Freezing, Fires & Forests

This half term , we have been outdoors a great deal and it’s been wonderful. We took part in a project about climate change with Beamish Open Air Museum . First we were visited by Catherine from the museum, who helped us to understand how people have used more and more fossil fuels over the last 200 years. We examined maps of our local area from the 1800s, 1890s and 1930s, comparing the use of the land and transport links. We were surprised to see just how many houses, roads, train tracks and factories have been built over the years. When we visited Beamish, we were able to see for ourselves how people’s lives have changed and came to understand how much more people rely on fossil fuels on a day to day basis today. To help offset out carbon footprint, we planted seeds to grow flowers that will help our environment in the future.

Class 4 - Aut 2 - 25-26

Back at school, we have done even more to ensure that the air we breathe in the future is cleaner. Along with the rest of the school, we helped to planted hundreds and hundreds of trees to develop our school forest. Our class was so good at tree planting. Being great team workers, organised and hardworking, we were asked to help out not once, not twice, but three times! We found working outdoors very rewarding.

As if that wasn’t enough of the great outdoors, we have been one of the first classes in school to venture into our school forest and have forest school lessons with Mrs Cawson. With her, we explored, imagined and played: making dens, identifying trees, inventing our own games incorporating natural objects to create props and tools. We celebrated the end of our time at forest school with hot chocolate and marshmallows toasted on a campfire . We were even joined by our school’s resident robin.

Back inside, we have been planning and carrying out tests to investigate the changing states of solids, liquids and gasses. We found out that not all liquids freeze and how water can be turned into a gas. We now know how rain is made and can name the processes involved in the water cycle. Using our new found knowledge of evaporation, we discovered that the library and Lisa’s office at reception are two of the warmest rooms in our school. Using thermometers and learning to read the temperature has been fascinating for us and we’ve enjoyed comparing the temperature of different places inside and outside of school.

We have been relishing the story of ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’ by Philip Pullman. Imagining we were Lila, the main character, we wrote letters from her to her father expressing her frustration with him because he won’t let her be a Firework maker despite bringing her up in a workshop and teaching her how to make fireworks. We have learnt to use questions in our writing to make our reader think about something from our point of view; explain our thoughts and feelings clearly; organise our writing so that our ideas are clear, and write a letter using paragraphs and opening and closing sentences.

Our understanding and use of multiplication and division is soaring. We are steaming ahead with learning our times table facts up to 12 x 12, and are beginning to divide with much greater understanding and confidence as a result.

Using a program online called YuStudio, we have created our own musical compositions to accompany a piece of writing about a monster called Grendel. Digitally, we set up layers of sound, combining drums, key board and sound effects to create a threatening sound that would suggest danger when the monster burst in to a building. We have felt like real music artists and now have a great appreciation of how some of the music we hear on TV and radio is created. There are many budding artists in Class 4, who are eager to create music for the charts. Who knows, one of us might just get to number one in years to come!

We were invited to watch a performance of ‘Who stole the Christmas Pudding’ at the Alphabetti Theatre. Little did we know that we would be part of the performance. Luke was the detective, Hallie assisted with the parcel, Hollie and Chloe took part in the dancing and the singing and all of us cheered and laughed until our sides ached. It was amazing to see one person bring her story to life with just a few props and buckets full of imagination.