7.1.2020

We have worked hard this week on short multiplication (some children even tried long multiplication too!), as well as writing some super biographies about Anne Frank on the 75th anniversary of her death in Auschwitz. There were a lot of Gold Awards for this super writing!

Look at our amazing Anderson shelters that we made in DT today!

31.1.2020

This week we learned about the Holocaust and the children have been making their own powerpoint presentations to explain what happened.

We have also been learning about co-ordinates and making line graphs, which have got neater and clearer as the week has gone on, though converting between metric and imperial measurements had some of us scratching our heads!

In English we have continued our work on Goodnight Mister Tom and today the children wrote some sensitive informal letters in the role of the character William Beech.

29.1.20

The children were very sensible and sensitive when we learned about the Holocaust this week and have been working on some interesting powerpoints to display their knowledge.

We were lucky to see Phoebe's grandfather's war medals and several children have made model Anderson Shelters. We will soon be World War 2 experts!

17.1.20

We have had a manic week here in Beech class, but learned lots!

In Maths we have been counting up using a blank numberline to subtract numbers with 2 decimal places - this sounded tricky until we used the context of money, so if we were finding change from £1.00, having spent £0.71, we would add on £0.09, then £0.20 to take us to the £1.00. We have been thinking about how adults used to spend money in the sweet shop and have our change counted back like this and for homework , some of the children have said they would like to go and have a try. Ms Shepherd works in Barham village store and says she always counts back change like this - we're all just too keen to use our credit cards! If you get a chance, the children would love to try this out!

In History we've been learning about evacuees, linking this to our English reader, Goodnight Mister Tom. The book has some gritty subjects covered and whilst reminding children that nowadays we have organisations such as the NSPCC and Childline to contact, we are aware that William's treatment at the hands of his mother and the results of this are traumatic. We have suggested that the children may wish to watch the full version of the film with parents: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nfowc

They have seen part one, but we have abridged the second part and will only show from William's hospital stay. Only excerpts from the book are being shared. Please contact me if you wish to have further clarification. 

The text is being used as a base for our discussion on settings, characters etc during a particular historical period, therefore, the entirety of the  plot is not required for our study.

10.1.20

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to term 3! I hope you have had a restful holiday and thank you again for all my lovely gifts.

This week we have begun our new topic: World War 2. The children are really interested and enjoying working on Goodnight Mister Tom in our English lessons.

We have been working on Place Value and negative numbers in Maths this week and I was really impressed with their understanding of negative numbers, especially in the context of temperature...lets hope they won't need to use their knowledge in the chilly weeks ahead!

Spellings have been given out today ready of our test next Thursday.

Don't forget Year 4 Forest School on Tuesdays this term and PE (indoor gymnastics) on Wednesdays - please make sure kits are in school and named!