This week has really whizzed by!

The children have been working up to writing a Hungarian Horntail dragon description, with the goal of applying expanded noun phrases and time/ place prepositions. We have used a boxed up plan to support with this and wrote the first paragraph. I am really looking forward to reading the finished descriptions next week.

In Maths, we have worked on rounding numbers to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand. The children created number lines to support with this and we had a poem with actions to help us.

In Art, we focused on the artist Jackie Morris (who illustrated ‘Tell me a Dragon’ and ‘The Lost Words’) The children very much enjoyed sketching the outline of a dragon, re-creating the image.

Our invertebrate hunt in Science was a real highlight of the week and I cannot believe how enthusiastic the children were! We carefully observed them with magnifying glasses and used a classification key to identify each of the invertebrates.

We have had a very active week with not only swimming and PE with Mr Alexander, but a jump rope session! We are also loving taking part in the daily ‘Supermovers’ dances as our Wake and Shake.

Have a well- deserved rest and good weekend everybody! See you next week.

Our dragonlogists have had a fantastic week in Year 4! We have very much enjoyed exploring the book ‘How to train your Dragon’ in Guided Reading sessions. In English, the children have been working on using place prepositions to describe the position of the dragons in the beautiful illustrations from the book ‘Tell me a dragon’. The children have also used time prepositions to explain the when things happened. After working on these skills, we applied them in a short, descriptive paragraph- of course based on a dragon!

In Maths, we have been working on place value of four digit numbers to order and compare numbers. The children have used concrete resources, such as the base ten blocks and place value counters, as well as their place value grids to support them with this. They have easily been able to add or subtract, 1000, 100, 10 and 1’s and worked on renaming. Our first lesson on rounding numbers to the nearest thousand was challenging!

In RE, we worked on our new topic based on what religious people believe about what is right and wrong. We shared ‘The Golden Rule’ of ‘Treating others as you would like to be treated’ and looked at each religions variation of this. The children created a piece of art work to symbolise this and we watched an advert that demonstrated a man following this rule.

In Computing, we worked on input and output devices.

In Science, we grouped animals in a variety of ways including Venn and Carroll diagrams.

Have a lovely weekend Year 4! See you all next week.

The children have settled absolutely wonderfully and I feel really lucky to have such a brilliant, enthusiastic class!

The book ‘Tell me a Dragon’ has really inspired our work on description this week and the children have created some beautiful expanded noun phrases. Some examples that the children have written are below;

‘The vivid blue, striking sea dragon with mermaids surrounding it’

‘The graceful, sleek dragon with whisper- thin wings’

The children enjoyed reading example descriptive texts, including our text map, which was inspired by Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon from Harry Potter.

I was pleased to see that we have a class of keen mathematicians and we have straight away got into our Singapore Maths unit. The children have used concrete resources, such as the base ten blocks and place value counters to create four digit numbers and then drew pictorial representations of these. They also represented four digit numbers in place value grids and in part- part whole diagrams. We have been counting in 25’s and 1000’s.

In Science, our unit is ‘Living things and their Habitats’. The children were introduced to our focus scientist- Jane Goodall. We enjoyed finding out about her job as a primatologist in Tanzania and the discoveries she made about chimps.

In Art, we focused on using water colour paints to create a colour gradient, which we then focused on using in our dragon eye sketches. Everybody put so much time and care into their work!

Our Computing work this week was based around e- safety. We watched ‘The adventures of Kara, Winston and the Smart Crew’ and then used the app ‘Book Creator’ to give advice to others about the SMART rules.

Overall, a fantastic first week in Year 4. I hope everybody enjoys a well- deserved rest! See you on Monday!

I have missed you this week, Year 4/ Year 5! I really hope those of you who had your transition days had a wonderful time at your new schools on Wednesday and Thursday; it sounds as though you have from the conversations we have had today! Good luck to those of you who have your transition day on Monday! I know you will all make your new schools extremely proud.

I have missed you this week, Year 4/ Year 5! I really hope those of you who had your transition days had a wonderful time at your new schools on Wednesday and Thursday; it sounds as though you have from the conversations we have had today! Good luck to those of you who have your transition day on Monday! I know you will all make your new schools extremely proud.

We have had such an exciting week.

The children have enjoyed a visit from AIP learning about healthy eating, the Tardebigge Trek, a session with Ridgeway Sports Leaders, Atheletics at the Abbey Stadium, Forest school, the obstacle fun fun, pilates, jump rope and of course horse riding! I am sure that everybody is now absolutely exhausted. Have a good rest and enjoy the sunshine! 

