Crabtree Juniors - Year 4

Story Competition!

2012-02-23T08:39:00.000Z

Year 4 Homework

Chris Evans, Radio BBC2, has just launched the 500 Word writing competition for the second year.
As a school we are using this as our way to celebrate World Book Day on Thursday 1st March. Year 3-6 are being challenged to write a dazzling story to be entered into the competition.
A winning entry from each class will be read out in assembly on Thursday 1st March!
You can find out more details at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/500words/2012/

Please can you make sure that they are in school no later than Wednesday 29th February.

Good Luck to you all and remember all of the literacy skills that we have been looking at in class to grab the reader!

N.B If you feel that 500 words is a bit too much……don’t panic! Please have a go at writing a short story of your own in your Learning Log. These will not be entered into the competition, but could be read out in assembly!

Spring Art Day!

2012-02-19T16:46:00.001Z

The weather is slowly improving and the days are beginning to get longer. To get the 2nd half of the Spring Term off to an exciting start all of the children will be taking part in the Spring Art Day on Monday 20th February.

We will be creating a piece of art based on the famous children's book 'The Selfish Giant'. Every child in the school will be involved and the final piece will be displayed at The Luton Hoo Art Exhibition. You will be able to go along and have a look at the exhibition on 16th - 19th March. More information will follow.

We are looking forward to seeing you all at the Parents' Consultations on Wednesday 29th February (1-6pm). We will be sending home your time slots this week. Do please let us know if you can't make it on this day.

As part of our topic work we will be continuing to explore the beautiful country of St Lucia. We have been using Google Earth to begin to understand the differences between life in St Lucia and life in Harpenden.

We have made some suitcases and papier mache fruit which are being displayed in the classrooms. Do pop in and have a look!

Mr King and Miss Simmons are still trying to persuade Mr Pattrick to agree to a Year 4 outing to St Lucia, but we fear that it is unlikely to happen this year!

Chess Club - message from Miss Wilson

2012-01-20T16:50:00.001Z

Miss Thomas and I were very pleased and excited about the number of children interested in chess club. We had a whopping 48 children ask to take part. Fantastic! Whilst I am sorting out a rota for all year groups and building towards choosing a chess squad, you might be interested to check out the following website:

http://www.chesskid.com/

It gives you online tutorials; is aimed especially at children and allows you to play games against others. There is also a section for parents too and coaches so I will be sure to check that out! Just remember our ESafety rules of Zip it! Block it! Flag it!

In class this week...

2012-01-20T16:48:00.000Z

It's the end of another busy week in year 4. Having recovered from the beach party last week it was back to business, with the children working hard to learn written methods in addition, subtraction and multiplication. Next week Miss Simmons class will be focussing more on multiplication using the grid method while Mr King's group will be finishing off division and looking at word problems.

In literacy we continue to work on stories set in an imaginary world. We've read some fantastic descriptions of settings and characters this week, and will now move on to focus more on sentence structure (such as use of commas) and story structure (including a beginning, middle and end). You should also have a homework sheet on using speech marks, which is a key focus for the children this term.

In science we have been learning about forces and learning how to measure a force using a forcemeter. Next week we will investigate the force of friction by experimenting with toy cars!

Thanks for all the newspapers and shoe boxes. Our papier mache fruits are starting to take shape and we hope to start work on our shoe boxes next week. Picturesto follow but in the meantime here are a selection rom our St Lucia Big Bang day...

2012-01-10T12:19:00.000Z

This term Year 4 are going to

St Lucia

…..well, almost!

On Thursday 12^th January we are having a Beach Party to start our topic off with a BANG!

Before the Beach Party we would like the children to do some research:

1) What would you wear in St Lucia?

Come to school in clothes that you would wear in St Lucia (bring a few extra layers for playtime and to travel to and from school!).

2) What is it like in St Lucia?

Bring with you lots of travel brochures with pictures and information about the country. We will be using these to create posters and start our class display. We will be cutting up the brochures and using the pictures….the more the better!

