Haseyo!

Hello and welcome to the Mandarin Ducks' class page! I am Mr Godfrey and I am excited for all the new learning ahead in our new school year.

In year 4, as part of our mini topic, we will be exploring South Korea and the variety of unique places it has to visit. Throughout our mini topic we will learn where South Korea is on the world map, along with the key provinces and city locations within the country. We shall explore the national animal of the Mandarin Duck along with key cultural elements of South Korean life, including their love of artwork.

After mini topic, once the Autumn term starts back we shall be looking at the lives of Ancient Greek citizens. We shall explore Greek myths, looking at the beasts and heroes who made them so well known.

Later in the year we shall also begin to explore unfortunate events, looking at both natural disasters and man-made problems. Finally we shall explore the lives of Romans and how it may have been different to those of Ancient Greeks. 

Autumn 2

Welcome back to school everyone.

I hope you are excited and looking forward to all of the new learning that you will be doing this half term in school.

In English and Topic we will continue to be exploring the Ancient Greek people, with some interesting computer coding about creating our own Minotaur Labrynths! 

We will be looking condensation and the water cycle in science while we explore more fun activities during PE!

I wonder what exciting learning is waiting for you in the coming weeks!

We have been looking at tenses in English, can anyone identify the error that I have put into the last bit of writing about our Science experiment? I have made an error in my past continuous tense, using past tense versions of the words. Remember, in past continuous we use a present tense verb after the past tense identifier.

If you have noticed this question, and identified the error in my writing, please come and tell me. 10 House Points for the first 3 children to identify the error.

We had a fantastic time creating the maze layout and learning key shortcut commands to support our movement between different programs, such as a web browser, word document and file browser. 

We learned how to use key features of the coding program along with how they interact with one another. 

After the maze, we learned how different parts of code function, how they interact with each other and how to slot them together to create larger chains of commands.

We learned that a command means an instruction and how the program runs each step.

We looked at how this affected the character and the maze that we created.

We explored how to code the character from moving over the maze walls and how to make our character react to bumping into one of those walls.

Spring Term:

This term we have been learning all about unfortunate events and exploring the Science topics of Sound and the Digestive System.

Here are some examples of the fun learning and activities that have been happening this term:

Summer Term - 1

Haseyo and welcome to the Summer term with the Mandarin Ducks!

This term we have been exploring the thematic topic of the ROMANS! 

In English, the children have been hard at work researching the life of Julius Caesar to write some excellent biographies. They have investigated different gladiators and written about what life would have been like fighting for survival in the Colloseum for the entertainment of cheering Romans. Moving in to the second half of Summer, the children will be slipping back through a crack in time to the Roman period to experience action and adventure before returning safely (we hope) to their life in the modern day.

In Maths we have explored Roman Numerals again as a revision, with top set understanding how to write Roman numerals larger than 3000 by adding a line above the numbers, just how we use 000 to show 1'000 (One thousand)

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XX = 20,000

We have also explored symmetry, reflection and translation.

We have looked into fractions, and we have explored co-ordinates in the first quadrant.

We have put extra focus on learning our times tables as we have the Year 4 timed test in Summer 2.

Children have been working hard to bring their times tables recall time down below 6 seconds to access the MTC (multiplication tables check).

In Topic we have continued to explore the Roman time period, placing importance on HOW we learn about the past, along with the LEGACY left behind for us today. Did you know, that the calendar the world uses today was created by Julius Caesar? When presented with the problem of every 4 years creating one extra day than the orbital cycle, he had the simultaneously brilliant and lazy idea to just throw an extra day on the end of every 4th year. This keeps the orbital cycles of the Earth around the Sun accurate and the solution has worked so well, we STILL use it today.

We have also discovered what made Roman soldiers so dangerous and effective in battle, exploring some of their formations and how they used open fields to their advantage.

Finally we have explored the invasion of Britain, looking at their opposition 'the Celts' who the Romans had to face when trying to take and hold land in England. 

In Science, we have not been learning about the physics applied to a Roman gladius blade as it struck against a Celt wooden shield or leather paldron. We have been learning about Living things in Biology. We have identified the key differences between Carnivores, Omnivores and Herbivores. We have understood how their teeth (previously learned about in Spring 2) can be used to identify the diet and nutritional temperment of the animal. Did you know that while humans are omnivores, our teeth are more designed to process herbivorous diets? This supports out healthy balanced diet that requires less meat intake than plant-matter. The Mandarin Ducks feel that somebody should tell the Panda that it is eating the wrong foods. 

We have also discovered how to classify and group animals by different traits. We have split animals into double and tripple venn diagrams, along with developed in groups some complicated classification keys. 

Our final piece of learning in Science has been from exploring food chains and food webs.

In the next half of Summer we will explore sustainability of our climate and our human impact upon it. We shall then finish our Science in Year 4 with a project exploring electricity and circuits.

We have had some exciting enrichment opportunities this term.

The children have enjoyed an Indian Dance session along with taking part in some YOGA exercises from a professional instructor. We have taken part in Safer Internet Day and we have enjoyed a French activity day.

We have spent a week discovering the 5 main British Values and are preparing currently to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee celebrations towards the end of May. 

Please see below for examples of the children's learning and work from the first half of the Summer term: