be working towards an end performance.
After ‘Take One Piece’, without Covid, we would have been working towards a Year 4 production of ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. The same skills will be practised and developed, covering many drama elements and we aim to record aspects of the work for you to enjoy. Our writing will be exploring characterisation and script writing.
Making puppets of the characters is going to be a design and technology focus which promises to be fun, exploring and refining sewing skills.
Please note that PE will be on Tuesday and Fridays this term and children still need to come to school dressed in their PE kit on these days.
Please ensure that pencil cases are replenished with writing and colouring pencils, a pencil sharpener, glue stick, ruler and rubber where possible.
Our online learning in Term 3 during lockdown
Louis' power point about the invention of toothpaste and Eleanor's experiment
1. Chinese New Year falls on a different day each year. It’s usually in late January or February. The date is worked out by the ‘New Moon’.
2. Chinese New Year is also known as ‘Spring Festival’. It celebrates the start of new life.
3. In China, each year is linked with a different animal. The Chinese calendar goes in a cycle of 12 years. Each year is symbolised by a different animal. 2021 is the year of the Ox! It is believed that if you are born in a particular year then you will have some of the characteristics of that animal.
4. The celebrations last for 15 days and ends with the Lantern Festival.
5. 'Guo Nian Hao' means Happy New Year!
6. Children receive red envelopes with money inside. They can spend the money on anything they like as they receive it instead of gifts.
7. Chinese New Year ends with the ‘Lantern Festival’ where people will release flying lanterns into the sky. This is all about reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness.
8. Before the celebration, it is traditional to spring clean the home to get rid of bad luck.
9. Lion and dragon dances are very popular around this time because it is believed that they will bring good fortune to the local area. The loud noise of drums is said to drive all of the bad luck and spirits away!
10. Fireworks will be set off at midnight! There is a myth that there is a beast called Nian who doesn’t like loud noises or fire.
Design and Technology Puppets
This week, the project challenge was to make a puppet from the story of 'Fantastic Mr Fox.' Here are some reflections on learning.
“When I was making my puppet, I encountered a few problems like how to make the body white (I eventually wrapped my toilet roll in paper) or how to make the cross bar (I used lolly-sticks). The head was difficult too but luckily, I had an egg box so I used a part of that and then covered it in white tissue paper and two-part glue, one-part water to make it stick. Sticking the see-through string to the limbs was hard but I didn’t do that, I got some help from daddy. “ (Eleanor)
“Next time I would sew on the tummy and face pieces BEFORE stitching the two parts of the badger together.” (Finn)
"I really liked making the shadow puppet, it was tricky to cut but worth the effort, it was fun to teach my sister about shadows and the puppet worked better than I thought it would." (Nilah)
Harry's Trailer for Fantastic Mr Fox
Fox Gallery
Fox Gallery Artwork
Please enjoy this gallery of artwork at a time when children are missing seeing what their classmates are achieving through not being in school due to lockdown. This is an opportunity to share and enjoy completed work, celebrating the differences and uniqueness of each piece. It was not possible to dictate using a particular medium for this task, as not everyone has access to the same resources at home, hence why the task was purely to include a fox using mediums of choice. More than one child commented that, "It was nice having the choice about what we did". Another said that they "really enjoyed seeing the variety of things people have done". One child said, "Using Art hub gives me confidence to try new things."
In our group lessons we discussed how to achieve the texture of the fur, lines, details, proportions, shades and tones.
Ice and Snow Fun Gallery - Learning and exploring in cold weather!
Ayda created ice orbs
Food colourings were used to achieve different coloured orbs
Water was frozen in a balloon outside
These orbs have lasted many days in this icy blast!
Inspired by Finn's work which he kindly shared with the class
Instructions on how to do this have kindly been put onto the post section of Teams.
The optimum temperature for this is -3 or -4 degrees Celsius
Letting our hair down and relaxing during this lockdown is so very important!
Remember to make time for fun, games and laughter!
Sunday’s snow brought a welcome spot of light relief for all during lockdown. Everyone enjoyed the change of routine, the fresh air, and the fun and frolics in the challenges that creating snow angels and building snowmen brings. Energetic snowball fights were greatly enjoyed among neighbours and friends and pets were observed delighting in the rare exposure to the white stuff! The only tinge of disappointment was how quickly it disappeared.