3) What would you eat in St Lucia?

Bring with you an item of food that you think you would find in St Lucia – we will have an area where we can taste some local food! (No nuts please!)

We are looking forward to our exciting trip to St Lucia….!!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T14:32:00.000Z

The Christmas holidays are almost over and we are all looking forward to a fantastic term ahead! A huge thank you to all of you for some lovely Christmas presents - we felt very spoilt!

This term we are starting some exciting new topics. As we continue to wrap up warm and still look forward to the promise of some snow in Hertfordshire, Year 4 are going to focus on a country with a slightly warmer climate...St Lucia! We will be looking at the tourism, economy and the geographical features of this beautiful country. It would be great if you could start doing some research and collect some information ready for the second week of term when we will begin with a 'Big Bang' (more information to follow!).

In Literacy we will be looking at 'Stories set in imaginary worlds'. Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are, Star Wars, The Borrowers....there are lots of fantastic stories that we can look at. What is your favourite story set in an imaginary world? Why? If you have a favourite story bring it to school and you will be able to share it with the class.

We will continue with our weekly spelling tests and both Miss Simmons and Mr King's maths sets will be having regular times-tables tests.

We hope that you have all had a lovely holiday and look forward to seeing you on

Wednesday 4th January.

Chistmas is Coming

2011-12-09T16:45:00.000Z

Christmas has begun to arrive in Year 4 this week, with decorations going up in Birch and snow falling outside Ash. The children have worked hard this week on play scripts in literacy and in maths have continued work on telling the time. Please practise reading clock faces over the weekend if you get the chance.

Today saw the Christmas gym display which was amazing. Both classes performed fantastic routines, with Ash coming out winners of the lower school competition. Mr King and Miss Simmons even tried their hand at it in the teacher's gym display.

Next week we look forward to the concert at the methodist hall where year 4 will perform Ring All the Bells. The children enjoyed creating their accompanying board display in the hall along with some creative touches from Miss Sanwell (a big thanks to her for putting it up). Here's the result.

Read all about it!

2011-12-02T15:37:00.001Z

This week we finished off our Roman newspapers, sticking them onto scrolls for that authentic Roman touch! The children have really enjoyed working in teams to research and produce these, and having the finished article (if you'll excuse the pun) up on display has given them a real sense of achievement. Many of them have asked us for more group work projects like this, so we'll see what we can do.

Homework and Roman Art Project

2011-11-22T14:05:00.000Z

The Year 4 Roman journalists have continued to work towards publishing their own Roman newspapers this week. We are looking forward to seeing the finished product very soon.

In Maths we are all focusing on MULTIPLICATION. Please continue to learn your tables this week – Miss Simmons’ maths group 4 times table, Mr King’s maths group 3 and 6 times table.

Next week we are starting a Roman art project. Each child will be selecting a Roman god to be their focus for the project. We would like them to collect as many pictures as possible from newspapers and magazines relating to their god and what they represent. For example; Ceres – the god of farming and crops. You could collect lots of pictures of different crops and anything linked to the theme of farming. These pictures will be used to create a montage.

Year 4 Invade the Abbey

2011-11-15T15:05:00.002Z

Year 4 had a fantastic trip to St Albans Abbey, learning all about its Roman and Norman history. The children enjoyed dressing up to re-enact some stories from the past and had fun making some Roman-style mosaics. A big thank you to all our parent helpers on the day, the children all behaved brilliantly and even the staff at the Abbey commented on how polite they were! Below you can see a small selection of photos from the day, with further photos to be added to the learning platform soon.

(Please scroll down to the bottom of this page if you are in Miss Simmons' Maths Set!)

MATHS NEWS.....Miss Simmons Maths Set Multiplication Challenge!

For the next few weeks I would like you to focus on learning your multiplication tables.

I have given you a few ideas of games that you can play at home and I will show you a few more games this week.

The first challenge will take place on Wednesday 23rd November - the 3x table.

Good luck!

