What an extremely busy half term Cherry Class has had! A performance, a residential, Book Week, swimming lessons and that’s without all the learning that has been happening in between!
We thoroughly enjoyed our swimming lessons and all of us have worked hard to improve our technique and become stronger swimmers – it has definitely paid off with lots of swimming badges being awarded at the end of the term. Our Forest sessions have been very wet and muddy this half term, however we have had lots of fun, especially on the wellie walks we have endured. It has been great to explore local woodland and jump into the streams.
Book Week was lots of fun! We worked hard to write a book review based on Michael Morpurgo’s, Little Foxes. We enjoyed reading the story and writing an interesting but informative review for others to read. We also worked in groups to create fairy-tale themed story boxes. The outcomes were amazing! We also drew illustrations in the style of Quentin Blake. At first, we created replica illustrations before applying his style to our favourite book characters. The World Book Day Parade was another highlight, where we got to show off our costumes to the whole school. Here, we also go to view the extreme reader entries. Other activities that we completed were designing a book cover, bookmark and wordsearches.
We worked extremely hard to put together, alongside Maple Class, an outstanding performance of ‘Through the Ages’. We all learnt lots of songs (‘Yes, We Have No Bananas!’ being our favourite!) and worked hard to learn lines and help with props to make the show come to life.
We had a blast at SSE Charterhouse (our residential). We loved each of the activities. We overcame fears, encouraged each other and gave everything a go. We developed our archery skills, climbed walls and had a brilliant campfire before an Easter Egg hunt!
In Maths, we have continued to practice our times tables as well as delve deeper into fractions. We have applied knowledge learnt in previous years to new learning. We can now place fractions on a number line, compare and order them as well as add and take away from a whole.
Once we had published our book review, our attention turned to ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker. A picture book which we wrote the narrative to. We are looking forward to finishing and publishing our writing in Term 5.
Our Science topic of states of matter came to an end this half term. We learnt how solid; liquid and gas apply to the water cycle. We explored condensation and evaporation and later worked scientifically to investigate the water cycle in our own way. In pairs we created mini water cycles and observed the changes over a week-long period. Our conclusions suggest that condensation and evaporation were both apparent over the course of the week. We linked our Guided Reading lessons to the water cycle, focusing on two books: Once Upon a Raindrop and The Rhythm of the Rain. As a class, we made predictions, inferred, and explained answers. We worked hard to develop our written answers, making them more relevant and purposeful.
In Geography we explored the USA. We identified that the USA is part of a continent and then named and located the states. Later looking into physical and human features and the problems that the United States of America face. We completed many oracy-based tasks to develop our knowledge.
In PSHE, our BIG IDEA was Healthy Me. We explored friendships and group dynamics, then smoking and alcohol. We discussed how these affect our health and wellbeing in both real life and through role-play and scenarios provided. We created informative posters to show our understanding. In RE we returned back to Christianity, focusing on forgiveness. We had lots of discussions on why it is important to forgive, why someone might not want to forgive and applied this to what a Christian’s view would be.
It has definitely been a very busy half term and the children should be extremely proud of all they have achieved. Wishing you all a restful Easter break.
Miss Collins
Logistics for Term 5
Homework – Children are to learn their personal spellings, read a minimum of 3 times a week (recorded in their reading log), complete a scrapbook style journal entry and complete 10 minutes of DoodleMaths/Doodle Tables.
Children must practice their times tables as often as possible on either TTRS or Doodle Tables, to prepare them for their times table check in June.
Forest – Monday afternoon (please ensure your child has the correct forest kit)
PE – Thursday afternoons. Full Longvernal PE kit should be worn in order to participate.
How are we already halfway through the school year? Cherry Class has had a jam-packed term and have learnt so much. First and foremost, we visited the Roman Baths in January, this kicked off our History topic of the Romans. It was an exciting day, we got to dress up, create mosaics and handle artefacts. It was great to explore the Baths and experience some of what the Romans are believed to have done in their daily lives. Back at school, we have learnt about the Ancient Romans, recognising how society was, looking closely at how the Empire grew and we can now identify Emperors, confidently.
