Year 4 - Mrs Lynch

The moral of the story is........

Year 3 and 4 Visit Eden Camp.

Year 3 and 4 had a fantastic day visiting Eden Camp in Malton, North Yorkshire. It was an amazing exerience that brought our learning to life and gave us memories we shall never forget.

Visitor Ron O'Neill Comes To Year 4 to Talk About World War 2 Evacuation.

Author Cliff McNish Visits Year 4

We were honoured to welcome our favourite author Mr Cliff McNish into school. He spent all day with us, helping us write Fantasy stories and spending time looking at our artwork and writing that we produced as a result of reading his stories The Doomspell and The Scent of Magic.

Week commencing 25th September 2017

This week we have been reading and researching about the Stone Age. We have made notes ready to write a non-chronological report next week. We worked collaboratively in pairs or small groups. Look at the photos below to find out more.

Autumn Term 2017

What a busy few weeks we have had. Everyone has settled in really quickly and been working hard from day 1. Just a few quick reminders - P.E is on Thursday, homework is given out on Friday and to be returned no later than the following Wednesday. Spellings are also given out on Friday and will be tested the following Friday. We have been doing a lot of work on place value in maths and will be moving on to addition and subtraction next. In English we have been reading Cliffhanger by Jacqueline Wilson and doing lots of writing based on the book. Our history topic has started with the Stone Age and we are looking at electricity in Science.

Lots of point of view discussions with our Talking Partners

Summer Term 2017

(Beginning of term reminders and general information)

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter holiday and are ready for the final term of 2017. A few quick reminders - Can you please remember outdoor shoes for P.E as we will be going outside as much as possible, library is still on Wednesday, homework is given out on Thursday and is to be returned no later than the following Wednesday morning. Spelling lists are also given out on Thursday with a set of words for the children to learn. Grammar books with specific pages to complete will be given out at times but are also being used within class as well so they won't be coming home all the time. The spelling books must be returned to school every Thursday as the children will be undertaking a test of the words that they have been learning. Home readers and reading record books need to be in school every day.

Thursday 13th July

What a fabulous week we have had. Lots of work in English using the book Tuesday by David Wiesner has ended with the most fantastic stories written by the children - well done on all your hard work. On Tuesday afternoon a choir made up of children from Years 3 and 4 were very privileged to be invited to sing at a citizenship ceremony at the Civic Centre in Newcastle. The children sang beautifully and got lots of applause. Wednesday afternoon saw two teams of Year 4 children take part in a tag Rugby League competition at the home of Newcastle Thunder and the Newcastle Falcons in Kingston Park. Superb rugby skills were on show and with 7 games played our teams won 5 and drew 2 so they ended the day unbeaten - fantastic result and we are super proud of them all. Take a look at the photos below.

Friday 23rd June 2017

We have had lots of fun in English this week collaboratively writing an alphabet poem about the River Tyne. We took the poem we had written and wrote it again in the shape of the river. Finally we performed it.

What a fantastic rugby session today. We played our first game of tag rugby and some fantastic skills were on display. Well done everyone.

Thursday 15th June

We wanted to find out how water travels around plants so we decided to set up an experiment in Science to try and find the answer. We put celery sticks in water containing either blue or red food colouring and we are going to leave them until next week and report back with the results.

Friday 9th June

We all had a lot of fun learning rugby skills with Joe from Newcastle Thunder today. We learnt how to hold the ball correctly, pass it and touch it down for a try. Next week all these skills will be put together in a game.

Monday 5th June

Welcome back to the last half term of this academic year. Everybody is very busy already with lots of Science going on this week. We have recorded the results of our growing experiment and very interesting they were. We found that the plants without light and water still grew but were a pale yellow colour and tall and thin. The plants that were in the sunlight but weren't watered grew best of all. They were healthy and very green. We concluded that there must have been some moisture in the soil when they were planted which allowed them to grow healthily. We wrote up our results using lots of scientific vocabulary such as germinate, seedling, photosynthesis, chlorophyll and nutrients. Take a lot at the photos below.

Friday 26th may 2017

Another beautiful sunny day so we made the most of the lovely weather by going into the school garden and sketching plants. This linked in nicely with our Science topic - Plants. We looked very carefully at the detail of the plants and labelled them accordingly.