Year 4 Assembly Photos

2011-10-27T15:22:00.002+01:00

As promised here are some photos from the recent Year 4 assembly, we hope you enjoyed it. More photos can be found on the learning platform, although they are mostly of Ash at the moment. Once Miss Simmons' login has been sorted the Birch site will also be brimming with photos of all the class have been up to.

2011-10-21T16:08:00.000+01:00

Miss Simmons has had a fantastic first week and would like to thank staff, pupils and parents for making her feel so welcome. Mr King and Miss Simmons would also like to congratulate Year 4 for a wonderful assembly performance. They showed a great array of talents and, despite the computer getting out the wrong side of bed, they really rose to the challenge!

After half term we will be looking at poetry in our literacy lessons. To help prepare for this we have asked the children to select two poems that they like and to be prepared to share them with the class, saying why they have enjoyed them.

After the break we will be starting our topic work on the Romans with our trip to St Albans Abbey on the 4th November. If you get the chance to pop to St Albans do please go and have a look around the Verulamium Museum or Roman remains in the park (the Waffle House is also great for a quick visit!). Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to go on the trip, we had more volunteers than we needed so pulled names out of a hat and have informed those parents whose names came out.

We hope you have a fantastic half term and look forward to seeing the children back refreshed and ready for the run up to Christmas!

Pictures from this half-term to follow so keep checking back with the Blog...

Welcome to Miss Simmons

2011-10-11T16:23:00.000+01:00

We are delighted to welcome Emma Simmons to Crabtree. Miss Simmons will be taking over the reigns of Birch class as of this week, and will be spending her first full day getting to know her new class on Wednesday. She brings with her a wealth of teaching experience and is looking forward to the year ahead.

As promised, here are some photos from our recent European Day of Languages.

Ash class giving their presentation

Birch class giving their presentation

Birch class researching Poland

The team behind the Leaning tower of Pisa!

Farewell and hello!

2011-09-30T16:22:00.000+01:00

Wow, what a hot end it's been to the week, although unfortunately reports say it is due to drop after the weekend, hopefully after the swimming run on Monday!

The sad news for us this week is of course the early departure of Mrs Harrison on her maternity leave, she will be greatly missed by the children and staff alike and we hope that she will come back and visit us with the 'new arrival' before too long. The good news is that we will soon be saying hello to Miss Simmons who will be the new teacher for Birch class while Mrs Harrison is on maternity leave.

The highlight of the week in class was our European Day of Languages on Monday, when the children made plates of pasta and pizza (well, not real ones!), painted an impressive flag and built an amazing leaning tower of Pisa model. Others wrote a short presentation which they delivered to the school in our special assembly. Photos to follow so keep checking back.

Meet our new school council representatives

2011-09-23T16:09:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week the new school council representatives were announced. After some very impressive presentations in both Ash and Birch the children cast their votes. Rosie and James in Ash class, and Henry and Chloe in Birch were duly elected to represent their class on the school council. We look forward to hearing their ideas for how to improve the school, and would like to thank all the children who stood for election and put so much effort into their presentations.

Henry and Chloe - Birch

Rosie giving her presentation - Ash

James giving his 'quality' presentation

All the candidates in Ash

Our first swimming went well, so a big thank you to all the parents who helped walk the children to the pool, and a special thanks to Mrs Harrison's helpers for turning up extra early as requested. However, as it turns out, Mrs Harrison isn't as slow as she thought she would be, so for next week could her parent helpers please just ensure they are in school ready to set off by 10am.

On Monday we celebrate European Day of Languages, where the children will learn some things about other countries (Ash are researching Italy, Birch Poland) and the children will give a small presentation during a special assembly organsied by Madame Baike in the afternoon.

THE DAY THE VIKINGS INVADED

2011-09-16T22:01:00.000+01:00

Crabtree Junior School came under attack on Thursday the 15th September as Year 4 turned Viking for the day. Led by Charlie Lupson of Make Your Own History, Ash and Birch class raided the school hall and took up occupancy under the rule of Chieftains King and Harrison (for the Viking's believed in gender equality, a little known fact that was one of many learnt on the day!)