In Art we focused on 2D and 3D, in particular looking at sculpture. We had lots of fun making soap sculptures, Miss Collins was very impressed with the outcomes! We also had a go at creating wire sculptures and shadow sculptures. We have explored how to code in Computing, learning, and applying different algorithms to move a turtle on turtleacademy.com!
Although we have found Maths challenging this half term, we are now able to multiply and divide numbers. We learnt how to multiply 2- and 3-digit numbers by a 2-digit number and recognise the importance of using a placeholder to ensure our answers are accurate. This was the same with dividing 2 and 3-digit numbers and due to lots of practice, we are now very good at it! A HUGE focus has been our timetables, we have chanted, used TTRS, Doodle Times Tables and recall quizzes to solidify our knowledge. Lots and lots of practice is still needed, so please encourage your children to continue to learn them.
Our Guided Reading lessons have focused heavily on chocolate! First, we explored ‘The Great Chocoplot’ then later read ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. We have continued to work upon our retrieval and inference skills and are now more confidently answering questions in full sentences. We have also focused on how to develop our answers to ensure they are supported with evidence and how we can use the text to define trickier vocabulary. In Writing, we have written an argument which debates the question ‘Should 8–13-year-olds be banned from social media?’This definitely started a debate in Cherry Class and the children could confidently come up with reasons for and against and applied these to both our class and independent piece of writing.
In Science our learning focused on States of Matter, we can now define what solids, liquids and gasses are and list key features of them giving examples. We can also explain how different states can change and have tested some of these methods out in investigations, our favorite being making rice crispy cakes!
We thoroughly enjoyed our swimming lessons each week, especially the jumping in! Everyone is challenging themselves to better their ability too. This continues in Term 4.
Our RE lesson reverted back to Buddhism and we have explored several different stories which have focused on forgiveness, selfishness, kindness, and compassion. It has been lovely to discuss our own examples of where we show or have experienced these in our own lives. Our PSHE focus has been ‘Dreams and Goals’ and we have identified how we can have short- and long-term goals and the difference between them. We have spoken about resilience and how it is important to have this in order to succeed.
Our Y3/4 performance rehearsals are now in full swing, and we are looking forward to continuing these next half term in readiness for our ‘Through the Ages’ performance in March.
Have a lovely half term!
Logistics for Term 4
Homework – Children are to learn their personal spellings, read a minimum of 3 times a week (recorded in their reading log), complete a scrapbook style journal entry and complete 10 minutes of Doodle Maths. Children must practice their times tables as often as possible on either TTRS or Doodle Times Tables.
PE – Friday afternoon (swimming)
How is Christmas already? What a busy half term Cherry Class has had! From a plane trip to Sicily in our English lessons to exploring sound in Science, it has been non-stop and we aren’t even halfway through the school year yet!
In English we wrote holiday brochures, firstly to Sicily, focusing carefully on the vocabulary to ensure it was persuasive, then applying this to our own holiday brochure, persuading their audience to visit Antarctica. We all produced great brochures which used several persuasive techniques, and everyone applied SPaG techniques well. You might ask, why Antarctica? In Geography, Cherry Class explored the continent Antarctica, looking closely at the physical features, how animals have adapted to survive and the effects of global warming. Later, we applied our persuasive skills to writing a Christmas dessert social media post - unfortunately there weren’t any desserts for us to taste! We also wrote poems, firstly based on rivers before writing independently a poem based on one of the seasons. We worked hard to include descriptive metaphors to create an image in the reader's head.
In Maths, we firstly finished our learning of the most efficient methods in addition and subtraction and applied these to reasoning and problem-solving questions. Following this, we touched upon area, recognising what the term ‘area’ meant and ways to calculate it when given varieties of shapes. Finally, learning our times tables, it was especially fun learning lots of different tricks to help us remember them all.