I cannot believe how quickly the weeks seem to be flying by now! The children very much enjoyed their trip to Bewdley museum, which really put our learning about evacuees in Tardebigge into context.
Tardebigge’s Got Talent this week was fantastic! We had so many wonderful acts- dog acts, ‘musical martial arts’, dancing, singing, impressions and magic acts. All of the children voted and our winner performed in the ‘Royal Variety Show’ in assembly this afternoon.
The children have been writing ‘Year 4 Survival Guides’ for next year’s future Year 4 children, which have been fantastic! We have also been working on money in Maths.
Enjoy the photos below

Useful information for ‘Activity Week’:
- Children are to come to school wearing PE sportwear. PE kits have been sent home this week.
- On Thursday afterschool there will be an opportunity for your children to have another go on the inflatable fun run on the field. We will be running this as a school fundraiser activity and therefore asking for a small payment per go (bring your change!)
- On Friday the children will be given the opportunity to buy a skipping rope after their Jump rope session. Details of cost will be on the newsletter.

Timetable for the week:
- Monday: Tardebigge Trek in the PM. Parents/carers are invited to join us at 1.15pm.
- Tuesday: Sports Day. The children have already pre-ordered a sandwich at school. In the morning the children will be engaging in group activities. There will be a picnic lunch on the field at 11.30 and the track events will be in the afternoon. Children to wear a t-shirt of their house colour.
- Bredon- blue
- Clent- green
- Lickey- yellow
- Malvern- red
Parents/grandparents are welcome to join us for part/all of the day.
- Wednesday: Forest School session (bring waterproofs!)
- Thursday: Inflatable fun run on the field
- Friday: Horse riding and Jump rope session

If you have any queries regarding Activity week then please just ask.

What an exciting week we have had in Year 4!

The children thoroughly enjoyed Bikeability today and we are so proud of the perseverance displayed by all of the children. We had a wonderful afternoon at Redditch Cricket club yesterday afternoon too (apologies for us being so late back to school again!) and thankfully, the sun shone during both events. The Jungle Book theatre visit was amazing for our children, especially after all the work we completed on the Jungle Book in our Rainforest topic.

Our DT has been lots of fun this week! The children were given the design brief of creating a healthy British meal for the change for life campaign. They started off with completing a product analysis of existing ready meals and we looked carefully at the packaging to debate how healthy the meal would be. The taste testing was obviously very enjoyable! The children prepared and cooked their meals today with Miss Cooke and they were all absolutely delicious- the children agreed that their meals were far tastier than the ready meals! Please look through the photos to see.

In English we have planned our information texts on a British animal and in Maths, the children have worked extremely hard to apply their understanding of decimals to our unit on measure of mass, length and volume.

Have a good weekend!

What a rainy week!

The children have really blown us away this week, as they have applied their knowledge of fractions to decimals so well that we have really whizzed through our decimal unit of work. We have used a 100 square to represent the decimals pictorially, so that the children could really understand why 0.8 is bigger than 0.28. The children were extremely enthusiastic about this! We have also been practising our times tables lots on Times Table Rock stars- please continue to do so at home.

In Guided Reading, the children predicted what creature Lucy could have met in the magical land of Narnia. I loved the artwork and descriptions they produced! In English, the children created an information text on this creature, applying the skills of using organisational devices and plural, possessive apostrophes. We will be writing another information text on a British animal that the children have researched this week.

The British animal research has linked nicely to our Science work on food chains and food webs. The children have recapped the scientific vocabulary; producer, primary and secondary consumers and predators.
The children have learned a little more about Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan in Guided Reading and have really focussed on the emotions they would have experienced when they were evacuated. In History, we have learned lots about evacuation using a range of primary and secondary sources. The children asked historical questions and made inferences about the sources they used. We also very much enjoyed extracting information about evacuees in Tardebigge during WWII by reading through the log books. 

It is a shame that the cricket was cancelled today, due to the weather. It has now been rearranged for next Thursday afternoon. Have a lovely weekend. Fingers crossed that the weather improves next week!

Happy half term!

The children have been amazing this week and have really impressed us with their attitude. I have never known a class to be so excited about completing a reading test paper and so they all did really well as a result!

In Maths, we have been working on using Roman numerals and our unit of position and movement- recapping use of coordinates. In English, we have continued our work on evacuees and the children have written Lucy’s diary entry from the day she entered the wardrobe. They experienced being Lucy and entering our Year 4 ‘wardrobe’/ cupboard by pushing through the coats and feeling the cold (cold packs!) and the tree needles brushing their skin. They then planned and wrote their diaries, focussing on the skills of using descriptive phrases for feelings and using conjunctions to extend sentences.

In Science, the children have enjoyed working on an experiment to do with the effects of different types of liquids on our teeth. They used the TASC wheel to design their experiments and carry them out. I am dreading the smell the boiled eggs and variety of drinks will create in the classroom over half term!

As you know, Laura and Marisa planned such a wonderful charity event to raise money for Birmingham Children's Hospital. The children certainly enjoyed themselves completing the acronym hunt on the field in the sunshine this afternoon. Well done girls- I am so proud of their compassionate act. 

I hope everybody has a wonderful break and manages to get plenty of rest, ready for their final term at Tardebigge!