Planting, Perimeter and Pyjamas

Did you know that we are planting a forest?  We, Class 4, have already planted around 100 trees on a part of our school field. We are so excited to be a part of developing an area for learning and enjoyment outdoors.  That’s not all - we have been putting our writing skills to good use to bring about further developments for our school grounds. A POND! As a class, we decided to write to Gateshead Council to ask them for funding to create a pond habitat at our school.

 

How amazing would it be to be able to attract more wildlife to our school grounds?  We think it would really enhance our learning as it would actually bring our learning to life.  Imagine getting to study the life cycle of frogs first hand?

So, we have learnt about the importance of planning and organisation in our writing as we have ensured that we present our case for funding to the council in a coherent manner.  We have used persuasive language, rhetorical questions and have made good use of expanded noun phrases to put our points across. We are sure that our letters will have a positive impact on their reader as we’ve made a very good case for why they should support us in getting a pond not only for the children at Bede but for nature and the environment.

 

Length and perimeter has been one of our areas of focus this half term. We have been learning to find the total length of the sides of any given shape, trying to use the most efficient method of calculation.  We now know that we can use our understanding of the properties of shapes to work out the length of missing measurements.  Ask us how to calculate the perimeter of a square or rectangle given only the length of one or two of its sides!

We have also continued to learn to recall our times table facts for all tables up to 12 x 12. Rapid recall of facts came in very handy when working out the perimeter of rectangles, squares and equilateral triangles.

Class 4 Spr 2 25

  

In art lessons, we studied the work of Paul Cezanne.  He loved his apples! We learnt about size and proportion, light and shade, to produce our own still life drawings.  Like Paul Cezanne, in our sketches, we celebrated the beauty of everyday objects like cups, dishes, bottles and…apples. The technique of mapping out where we were going to place the objects on the page in relation to each other really helped us to make our drawings more realistic.  We’ll be using basic shapes to plan our drawings in the future.

 

For World Book Day this year, we got cosy and all snuggled up together in our pyjamas to read some of our favourite books. In our special, whole school assembly, teachers introduced us to new books and authors. Many of us discovered an interest for something different after hearing a few pages from a book that otherwise we wouldn’t have tried.  In the afternoon, we joined together with our friends in Year 1 to read together in our wonderful library.  Huddled in a tepee, nestled in the reading tree, sitting on a squishy sofa or just sprawled out on the floor, we shared our book preferences and gave our younger readers recommendations based on what they said they liked.  The day’s reading adventures left us feeling relaxed, entertained and enthusiastic for books.