We had great fun doing archery this afternoon with Premier Sports. Our treat for doing so well with the Golden Mile.

Thursday 18th May

What a fabulous trip we have had down the River Tyne today. We saw so much and we learnt so much too. Did you know that there is a ship on the River Tyne that takes between 6,000 and 8,000 cars from Nissan at one time? It also transports the whole wing from an Airbus aircraft too. At the mouth of the Tyne we saw the Emirates plane beginning its descent into Newcastle airport. Did you know that Souter lighthouse, near Sunderland, was the first one to have electric light? We saw a cormorant bird that is light in colour but appears black when it dives under the water. We passed over the Tyne Tunnel and it was quite strange to think cars and lorries could be travelling under us. Also there was a big sign asking boats not to drop their anchors there! A highlight was travelling under the Gateshead Millenium bridge which tilted to lets us go underneath. We also saw a helicopter take off and fly over the bridge. Take a look at all the photos below to see what fun we had.

River Tyne Trip May 18th 2017

Monday 8th May 2017

We have begun reading our new class book 'Journey to Jo'Burg' by Beverley Naidoo. Lots of discussions about the issues in the book that were real for so many people in South Africa not that long ago. Our Geography topic on Rivers has started with a look at the history and location of the River Tyne ready for our trip down the Tyne next Thursday (May 18th). Science this term is all about plants and growing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Spring Term 2017

(Beginning of term reminders and general information)

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas holiday and are ready for a good 2017. A few quick reminders - P.E is now on Monday, library is Wednesday, homework is given out on Thursday and is to be returned no later than Wednesday morning. Spelling lists are also given out on Thursday with a set of words for the children to learn. Grammar books with specific pages to complete will also be given out on Thursday. The spelling books must be returned to school every Thursday as the children will be undertaking a test of the words that they have been learning. Home readers and reading record books need to be in school every day.

Monday April 3rd 2017

Nearly at the end of the Spring Term and what a fabulous week we are having. Fantastic performances all round with our Ancient Egyptian performance - well done. The painted egg contest was brilliant and the Year 4 winner was from our class. Also managed at last to get the final Egyptian homework presented to the class too. Check out the photos below.

Monday 27th March

It has been a really busy few weeks. We have made ear defenders and talked about which design was best. We have been learning lots about Egyptians and our play is coming along nicely - not long until performance day now! In maths there has been a real focus on reasoning - lots and lots of discussion about why we are using the maths we have chosen. In English we will be starting another new book - The Egyptian Cinderella.

Monday 27th February 2017

Look at our photo from World book Day today (Thursday). Lots of fabulous costumes - well done everyone.

We looked at the affects of too much noise on our ears. Then we had a go at making protectors, deciding which material would muffle sound better and protect our ears from excess noise.

Monday 13th February 2017

Another half term over and the hard work has continued. Keep up the good work everyone. Take a look at some of the fabulous Egyptian homework projects that have come in - part two after the half term break. Have a good holiday everyone and rest ready for another busy half term.

Monday 6th February 2017

Another busy week. Carrying on with our Egyptian theme, Mr Roberts and the class designed and made some fabulous shadoofs using balsa wood and art straws. In Maths we learnt about decimals using art straws too, a visual representation of tenths and then just how small hundredths are. We were also treated to some delicious Egyptian Honey Cake courtesy of members of our class. Remember all projects must be in next week.

Egyptian Honey Cake - delicious!

Shadoofs

Decimals using art straws.

Week Beginning 30th January 2017

It is story telling week and to start our week we went to our tipi and listened to the story of 'Hairy Maclary from Donaldson Dairy' which we are going to learn off by heart this week.

Father Allan came to talk about the Bible today. We found out lots of information about the history of the Bible and all the features.

Week beginning 23rd January 2017

Today we learnt a Chinese song in music and then played it on a glockenspiel using a pentotonic scale which has 5 notes. We then had a discussion about Chinese New Year which is on Saturday 28th January.

We had fun making string telephones in Science with lots of talk about how sound travels. Lots of scientific vocabulary was being used and it was interesting to find out that a whisper into the string telephone worked better than a whisper without the telephones.