Several oak trees were felled to help assemble a longboat and much was discovered about each part of the ship. We challenge you to ask your Viking children which end is the stern and which the bow, which the port and which the starboard, where you would find the keel, and while you're about it ask them what a scarf knot was used for.

The young Vikings also put their teamwork to the test by assembling some shields, sewing a sail together, creating a dragon head for the bow and even doing some weaving (ever wondered what the weights for the loom were made from? Just ask your young Viking).

By the end of the day there were 64 very happy young Vikings who had all put in a good shift as befits a Viking warrior, and had a highly enjoyable time along the way. As events drew to a close they boarded the ship to set sail and head off to plunder the many riches of Harpenden. If only they had some water...

Welcome to year 4!

2011-09-11T22:30:00.000+01:00

It's been a fantastic first week in year 4 with both classes settling in well and enjoying the fact they are no longer the new kids on the block. Mrs Harrison was able to learn the names of her 'new' class in record time, with Mr King just about there by the end of Monday!

Both classes have been working hard on literacy and maths, while starting new topics in RE (Diwali) and Science (moving and growing). Thursday the 15th sees our viking invasion day where the children will, amongst other activities, be building a viking longship, so prepare to be raided at school pick-up time!

We look forward to seeing you all at our meet the teacher session on Monday.

The Year 4 team

2011-07-19T20:39:00.000+01:00

As we see the light at the end of a long term there are still many things to do before we finally wave goodbye to our current year group and look ahead to the new.

Today saw a sports extravaganza organised, as brilliantly as ever, by Miss Thomas. The children’s enjoyment of their events and their competitive side were clear to see as they all performed to the best of their ability.

Thank you to all those parents who were able to join us for sports day, we very much appreciated your support and hope you enjoyed the event.

Wednesday we have a much needed day in the classroom with topics to finish off and work to distribute to children; a few master pieces will be winging their way homewards later this week.

Thursday is our long awaited trip to the British Museum. Your children should have given you a note on Monday with a few reminders for the trip. Please ensure the children have a packed lunch including a drink, a light waterproof coat for the rain that is forecast as we will have a short walk between the coach and museum. Children have been asked to bring a clip board if they have one, otherwise school has some. Finally the children may bring up to £3 to spend in the gift shop where the usual pencils, notebooks and rubbers etc are available to purchase.

Looking ahead to next Monday the children will be able to watch the year 6 leavers concert during the afternoon, another event we are all looking forward to after snatched glimpses of rehearsals.

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy summer and thank you for all your support during the time your child has been in year 4.

The Year 4 Team.

Open evening

2011-07-08T15:25:00.000+01:00

The big event across the school this week was of course open evening, and it was great to be able to show off all the children's fabulous work from throughout the year. Many people commented on how good the classrooms looked and the Egyptian masks were a big hit, along with our recreations of life on the River Nile. Thank you to all the parents who were able to come along, we know the children were very proud of their achievements and enjoyed showing you their work.

Hopefully you will have received your child's end of year report today and we look forward to seeing parents next week to discuss your child's progress this year.

Crocodile alert!

2011-07-01T16:07:00.000+01:00

Watch out for the crocodiles moving into Birch next week as the River Nile flows freely! Mrs Doran's class have been working hard and displaying good teamwork to finish off their Ancient Egyptian project in style. You'll be able to see it next week on open evening but if you can't wait that long there's a sneak preview below. Meanwhile, next door, Ash have been running experiments in science to find out if woodlice prefer dry or damp conditions. Results were inconclusive as we seemed to have gathered some very indecisive specimens! Both classes have been working hard in maths and literacy, and enjoying researching other cultures to support their work in literacy. With open evening approaching we will be busy next week preparing our classrooms and reviewing the work we have done this year to present to parents. Hope to see you there!

MULTICULTURAL MAGIC!

