A wild adventure

We had a fantastic time at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park last week! We saw such a variety of animals and learned more about their habitats.

We had session in the Discovery Classroom, where we looked at how animals have adapted to fit their environment and explored some amazing features of different animals. The incredibly heavy ostritch egg and enormous Millie the millipede were some of my favourites! The children also handled a hissing cockroache and giant snail! 

We loved the squirrel monkeys, meerkats and wallabies! We spotted lots of joeys in their mum’s pouches too. 

We can’t wait to see all of this fantastic learning come through in the children’s writing and theme work over the next few weeks! 

All the Artists!

We’ve had not one but two artists visiting Y4 this week! 

The first was on Monday, when we had a special visit from Sheffield artist Joe Scarborough. He told us all about how he became interested in art and what inspires him. Did you know, he loves aeroplanes and regularly goes out with his friend in a 2-seater plane?! 

He also gave us an insight into the life of an artist and explained that his main aim is for his work to grab people’s attention for at least 15 seconds. 

On Wednesday, we were working with ‘fimo clay’ with an artist, who is collaborating with Wardsend Cemetery. She spoke to us about some of the interesting people who are buried in the cemetery and guided us through using the colourful clay to make them! 

I was amazed by the attention to detail and realistic figures the children produced! They will be taken away to be baked in the oven, ready for an exhibition at Wardsend on the 25th June. Details of the event will be sent out closer to the day and we hope to see lots of parents and children there to see what we created! 

Triangles are my favourite shape

We’ve been investigating the properties of triangles this morning, cutting pieces of string to form equilateral, isosceles, right angle and scalene triangles. We found that making the shapes from string made us more aware of their properties. For example, to make an isosceles triangle out of an equilateral, you only need to make one snip! 

We’ll be putting our knowledge of shapes to the test in the next few lessons with some problem solving…

Right angles, left angles and wrong angles

We’ve been learning about angles all this week. We all know an angle is a ‘measure of turn’ and can define acute, obtuse and right angles. We even had a go at measuring angles using protractors! 

Today, we did some problem solving, investigating different angles on a clock face. The children were asked to find as many right angles as they could…turns out there’s quite a few! 

Of course, we also discovered that the ‘dab’ is an acute angle!

Here’s some of Mr Tompkinson’s class solving different angle-based problems: 

Scarborough’s Sheffield

As part of our expedition into why people choose to live in Sheffield, we’ve been looking at the art work of Joe Scarborough. His vibrant, colourful paintings of recognisable buildings  have so much going on and tell an exciting story about our city. The children chose oil pastels, crayons or chalk pastels to create their own versions.

Here are some of the (nearly) finished pieces:

We’re very excited because Joe Scarborough will be coming into school on Monday afternoon. I reckon he’ll be very impressed by some of the work produced this afternoon! 

Acting as Archetects

This morning, we put our measuring skills to the test by designing our own special space in Sheffield. Some children decided to create a park, others redesigned the Peace Gardens, whilst some went for a brand new swimming pool/play centre/cafe experience!  

Here are the children working very hard, can you spot the new high table?

The children measured their plans, then worked out the perimeter. We might have to send these suggestions to the Lord Mayor!

Women of Steel

On our trip to Sheffield yesterday we took a little time out for some Girl Power! 

Looking at the history of steel in our City we discovered that women played an integral part to the development and production of steel. To celebrate and recognise this we showed our own girl power with the Women of Steel.

Oh Sheffield is Wonderful

As part of our special places and special people topic, Year 4 took a very special trip into the city centre today to find out more about what makes Sheffield Special. 

The day started off with a trip on the public bus! Even though the bus was a little late, our first discovery was how important public transport like the buses and tram are to a city like Sheffield! 

After finally arriving into the city centre, we started our visit at Sheffield’s Historic Cathedral! We took a little time outside the Catherdral to get our bearings on our maps and street signs whilst finding out some incredible facts about the local area! 

Once we had finished our work at the Catherdral, we moved into the town hall where we had a special meeting with the Lord Mayor herself! 

She told us all about her role and gave her amazing insight as to why sheffield is a special place! We were invited into her chamber for drinks and a chat! 

After our amazing time with the Mayor, we moved onto the winter gardens to conduct our surveys! The children collected some very interesting data about Sheffield and we found that many people agreed that Sheffield is a unique place for lots of different reasons!

Our penultimate stop before home was the amazing Millennium Galleries Museam! We were very lucky to see the exhibition on Sheffield Steel and how our history has shaped our feature. 
 

Well done Year 4. Today you did our school incredibly proud. 

Immersive Classroom

You may have noticed a bit of a change in Y4 this week! We have taken most of the desks and  chairs out and replaced them with bean bags, low tables and big clip boards. 

The children have adjusted surprisingly quickly to choosing their own space to work in and seem to change their place according to the type of learning we are doing and how independently they want to work. 

It was lovely to take some time this morning for the children to read a book, either with a friend or on their own. The new classroom layout lends itself perfectly to this type of activity; we were all very comfy and really enjoyed sharing our reading together. 

The Miraculous Journey has begun!

We started a new class text this week and it’s getting pretty exciting! We’re following the journey of Edward Tulane, who’s comfortable, selfish lifestyle has just taken a dramatic tumble…over the side of a boat! He’s currently sinking to the bottom of the ocean, whilst his owner, Abeline sails away without him. 

What will happen next? Will he ever be found? Can he find his way back home? We shall see over the next few weeks.