Design Technology
Friday’s creative challenge was to produce a mask for one of the animal characters in the story, ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. Many children took on the full challenge like a designer and explored the different processes involved, researching masks, planning their design, making it and finally evaluating it.
Some people found making templates useful and practising bits that they thought were going to be tricky. Tallulah did just this and achieved an accurate shape of a fox’s head after refining her template. She also commented that her cutting skills had become more accurate too.
Please enjoy looking at the gallery below and see if you can guess who is behind each mask!
Welcome to the gallery of Fantastic Mr Fox character masks!
Various writing about Fantastic Mr Fox and other reading tasks
This term, our main project is entitled ‘Disgusting Digestion’. We shall be learning about key organs in the body and their functions. There is a lot of technical vocabulary with this project and we would appreciate it if you could reinforce this at home. Many of the key words are written on the project map sheet for you to refer to. Tea-time is the perfect opportunity to discuss some of the ideas associated with this project, although it is not for the faint hearted!
We begin the term with a local history and geography focus, centred around Oxford. A key text will be about an Anglo-Saxon princess entitled, ‘The Princes Who Hid in the Tree’ which is about Saint Frideswide who has a medieval shrine in the cathedral in what is now the site of Christ Church. Her tale is one of adventure, courage, danger, friendship and kindness.
Thank you and well done to all those taking part in the ‘Street Tag’ challenge. It is pleasing to see so many children from Year 4 taking part and having fun! Keep up the good work here!
Please note that PE is on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays this term. See more information on the generic timetable for term 2.
Our learning in Term 2
Cedar Class had the opportunity to look at each others project work in our class museum and ask and answer questions about what they had produced. As always, there was a phenomenal range and variety of work which consolidated the learning already undertaken in class and in many cases extended learning opportunities to follow particular lines of interest and to satisfy personal curiosity. We were deeply sorry that parents could not be invited along on this occasion due to Covid, however we were reassured that our class still benefitted from this experience with each other. Thank you, as always, to all the parents who supported their child's learning with their project work. Please look further below for pictures of our learning.
Christmas Dinner Day
Friendship and good conversation
Laughter
Sharing good and bad Christmas jokes
Listening to and enjoying classic Christmas music
Eating a delicious Siva meal and trying brussel sprouts for the first time for some!
Reflecting on the birth of Christ
Christmas Activities
Learning graffiti style art and making book mark gifts
Celebrating the finish of the Jingle Jog for charity - great stamina and perseverance!
Ellie gave a fabulous performance of Jingle Bells which we sang along to!
Phoebe shared her letter from Santa
Thanks to Mrs Bones for our super silent disco.
We all enjoyed letting our hair down and trying out new dance moves!
Design and Technology Pop Up Christmas Cards
We learnt that precise cutting was essential so we honed our skills.
We learnt how to fold a piece of paper in half exactly with care.
Sharp folding using our nail gave our cards a crisp and professional look!
If it went wrong initially we tried again and again and persevered!
Decoration is important for the finishing touches!
We all felt a real sense of achievement and pride in our work in the end!
Make Another World - work in progress
'Considering the order that things needed to be done.'
'Using resources with consideration and reducing waste.'
'Persevering with difficulties and solving problems.'
'Helping one another and sharing top tips.'
'Ensuring 'quality' is achieved in all that we did.'
'It was really fun spending all the day on it. I am more confident now.'
Make Another World - end product
Christingle
Reverend Rice kindly recorded a Christingle assembly for us to view in school. We watched a video about to make a Christingle and further explored the symbolism of each component in class and the meaning of it.
Beautifully decorated glass jars
Using a clean jam jar and glass pens, each child designed their own jars. Some children intend to use them as sweetie jars, pocket money pots, storage for beads, pencil pots and much more!
“It was tricky getting the balance between not enough and too much ink.”
“You had to leave time for the inks to dry so the colours didn’t merge.”
“Holding the jar steady was important and hard.”
“It was nice to work on glass for a change.”