2011-06-28T11:49:00.000+01:00

Multicultural week was a busy week for all involved. The rugby world cup kicked off the week and the weather kindly held off with the rain until all teams had played their matches. The children now know which teams are going through to the semi finals which will be played on Saturday 2^nd July during the summer fayre.

Wednesday saw the children listening to and then participating in a steel band session. The performance to the whole school was impressive with a spellbound audience clapping and singing along. It culminated in a whole school conga!

Later that day the children were able to have a go on the steel pans and learn about how they are made.

The finale of the week for year 4 was a plastazote workshop which took place over the whole of Thursday. An exciting medium to work with, the children were quickly able to generate some fantastic three dimensional masks linked to their topic theme of Ancient Egypt.

For those parents unable to make the display or see the finished pieces from Ash they will all be on view at open evening.

Here a few photos of Year 4 in action, more will be posted to the learning platform later this week.

Making history!

2011-06-17T14:36:00.000+01:00

Another week has flown by in Ash and Birch. The children have a lot to look forward to on the sporting front with the teams for the rugby world cup announced, whilst the district sports athletes have been out practising come rain or shine.

Preparations for next week's multicultural week are already underway as yesterday some of the children helped make flags for the opening ceremony of the rugby world cup on Monday. There was much haggling and bargaining over paint (most of which was to be found in Ash class thanks to Mrs Vickers' quick thinking).

The children have also enjoyed their literacy sessions this week on persuasive writing, creating some fantastic adverts for a holiday in Egypt to tie in with their creative curriculum work. They are now all experts in the art of persuasion so beware if you're taking them anywhere near a toy shop this weekend!

A particular highlight of this week has been watching Birch make history - literally! As you can see from the pictures below, the landscape along the banks of the River Nile is taking shape nicely. Closely supervised by Mrs Doran, the children have 'stuck' to their task well as they layer the papier mache landscape...

Message from Miss Wilson about the Learning Platform

2011-06-14T11:56:00.001+01:00

When I arrived back from school journey last week some of the teachers mentioned that children have been having problems logging onto the learning platform. I have spoken to DB Primary and they have suggested that:

"With children who cannot access the platform at home can you check that they are using the right domain name http://crabtree.herts.dbprimary.com/service/util/login?path=/herts/primary/crabtree . If this is not working then perhaps check that the parents haven’t put any security settings in place that means they cannot access the platform. If this still does not work, please could you let me know what the message is that they are getting when they try to access the platform at home. I might then be able to decipher why it is that this is happening. Hopefully we can get it sorted ASAP."

When you get to the logging in page you should see that it says 'Log in to Crabtree Junior School" at the top of the page. I would recommend that this is saved in to your favourites to save finding it in future. If anyone is getting a message pop up when they try to access the learning platform, please can they write it down and send it in to me so that I can get this resolved as quickly as possible.

I hope that this will solve some of the problems, any others I will endeavor to fix when I get back into school on Tuesday.

Thank you. Miss Wilson

2011-06-10T16:12:00.000+01:00

The children seem to have returned from half term full of the joys of June and have enjoyed being able to go outside even if we have seen an unwelcome return of the dreaded rain on occasion.

Birch have had a fun week recreating Ancient Egypt in the middle of the classroom! Once she’s finished scraping the papier mache off the walls and ceiling Mrs Doran is hoping to have a fully functioning River Nile flowing through the classroom. The class also visited St George’s school on Wednesday where they had an interesting morning learning all about electricity and circuits.

Ash have been finding out about who built the pyramids and why, and should be able to tell you all sorts of interesting facts. Meanwhile Mr King is working hard to saw up enough bricks to create a model pyramid! The children were very excited to win class of the week today which earned them the privilege of eating lunch outside on the picnic tables.

This week we have also started our new homework policy, which was sent out to parents before half term. The children were set some Literacy homework on Monday, and were then shown how to use the Sam Learning website, which we will be using to set some weekly homework that the children can do on the computer. Those children who don’t have access to a computer at home or in the library will be given paper copies of the homework to complete. No doubt there will be a few teething problems as we roll out this new system, but hopefully the children will soon be expert users and will enjoy doing their homework online. The children are encouraged to change their passwords once logged in, but must know their passwords in case we need to access their account when in school. Whilst it is a good idea for parents to know the passwords, please help reinforce the message that they should not share their passwords with anyone other than their class teacher.

