Stanway Fiveways Primary School

Another busy week this week with more exciting things going on. Year 4 continued their discoveries in Science, when testing how much bicarbonate of soda mixed with vinegar creates the most gas to blow up a balloon. The children have been thoroughly enjoying the practicality of the Science, which allows them to ask thought-provoking questions. The school spend Wednesday supporting the Young Carers' Action Day by wearing their funky socks. We also spent time discussing how lives of Young Carers can be different to that of a normal child and the skills and qualities that they possess. Forest school this week has been very muddy (as I am sure some of you are aware)! Mudslides, bug hunts, pond-dipping and much more has kept the children engaged with our lovely Forest School area. Friday was also spent raising money for Comic Relief  by dressing down for the day for a donation. 

This week was a busy week with lots of exciting things going on. Year 4 explored different materials in Science and were deciding whether they were solids, liquids or gases. The children has a fabulous time making making those decisions - as you'll see from the photos! We also celebrated World Book Day on Thursday. There was a wonderful array of different costumes from children and adults! We also continued on our Forest school journey this week despite the weather being a bit damp! 

This half term in Year 4 has been kicked off with our first week of Forest School. The children thoroughly enjoyed building dens, digging holes, bug hunting, building hammocks and swings and much more. The weather held out for most groups too, which was a great start! Also this week, some classes have finished off their mosaic designs, by using foam tiles to lay out their designs. Year 4 have also continued thier ukulele lessons with our music teacher. It has been a busy four day week for the children, but they seemed to have settled back into the routine again. Well done everyone!  

Since returning back from our Christmas break, the children have been introduced to some new skills and lessons. The children are lucky to have both the wonderful Squash coaches and EPC for their indoor and outdoor PE. In Squash, the children were challenged with their balance and ball control, whilst in Tag Rugby they were playing invasion games linked to passing and scoring tries. Also, the children began their ukulele lessons and were exploring two chords (C and A minor). All three classes over the next few weeks will be building their Roman catapults. This week Damson, began and they measured, sawed and glued their Roman catapult together. Overall, the chidlren have returned back to school positively! 

Year 4 took part in a science investigation on Thursday to answer the question 'does the shape of the balloon affect the loudness of the pop'. They used different shape balloons and a child popped them with a pin. At the same time the children used a sound meter on the Ipads to measure the noise level in decibels for each time the balloon was popped. They spent the whole day completing the investigation, writing it up including a method, results and conclusion. They drew a bar chart to display their results and discussed the ideas of 'a fair test' and which variables they changed and kept the same. 

In DT, the children have loved learning to cross stitch creating their own designs to make a cross stitch bauble that can be hung on the tree. They have also worked hard to create Christmas cards for each other.

The children have had a busy week of Christmas activities - a visit from the Panto last Friday, Christmas dinner, making Christmas cards and beginning cross stitch sewing that will lead to the children sewing a cross stitch design on a bauble shaped piece of fabric that can be hung on the Christmas tree. They have been learning to attack and defend in hockey and performed their dance routine to Miss Barnes who leads dance club at school. In Damson class, the children have been teaching each other how to divide in maths using the formal 'bus stop' method. 

This week the children have been learning to multiply using the column method and divide using the short formal 'bus stop' method up to 3 digit numbers. In English they have been using all of the writing tools that they have practised over the last three weeks to begin independently writing their own information text on a mythical animal. In history, they have been learning about the Roman inventions and changes that they brought after invading Britain. We discussed which inventions they thought had been the most or least important and many children thought that coins and glass where important developments. 

This week the children have been learning about the religions of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, comparing the meaning of their religious symbols, important festivals, their sacred book and how they worship their God or gods. Acacia class have been learning about sound, moving round the school using a sound meter to test which were the louder or quieter areas of the school. In Damson class, the children have been researching Roman catapults and creating a design for their own wooden Roman-style catapult that they will be making in the next few weeks. In Chestnut class, the children have been comparing Romans and Celts. They demonstrated great knowledge about the two groups of people, many of these facts were learnt on the trip to Colchester Castle. In maths, they have enjoyed practising their 3, 6 and 9 times tables playing games on Times Table Rock Stars, played times table board games and they made fortune teller games to help them learn the 6 times table.

This week the children have enjoyed their second hockey lesson with SCS coaches. They have been learning to control the ball using a hockey stick and pass accurately to a partner. In dance the children have been learning to create their own routines in a group using the six dance moves that they created last week. In history, they have now begun their new topic on Romans. Damson class used the painted timeline in the corridor to identify how long ago Roman times were and the children showed fantastic knowledge recalling facts about Boudica, Celts and Romans that they learnt on their trip to Colchester castle. Across the year four classes, the children have been learning to practically order key events in history and time periods in order to gain a better understanding about where the Roman era fits around other key time periods. 

In geography, the children have been learning to read a grid reference to identify places on OS maps. They also learnt the shortened names for places such as colleges, schools and pubs. In English the children have been developing their vocabulary when learning to describe in detail the scene of a deserted factory, use personification to bring the scene to life and more varied adjectives to improve their writing. In maths the children have been learning about Roman numerals and enjoyed joining in with this song to help them learn them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1UmAgekzbs 

In basketball the children practised shooting into a hoop and played as part of a team, 3 versus 3. They loved playing against each other and enthusiastically joined in with the game! 

We started our week in a very exciting way, with a walk around Stanway as part of our Geography topic to discuss the land use and then create aerial view maps from our observations. The children enjoyed looking around the local area and using what they had learnt to create their maps when back at school. They needed to colour code the maps and carefully consider the position of houses, halls, schools, the playing field and other landmarks that they had noticed while out walking. 

In maths, year 4 have been learning how to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000. In English, they have begun their new 'Talk for Writing' unit. This is a story called 'The canal' - a warning tale about two boys who play down by the canal even though they have been warned that it is dangerous. The children have begun to be able to retell the story using a story map and actions - perhaps they can retell some of it to someone at home!?

In Damson class, the children have been learning to classify invertebrates. They created a definition for an invertebrate and went outside to collect some in the wild area. Following this, they classified them by putting them into groups, such as insects in one group and spiders in another group.

This week in year 4, the children have learnt how to dribble in basketball and loved learning how to safely use the gymnastics equipment. In maths, they have been learning to partition numbers into thousands, tens and ones up to 10,000. During English lessons we have focussed on developing grammar skills, learning to identify verbs, adjectives, adverbs and adverbial phrases as well as use them within their writing. As part of our maps topic, the children learnt to create aerial view maps. 

We have had a fantastic first week, learning about Australia and Australasia as part of our continents week. The children created beautiful aboriginal paintings and printed using foam tiles (which they indented with their design) and paint to make Australian themed prints. In Damson class we have learnt a Haka dance from New Zealand and created Haka masks. Year four also learnt about the key cities, territories and locations in Australia, labelling them on a map. In other art, they followed steps to learn to draw a koala and kangaroo. In a computing lesson, they used Ipads to research and compare key facts about Austrailia compared with another neighbouring country.