Our Digestion and Teeth Class Museum
Cricket with our expert, Nick
Slow ball, fast ball, bounce ball, clap ball.........! All you need is a tennis ball, space and a mindset for a challenge! Ask your child about this and see if you are half as good as them!
Friday forest time with Fiona
Safety rules around the fire established
Story telling with 'warm and fuzzy balls' to remind us of being kind and thoughtful
It's really fun to learn in different ways.
Fascinating to watch and listen to the popcorn doing it's thing!
Delicious hot chocolate to warm us up!
We love outdoor learning time in the fresh air!
Children In Need
Running clockwise around the track to reach our class target.
Encouraging each other when the going got tough.
Still smiling! Thinking of all the people who will benefit from the money raised.
Water breaks were essential along the way to keep hydrated.
Thank you so much for all your donations towards Children In Need today.
We achieved a massive class total of 281 laps in 40 mins!
Children In Need - The Big Finish
We couldn't be more proud of the whole of Cedar Class for the way they participated in our Children In Need running challenge. Having set an initial target of 130 laps of the school field, it quickly became apparent that they were going to achieve considerably more! The resultant 281 laps achieved was the equivalent of 66 miles, travelling from Wallingford to Southampton. That's all the way to the beach! It was their relentless support and encouragement of each other and their perseverance that made this possible. What a team! So proud!
Rangoli Patterns
As part of the celebrations for Diwali we researched Rangoli patterns.
Next, we drew up 'Steps to Success' for our own colouring in and designs.
Symmetry in shapes and colour, neatness, ruler lines
use of shapes such as circles, diamonds, squares and traingles
'It was tricky but a good challenge!'
'Real ones are made from coloured sand, petals or rice'.
Andy Warhol Inspired Art
Take an ordinary head-shot photo
Print it onto A4 paper
Use a clear plastic folder and trace the outline of your self portrait
Do it carefully and check you haven't missed any lines!
Duplicate the print. Colour each one differently in the style of Andy Warhol
Project Homework
Harry's amazing digestive system cake!
Cian's Lego digestive system
Finn's Lego digestive system. Can you name all the parts?
'Hama bead Harry's' digestive system
Ellie and Evie's rap about digestion
Toby's drawing and labelling of the digestive system
Ellie's digestive system
Sophie's Lego model of teeth being cleaned. Can you spot the decay?
Cricket with Nick from 'Chance to Shine'
Good communication skills - wait, yes or no game
Bowling practice - 10 points for hitting the stumps. Which team would team?
Remembrance Day
The memorial outside school with names of local soldiers and heroes who fought.
Pausing to reflect on the meaning of Remembrance Day
Great books such as 'War Game' and 'Tail End Charlie' helped our understanding.
Lynda Atkins kindly shared more information with us.
One socially distancing, fantastic Cedar Class ready for the challenges of term 2!
Our main project is ‘River Journey’, with largely a geographical and scientific focus looking at how rivers form and the water cycle. There are many new scientific terms to learn which you can find on our project map for the term. We would strongly recommend a visit to ‘The River and Rowing Museum ‘in Henley to reinforce learning.
Our overriding goal this term is to settle the children back into school routines and support their social, emotional and academic progress. Please drop us an email via the school office with any worries or concerns you or your child may have.
Our learning in Term 1
River poems
The River, by Valerie Bloom, was the inspiration for our own versions of river poems. The poems all use personification which give human qualities to the river as a living thing.
Pointillism water pictures
"It was really enjoyable doing this"
"It took a lot of care and time!"
"Work in one area at a time."
"Look at it from a distance to check it"
"Mix different tones to make it effective"
"Don't let the cotton buds get too soggy."
Harvest
"Many people are starving in the world."
"We all have enough to eat."
"The heat from the sun helps the crops to grow."
"Our world produces vast amounts of food."
"If we share it there is enough for all."
"Find it in your hearts to pause and say 'Thank you'."
Brass with Mr Browne
Using the mouthpieces only....
making a buzz with vibrating lips...
producing a sound
holding the cornet correctly
sitting up straight with good posture
finding the pitch that Mr Browne played which is note C