We have also rolled out our new learning platform for Year 4, which you can see at http://crabtree.herts.dbprimary.com/. The children have been given their login details and can go to the site to post messages on the forum, or email their classmates. They can also show you some photos from the gallery of things they have been doing in class. The learning platform is a secure environment that is only accessible to the children. They can only email or post messages to each other and the content will not be visible to anyone who does not have a login.

Unfortunately we are unable to bring you any photos from this week as Year 6 have taken all our cameras for their school trip! However, here are a few from the Friday before half-term when Ash had fun researching and then building habitats for Ashley, our class Panda.

EGYPTIANS & MINIBEASTS

2011-05-20T21:20:00.000+01:00

It’s been another busy week in year 4, with Ash starting their assessments and Birch busy working on maths and literacy. For our creative curriculum the children have been exploring what they would like to find out about Ancient Egypt and soon you will be able to see the River Nile flowing through Birch, with pyramids appearing in both classrooms! You should receive a letter today about our exciting school trip for this term where we plan to take the children to the British Museum to see some Ancient Egyptian artefacts first hand, and learn how to make a mummy! Below you can see Birch displaying their pyramid handiwork on our topic launch day:

On Tuesday Mr King took a team of year 3 and 4 boys to a football tournament at Sauncey Wood where they put in a fantastic effort to get through to the semi finals, so well done to Eddie, Adam and Ewan in Birch and Josiah and Toby in Ash.

On Wednesday Ash took part in a morning of science activities at St George’s school, where they learnt all about electricity through some interesting demonstrations and a range of practical activities. The children really enjoyed the morning and were very well behaved. Thank you to our parent helpers on the day. Birch will be doing the same activity after half term, in case you thought they were missing out!

Back in the classroom we have continued looking at habitats in science and the children have been out exploring the school grounds for minibeasts, here are some pictures of the ‘minibeast hunters’ in action:

Finally, can parents please make sure that children are doing their spellings for homework and return the red spelling book by Thursday at the latest. A number of children have not been returning their books which makes it difficult to monitor how well they are progressing with their spellings.

ASSESSMENTS & EGYPTIANS!

2011-05-13T18:03:00.000+01:00

It’s been a busy week in Year 4 with everyone working hard on maths and literacy, and with Birch class also taking their assessments (Ash will take theirs before the end of half-term). The children in Birch were superb throughout the assessments and you should be very proud of them!

Everyone was rewarded on Friday when Birch and Ash got together in the hall to launch their new topic on Ancient Egypt. This marks the start of what should be an exciting few weeks learning about the Ancient Egyptian culture, history, geography, art and much more, with the children giving their suggestions as to what they would like to find out more about. Further details of the day will be posted later so watch this space...

Don’t forget some dates for your diary next week: Tuesday 17^th is the year 3/4 football tournament at Sauncey Wood Primary School, starting at 1.15pm, and on Wednesday 18^th Ash class will be going to St George’s for an exciting morning of Science activities (Birch class will do the same trip after half-term).

Mrs Doran will be taking a well earned rest this weekend after receiving her ‘star of the week’ award for keeping things going in Mr King’s absence, and Mr King would like to say a huge thank you to Ash and Birch for his ‘get well soon’ card which has been a big help in his recovery. Hopefully all will be back to normal next week.

In the meantime enjoy the weekend!

The Year 4 team

WELCOME TO THE YEAR 4 BLOG

2011-04-08T13:11:00.000+01:00

This is the start of our Year 4 blog, which we will be using over the summer term to keep you up to date with all that's going on in Ash and Birch class. The children have all worked very hard this term and we look forward to welcoming them back after the break for what should be an exciting summer term.

Happy Easter!
Mr King and Mrs Doran