At Forest school today we saw lots of signs of spring with large buds appearing on the Willow trees that had only just appeared last week. We played a camouflage game where we all had to hunt one of our friends who were hiding. It was interesting to see how many went by and didn't notice the person hiding because the camouflaging was so good. We also built some fantastic structures too.

It was our last Forest School today and what a fantastic three weeks we have had. Today we were using our senses to identify what we could hear, see, touch and smell in the forest. It was a freezing cold day and we warmed ourselves up back at the fire pit with hot chocolate and also popcorn cooked on an open fire.

Week beginning Monday 16th January 2017

We managed at last to see if our final volcano would erupt. Coca Cola and Mentoes were added. Now take a look at the photos below to see if it worked.

Fractions can be difficult to understand so we tried some bar modelling this week when we were looking at equivalent fractions.

At Forest School today we looked at seasonal changes, plant and leaf identification and also lots of teamwork skills. We toasted apples on the fire and re capped all the safety elements of being around a campfire. Science, Maths, English and lots more of the curriculum was covered today.

We took part in Birdwatch today (Thursday) with the RSPB. We went out onto the big field and small wooded area to identify and record any birds we could see. We then uploaded our results to their webpage and these will be used to find out what type of birds and how many there are.

At Forest School this Friday we started off making bird feeders using lard, fruit and nuts which we have put outside in our school camp. We will be monitoring these to see what birds come to feed. In our forest camp we were excited to see our nests from Wednesday were still there. We played some games including Predator where if you weren't quiet enough you might have got a little bit wet. A real treat today was seeing and hearing a woodpecker on our walk to the woods. There will be lots to add to our Forest School diaries.

Monday January 9th 2017

This term we will begin learning all about Ancient Egypt in history - always a big favourite. In Science we will continue with light and then move on to finding out all about sound. Our new book for English is 'The Butterfly Lion' by Michael Morpurgo. We also start Forest School this Wednesday too.

Forest School Friday 13th January 2017

What a treat Forest School in the snow! We found animal prints in the snow and a really old tree (we looked at the rings to try and find out how old it was). We did a winter nature scavenger hunt to identify trees, bark, lichen and lots of other things. Finally we lit a fire and had hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows.

Forest School Wednesday 11th January 2017

What a lot of fun and we found out so much at forest school today. We identified trees, made a gym (working together as a team and solving problems), drank hot chocolate, made leaf kebabs (whilst identifying lots of different leaves) and identified signs of wild life. Look at the slideshow to see what we did.

We experimented with shadows today by shining a light source at an object which a friend had to guess. Look at the photos to see what we did.

Autumn term 2016

(Beginning of term reminders and general information)

I hope everyone had a lovely summer holiday. The class has settled in well and are already working hard in all areas. A few quick reminders - P.E is on Wednesday, library is Monday, homework is given out on Thursday and is to be returned no later than Wednesday morning. Spelling lists are also given out on Thursday with a set of words for the children to learn. The spelling books must be returned to school every Thursday as the children will be undertaking a test of the words that they have been learning. Home readers and reading record books need to be in school every day.

Week Beginning December 19th 2016

Here's hoping that everyone has a lovely Christmas and we will see everybody again in 2017. Mrs McGovern says a big thank you for all the lovely presents and cards too.

Week Beginning Monday December 12th 2016

Could you please try and get all models of volcanoes in by this Wednesday (14th December) and the rest of the projects by Friday (16th December)? Also all reading books need to be collected in by Friday as well so we can rotate the selection of books with the other classes - thank you. Remember it is our Christmas party on Thursday (15th December) bring a plate of food and your party clothes in a bag ready to get changed into after lunch.

Look at all of our awesome volcanoes!

We had fun investigating white light using our colour spinners in Science. We also investigated how light travels and the effects it has on what we see.

Week Beginning 5th December 2016

A quick reminder that all volcano homework is due in by Friday 16th December please. We would then like to test any volcano models that have been made. Also remember that you didn't just have to make a model, your homework could be in any form e.g. a booklet, Powerpoint, a poster or anything else you would like to do.

Week Beginning 28th November 2016

We made some colour spinners today in Science which we are going to use to investigate white light.

We have all had lots of fun today making Christmas crafts. Just a bit of glitter to be added next week for some extra Christmas sparkle. They will be brought home next week.

