Week beginning 22nd September 2014

This week Year 4 have begun to retell the story of the Unicorn and the Lion by Shirley Hughes. A story map of the beginning, build up, climax and ending and 'stepping through the story' has helped the children to retell the war tale in their own words. The children have been working hard to include powerful verbs and interesting vocabulary in their writing and, on Friday, they tried to extend their sentences. I can't wait to read the final stories, after the editing process and the children will be creating their very own books to send home so you can read the stories too!

In Maths we have been revising the methods and strategies to solve addition and subtraction calculations. Next week we will solve calculations with larger numbers and use an efficient method to do so! The children have thought of lots of jobs which involve needing to calculate addition and subtraction sums and they have told me when these skills are useful in our everyday lives.

On Tuesdays Mrs Thompson teaches Year 4 and they have had lots of fun learning about Calligrams and have started to write their own. We will be celebrating all types of poetry in the week ahead, as we celebrate National Poetry Day on Wednesday.

We start our Tring dance lessons for 4 weeks next Tuesday; on Wednesday afternoon this week we were treated to a wonderful display of dances, which the students learn in Tring Dance School.

Every week we will be celebrating different types of work. This week there is a display outside our classroom showing some excellent examples of handwriting and neat presentation.  Well done children!

Have a lovely weekend ahead!

Week beginning 15.09.2014

We had a busy week last week, as always.The children in Year 4 have been working particularly hard on the presentation of their work, with a big focus on handwriting and spelling. Over the past three weeks we have been learning a mixture of topic, maths and science words. Please continue to practise these! I've also now sent home a list of the Year 3/4 Spellings from the new curriculum.
We will begin learning a new set of spellings starting next Monday and I'll send home some games and ideas to help the children to practise their spellings!

We have really enjoyed our PE lessons so far this term; we have gymnastics on a Wednesday afternoon (although this will change to Dance on Tuesday mornings, run by Tring Dance company, for a short period of time) and ball on ground skills on Fridays (hockey and football). I have been delighted that so many children are 'experts' and have been very willing to demonstrate and showcase their skills. Thank you!

In Science we have learned about the different food groups needed to make a balanced diet. We created a fantastic reconstruction of a human body with the digestive organs in the correct places and next week we look forward to welcoming Dr Andrew into our class to talk more about Digestion!

I look forward to another fantastic week ahead!
Mrs Gritz

First full week

Week beginning 8.9.2014

What a fantastic first full week we've had! I have been very impressed with the children's attitudes to learning in class and know they will continue to shine throughout the year. 

If you were not able to attend the Parent's meeting, I hope you have now received the powerpoint slides. If not, do pop in and I can give you them,

We were delighted to welcome our visitors this week and we particularly enjoyed our 50th Anniversary celebration on Tuesday. In the afternoon we designed and painted ceramic tiles using religious images as our inspiration! Photos to follow shortly! We also wrote some fantastic Kennings poems, which are now displayed in the hall.

In English we have started learning about Historical Setting story writing (based on our WW2 topic). We have learned about the importance of the vocabulary an author uses to grab the attention of the reader and to set the scene. 

In RE we have been reflecting on the story of Abraham, the father of our great nation. The children in Year 4 came up with some amazing comments and questions during discussions about Jesus' family. Next week we are going to read the story of Jacob, if you would like to do some pre-reading at home.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Gritz

Week beginning 1.9.2014

Year 4 have had a wonderful start to the term and settled well into their new classroom in the mobile. We have been very busy! We have discussed what makes a good learner and how we can choose to shine in the classroom! The children came up with our own class agreement of things we thought were important to make a happy and safe classroom environment. We have also talked about what makes each of us special and each child has shared three things about them!

The children discussed what the school Mission Statement meant for each of them and wrote some very thoughtful personal reflections. They also learned more about St Dominic on a fact finding mission! We are looking forward to discussing our family trees next week, as part of the start of our 'People' unit of work in RE. This was set as homework on Friday (alongside writing a personal prayer and learning the first set of topic spellings).

The children wrote some fantastic poems using 'I wish I was, I wish I could and I wish I had..' starters. We begin our new unit of English work about Historical Settings next week.

The children learned that there are many ways of practising times tables this week in Maths. Next week they will be continuing to practise mental addition and subtraction calculations and will be ordering numbers and finding numbers 'more and less' than other numbers.

We have also been busy electing School Council, Eco team and Liturgy Representatives this past week. Mrs O'Brien will announce the results in assembly on Monday! Good luck to those who stood for a position; I thought you all spoke very well in front of the class!

I hope you have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Gritz