Maple Year 4

Welcome to Maple Class 

Our teacher is Miss Jordan and we also have our wonderful teaching assistants, Miss Mills and Miss Dearlove on hand to help.

Our PE days for Term 5 are Monday and Tuesday.

Project homework is due in on Friday 19th May.

After closely observing invertebrates when drawing them, we then sculpted invertebrates out of clay. We shaped the clay first and then used a variety of tools to add different mark making. This gave the clay models texture and made them look more realistic. 

Take a look at our brilliant sculptures of different invertebrates - we all showed excellent perseverance and captured what the insects look like wonderfully!

In art, we have been focusing on creating observational drawings of invertebrates. We tried hard to sketch the outline accurately, making sure that we kept looking back at the pictures to get our proportions correct. We then added shading and finer details to the drawings. Everybody took great patience and care over their drawings and we are all incredibly proud of our hard work.

In PE we have continued to develop our skills in cricket. We have been getting much better at both batting and fielding, as well as using tactics when fielding. We have played both Diamond Cricket and Kwik Cricket and in the final week of term we are having a big cricket tournament against Ash Class!

We were very lucky to have the opportunity to do some cooking and make vegetarian lasagnes as part of Vegetarian Week. During cooking, we used a wide range of skills including following instructions carefully, weighing, measuring, grating, chopping and mixing. We hope you enjoy tasting our lasagnes!

Once we had been on our invertebrate hunt around the school, we drew sketch maps in geography to identify where the different invertebrate could be found. We used a key to represent the insects on our maps, as well as the different habitats such as grass, trees or the sensory garden.

Following our invertebrate hunt around the school, we explored one local habitat in particular - the pond. We sketched what we could see and made a note of any dangers to local wildlife such as litter. We then drew what our ideal version of the local habitat would look like.

As part of our Creepy Crawlies project this term, we went on an invertebrate hunt around the school. We looked in lots of microhabitats and sketched the different invertebrate that we found. We used classification questions to help us identify which invertebrate we had found, asking questions such as 'how many legs does it have?', 'is it in segments?'. Following our hunt, we used our scientific skills of observation and sketched one invertebrate in greater detail, noting its different characteristics and the particular group it belonged to. 

This term, our Science project is all linked to Creepy Crawlies and being able to identify and classify both vertebrates and invertebrates. We began by learning about different ways of classifying animals; we used Venn diagrams and Carroll diagrams to do so. We even made a human Venn diagram on the playground! After this, we explored classification keys and created our own to categorise different vertebrates. Some of the questions we asked were:

'Does it live on land?'

'Is it a mammal?'

'Can it lay eggs?'

'Does it have gills?'

We began our term with Take One Tale which was King Arthur. First we read the stories and brainstormed adjectives to describe King Arthur. We then used thesaurus' to find more powerful synonyms for out adjectives. This vocabulary then formed the basis for our character descriptions and poems about King Arthur. We worked hard to incorporate rhyming couplets and powerful adjectives. In history, we explored the life of people when King Arthur was alive (Early Middle Ages) and in art we recreated some scenes from King Arthur's tales in watercolour and oil pastels.

In our Forest School session, we played a variety of games. Some required excellent stealth and hiding skills, whilst others needed teamwork. We finished by toasting smores on the fire!

We were lucky enough to have another skateboarding lesson, in which we learnt some new cool tricks!

Thankyou to everybody who came to see our showcase of work. The children worked incredibly hard to write and rehearse their scripts; we hope you enjoyed it!

Here are a selection of our finished masks - the children had lots of fun adding defining features such as ears. They now look very realistic!

In art this term, we've been making masks of the Fantastic Mr Fox characters. We began by covering balloons in paper mache and then added balls of newspaper for the noses. When painting the masks, we experimented with a range of techniques such as dabbing, using fingers to creature texture and colour blending.

Our science topic this term is all about sound. In lesson 1, we learnt that sounds are made from vibrations and we were able to see this through several experiments. We put rice on a drum and when we hit the drum, the vibrations from the drum skin made the rice jump up. We also learnt that the louder the sound, the bigger the vibration. In lesson 2, we explored how sound travels from the source to our ears and we discovered that the vibrating molecules make air particles close by vibrate, which then makes the next ones vibrate until these eventually reach our ear. Watch our videos to discover more!

In lessons 3 and 4 we learnt about pitch and experimented with making sound travel over distance by making string telephones. We discovered that the string helps sound travel further because it is a solid which streamlines the vibrations of the molecules.

We were incredibly lucky to have a skateboarding workshop this term as for lots of us, it was a new sport. First we practised finding our balance and then we spent the majority of the time learning how to skate - lots of fun was had by everybody! We finished off with a trick - the pancake flip.

In PE this term, we are learning how to play cricket. We started by testing our quick reactions in a ball game where you needed to touch the ball faster than your partner. Then we practised throwing both underarm and overarm and learnt how to bowl a ball in cricket. The main things we needed to remember were three fingers on the ball, arm out in front to help us aim and keeping the throwing arm straight. In the next lesson, we started learning how to hold and use a cricket bat.

Our project this term is Fantastic Mr Fox and we have been exploring this text in great depth over the last few weeks. In reading lessons, we have been listening to the story and using dictionaries to explore any new vocabulary that we encounter. In writing lessons, we have done some hot seating to learn more about key characters such as Mr Fox and Boggis the chicken farmer. We have also used our acting skills to freeze frame key scenes in the story, such as the fox family digging an escape tunnel. After freeze framing key scenes, we wrote sentences using the 5W's to narrate our pictures. Finally, we learnt more about the life of Roald Dahl and created a human timeline of the key events in Roald Dahl's life.