Week Beginning November 21st 2016

We had a very informative and enjoyable visit to the Hindu Temple today to finish off our R.E topic where we have been learning all about Hinduism. We learnt lots of new information but the staff there were very impressed by what we already knew. Take a look at the photos below of our visit today (Thursday 24th November).

We started our new Computing topic this week where we will be learning all about algorithms and creating simple programs. We will be using logical reasoning to predict what will happen. We started this topic by going into the gym and giving each other instructions on how to get from the earth to the moon then to Mars and finally back to earth. Look at the photos below.

We hope everybody has enjoyed Children in Need day today (Friday 18th November) as much as we have.

Week Beginning 14th November

What a treat we had to finish off our Science topic of Rocks and Soils with a visit from Mr Pickup to talk about rocks. Although he is a teacher now, Mr Pickup is also a Geologist and very knowledgeable about rocks and the history of the earth. We learnt a lot more but he was also impressed by what we had found out this term in our lessons.

Week Beginning 7.11.16

This week we are going to begin reading Maman by Mario Ramos. This is a French text and we will be doing lots of work based on the book using our French skills in context. We will also be starting our new English book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.

We used the internet to undertake some geographical research today about volcanoes. We were using the skills we have been learning about non-fiction reading to help us. Later in the week we will word process our results.

Week beginning November 1st 2016

The end of a really busy week and the excitement of a Halloween disco too. Lots of hard work in all subjects and we even managed to get some paired reading in with Year1 and 2.

Half term is over and we have been straight back into work. We are continuing looking at books by Anthony Browne in English. This week we are reading The Tunnel.

In Science we tested different rocks to see if we could put a scratch on them. We put our results into a Venn Diagram bringing Maths into our Science.

Paired reading with Year 1 and 2

Testing rocks in Science

Friday 21st October

We have come to the end of a very busy half term and the class has worked extremely hard in all areas - well done everyone. Have a fabulous break and come back ready for another super half term.

Wednesday 18th October

What fun we had using our knowledge of numbers in French to play Bingo today. Mrs Brickwood and the class produced some fabulous Aboriginal art too.

Tuesday 18th October

What a lovely Autumn morning perfect for running the Golden Mile. We are determined to keep fit and win the Owl Trust prize.

Friday 14th October

The last day of Maths week and we have put all of our coins collected down on the trail. We collected 619 1p coins and 389 2p coins which came to a grand total of £13.97 - well done everyone. We had great fun counting and totaling our coins - lots and lots of Maths discussion.

We had a budget of £100 and had to plan a party for 10 guests. There were certain items we had to buy e.g. party hats and balloons. We then had to choose drinks and food. We worked with a partner, discussing and solving the calculations needed together. We are now going to make a poster for the party too.

Thursday 13th October

Lots of collaborative talking and problem solving going on today in Maths. The task was to plan a party for 10 people with a budget of £100. There were conditions too! Look at the photos to see the planning process in operation.

Great fun was had in the afternoon playing board games with our friends. Lots of Maths and lots of fun.

Wednesday 12th October

Today we got out all of the copper coins we have collected and made a line of 100 1p coins and 50 2p coins. We knew that this meant we had £1 in each of the lines. We then used the length of the line to estimate how many coins would be needed to make a trail along the main corridor of school. We had lots of different estimates with the largest being 10,000 and the smallest 250! We can't wait until Friday to find out if we were the nearest to the actual total. We then had great fun after playtime playing Nana Bingo in the gym using our place value skills to find the numbers on our cards.

Tuesday 11th October

We have been challenging ourselves in Maths and explaining how we have worked out money problems. We saw number patterns which helped. We also used our knowledge of column addition and subtraction to work out the answers. Most importantly we worked together, talking about our work and explaining what we were doing. We also had fun working out how much our name was worth. The most expensive name was over £100 and the least expensive was less than £3.

We made an outdoor Maths Trail for the children in Mrs Armitage's class to follow. They had to count, measure and look for different shapes. Great fun was had by all.

Monday 10th October

It's Maths Week and what a lot of fun we are going to have. After a brilliant assembly with a staff v pupil maths quiz and a fraction story we got straight to work. This morning we have been out in the yard looking for Maths questions that we could get the younger children to try and answer in a Maths Trail - How many circles can you find? etc. Then we went to the ICT suite and typed them up.

Thursday 6th October

We had great fun today learning about the movements of the plates tectonic in Science by using crackers and shaving foam. We found out how the movement of the plates cause earthquakes and help to form mountains.

Thursday October 6th

It is Maths Week next week. Watch this space for news of exciting activities to really bring Maths alive. Keep hold of all your 1p and 2p coins to bring in to school next Friday (October 14th) for a fund raising money trail.

Friday 30th September 2016

Today we were very lucky to have a visit from some members of the 'International Rescue Corps' who told us all about their work saving people trapped by earthquakes. It was fascinating to hear about their work, the equipment they use and how to stay as safe as we can be if we were ever caught in an earthquake. This has been really helpful with our current geography work on Volcanoes and Earthquakes. Take a look at the photos below.

Have a look at the photos of our walk around the school investigating rocks for Science.

Rocks Investigation

Welcome to our new class!

Welcome to Mrs McGovern's Class

Maths investigations and a picnic fit for a queen. Take a look at the photos below.

We enjoyed sharing stories with children from Mrs Armitage's Year 1 class for our book week.

We are coming to the end of another busy half term. Take a look at the fabulous homework projects that the class have been doing. They chose a country and then it was up to them how they presented it. We have had Power Points, posters and books -absolutely brilliant, well done everyone.

Our LKS2 pupil all know and understand a great deal about life in our country during the war. They put on a wonderful play for us about an evacuee called Harry. Life was tough for children sent away from the cities.

They were often very sick on the journey

Some parents had already gone off to fight

Their teachers were often very harsh in those days

Older folk often had to become air raid wardens.

The nation had to pull together like soldiers

Gas masks were carried around everywhere

Children were often bullied by the families

Digging for victory was one way of producing food

Some women became Land Girls - working on farms.

We hope you are all having a good Easter break. Just before we broke up we found out that we had won the Golden Mile challenge and as a treat we got a visit from some of the residents of the Birds of Prey Centre at Kielder.

Current Achievement Headlines
Across the school almost 84% of our pupils currently achieving their age related expectation from year 1 to year 6 in reading, writing and maths. By the end of the school year we are aiming to have almost 90% of pupils at their age related expectations.

March 16th 2016
After working with Father Alan at school we , along with Mrs Dalkin and Mrs Miller's classes, produced an Easter liturgy that we showed to parents at Sugley Dene Church today. The whole process reinforced the Easter story and involved lots of skills such as reciting poetry, singing, orally telling a story and even some art work. Look at the photos below of us in church today.

February 26th 2016

We thought we would have a go at using poetry to learn about gravity in Science. We used a poem called 'Gravity' by Mr R and found an animated version of it to watch too. We read the poem and collected all the technical and scientific vocabulary we could find in it. We talked about the meaning of the words and then used them and the original poem to write our own 'Gravity' poem. It has worked really well and our understanding of the concept of gravity has been excellent. Take a look at the video of all of us reading the original poem.

February 2nd 2016

What a thrill it was today to watch Tim Peake undertake a live Science lesson from space in the Cosmic Classroom on the International Space Station!

January 8th 2016

The first week is over and what a busy week. We worked collaboratively solving problems in maths, we performed poems in English and we discussed what we already knew and what we would like to find out about World War 2 after listening to Neville Chamberlain's speech. Take a look at the photos in the gallery at the bottom of the page.

January 5th 2016

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Welcome back and a Happy New Year. Thank you very much for all of my presents and cards. It was very kind of you all.

We have got a really busy time coming up and we will be starting it all by reading a brilliant book, 'Time Train to The Blitz' by Sophie McKenzie. Watch this space to read about all the English work we will be doing as we read the book together.

Homework is given out on Friday for both Maths and English and must be returned by the following Tuesday. Reading books chosen by the children, accompanied by a Reading Record book, are also brought home and must be returned daily. Could you please encourage your child to write a comment about the book that they have read? PE will be either on Monday or Wednesday and the children must have a PE kit in school including trainers. I have suggested to the children that they bring their PE kit on the first day of term and take it home at the end of each half term so that it is always in school.