This term in maths, our main focus is on fractions. We began by exploring how to make 1 whole and then learnt about what mixed numbers are - a whole number and a proper fraction. As part of this, we practised partitioning mixed numbers using part whole models. We discovered that you can partition mixed numbers into far more than the whole number and the fraction; you can split up the whole number or the fraction in many variations. We have also learnt about improper fractions and how to convert between mixed numbers and improper fractions.

We have also been learning how to play hockey in PE lessons. Our key skills that we have practised are push passes and dribbling through various different games; these skills have then been transferred into tournaments.

Here are some of our favourite parts of hockey this term:

"Playing tournaments"

"Enjoying games and having fun"

"Complimenting other people for playing well in matches"

"Everybody having fun and getting to score goals"

As part of our topic (A Midsummer Night's Dream), we have been learning about puppets. We began by researching the different types of puppet and the mechanisms within them, followed by designing puppet characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The making process is well under way - to make them, we first had to use templates to trace around for the clothes. We then attached our clothes onto wooden spoons using glue and fixed wooden rods to the arms to allow the puppets to move. Next up is designing props for a puppet show of A Midsummer Night's Dream - watch this space!

Our main topic this term is A Midsummer Night's Dream. We began by reading the text in reading lessons and familiarised ourselves with the characters. To do this, we created character webs which allowed us to see how the characters linked to one another, as well as identify the different personalities of each character. We also explored the setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream and used powerful adjectives to describe the forest setting.

Since then, we have put ourselves into the shoes of the character Helena and imagined how distraught she would be feeling at Demetrius' lack of love for her! As a result, we have decided to write letters of persuasion to Demetrius, encouraging him to marry Helena. Thus, we have explored formal language used in letters including rhetorical questions. 

These were some rhetorical questions we came up with:

"How could you resist my dazzling, blue eyes?"

"Have you considered how horrible it is crying yourself to sleep every night?"

"Who can deny my beautiful, shimmering hair?"

This term in PE, one of our sports that we have been learning about has been gymnastics. Maple Class have loved exploring how to create sequences by using different apparatus. Within this, they have explored using different levels, balance and co-ordination to compose interesting gymnastics routines.

In science this term, we have been learning all about electricity. Firstly, we explored how electricity is generated and transported into our homes. We then classified electrical appliances into those that are battery powered and those that are mains powered. In the next two lessons we experimented with creating and testing electrical circuits. We discovered that circuits must be closed in order to work and we also found out that metal is the main conductor of electricity. Interestingly, we noticed that the paint on a metal chair leg turned the metal into an insulator; however, where the paint was rubbed away, the metal returned to being a conductor. 

Our focus for the first half of this term has been multiplication and division. We have explored many different methods including the formal column method for multiplication and the use of part whole models to solve division questions. Manipulatives such as counters and dienes have been very helpful in enabling us to solve both multiplication and division problems. 

We have been exploring our Take One Piece which is Connect It by Anna Meredith. We began by listening to the piece and learnt that the piece is made only using body percussion. Taking inspiration from Anna, we had a go at creating a body percussion piece ourselves. We used techniques of canon and synchronisation when creating this. We also explored this topic in our English lessons, beginning by devising questions about Anna Meredith. Following this, we carried out research on the ipads to answer our questions and then wrote non-chronological reports about the amazing Anna Meredith.

In Brass this term, we have learnt to play 3 different notes - C, D and E. We have also learnt about the different types of notes including crotches, quavers and minims. We have loved our lessons as we have started playing Mamma Mia!

Maple Class enjoyed spending some time in the snow. We explored our maths topic of area outside by experimenting with making different 2D and 3D shapes with snow. For some of our children who are newer to the country, it was their first time seeing snow!

As part of our Marvellous Mappers topic, we have been doing a local Oxfordshire study about the patron saint, St Frideswide. We began by learning about the story and acting it out. Next, we devised some historical questions about Frideswide and carried out research to answer them. Once we were familiar with the life of Frideswide, we put ourselves into the shoes of newspaper reporters and reported on the escape of Frideswide in Oxford. Read some of our excellent reports above! As part of this topic, we also created stained glass windows inspired by Frideswide.

For our first writing unit, we have been writing diary entries. We linked our diary entries to our learning about the digestive system, imagining that we were a piece of food going on the journey through the digestive system. We focused on using time conjunctions to sequence the events and expanded noun phrases to provide some excellent, graphic detail!

In art this term, we have been learning about Pop Art and have spent time creating our own Pop Art. We have traced over the outlines of our faces and used these to create Pop Art inspired self portraits. 

This week we have been learning about Children in Need. We began by learning about the history of Children in Need, ways in which children are helped by the charity and why it is so important to raise money for them. We then completed a class challenge to show how important it is! We tried to run as many laps of the playground as possible without stopping. Everyone showed amazing resilience and overall, Maple Class managed to run a whopping 353 laps of the playground, with some of us running up to 30 laps without stopping! Well done Maple Class!!

To complete our science topic, we learnt about what food chains are and how they work. Then we acted out our own food chains, starting with a producer and finishing with an apex predator. 

After learning about the digestive system, we have gone on to learn all about teeth. We carried out an experiment to find out whether sugary drinks cause tooth decay. We put eggs into a variety of different sugary drinks and have been observing them over the past week. We recorded our results in a table and then summarised our findings at the end.