In Science, our topic was sound, we enjoyed investigating how sound is created and travels. We were able to make predictions using our scientific knowledge as well as summarise our results and conclude our findings. We could also answer questions by working scientifically. In DT we applied our scientific learning on electricity, from the last half term, to plan and create torches in small groups. The torches were fit for purpose as success criteria were followed carefully.
In RE, our focus was on Christianity, in particular symbols found within the Christmas Story. We could define what a symbol is and were able to recgonise the different important symbols and explain why they were significant. We related this to the symbols we relate to ourselves. We looked closely at Christingle and applied our learning to creating our own Christingle that depicted what Christmas means to us, individually. We continuously made links to other religions, focusing on their celebrations and festivals.
Forest has been a particular favourite this half term, especially our wellie walks in the rain! Football with Mr. Phillips has been another standout subject this half term, keeping control of the ball, turning with the ball and teamwork have been some of the areas of focus.
Next half term, Cherry Class will be swimming every Friday afternoon. The children will need swimming kits (towel, costumes/trunks, googles (if possible)). Children can come into school wearing school uniforms as normal. Forest will continue to be on Tuesday afternoon.
It is a high priority that times tables are practised regularly at home this half term, so please encourage your child to do this as frequently as possible.
Wishing the children and adults of Cherry Class a very happy Christmas and I look forward to seeing you all in 2024!
Logistics:
Homework – Children are to learn their personal spellings, read a minimum of 3 times a week (recorded in their reading log), complete a scrapbook style journal entry and complete 10 minutes of Doodle Maths. Children must practise their times tables as often as possible.
Forest – Tuesday afternoon
Time flies when you’re having fun! Cherry Class have had a brilliant start to Year 4 and have been working hard across the curriculum and have grown in maturity and increased their levels of independence already!
In Maths, we have worked hard to build upon our place value knowledge, learning the value of digits, adding and subtracting 1, 10, 100 and 1000, as well as learning Roman numerals and ordering and comparing numbers to 10,000. We have also been spending a lot of time practising our times tables.
In English, we have enjoyed writing a narrative based on ‘Feast’ , a short Disney film. We have introduced new writing techniques, as well as developed techniques we were already familiar with. Our Guided Reading lessons have allowed us to explore ‘Roar’, which we are also enjoying as a class novel. We have continued to practise our written answers to a variety of question types.
We have enjoyed our weekly cricket sessions with Dom from Somerset Cricket. We have learnt life skills, such as resilience and teamwork, along with the cricket skills themselves – batting, bowling and catching. It has been great to spend time out in the forest again. Thanks to the thousands of conkers collected, we have been able to use tools to make necklaces as well as climb trees, build dens and play in the mud kitchen!
In History our focus has been the Ancient Greeks, we have explored who were the smartest Greeks, become familiar with who Alexander the Great was and identified what legacy the Greeks left behind, we have done all of this through a variety of oracy tasks, which has been great!
In PSHE, we have focused on ‘Being Me in My World’, we have had many class discussions on how we fit into our communities, and what democracy is, and putting that into practice by voting for our class school counsellor. Our Art lessons consisted of painting, and lots of it! We have learnt what a tint and shade is and how we can make them. Later applying this to 3-dimensional pictures.
A firm favourite of ours this half term has definitely been our Science lessons which focused on electricity. We are now able to build simple circuits using the electrical equipment. We later identified which materials were conductors and insulators and applied this knowledge into making our very own switches!
I hope that you all have a great half term and come back feeling refreshed ready for another jam-packed half term on the lead up to Christmas!
Remember, to keep checking the Longvernal Facebook Page to see what Cherry Class have been up to!
Best wishes
Homework – Children are to learn their personal spellings, read a minimum of 3 times a week (recorded in their reading log), complete a scrapbook style journal entry and complete 10 minutes of Doodle Maths. Ideally, children need to practise their times tables as often as possible.
PE – Friday afternoon
Welcome to Cherry Class! It has been a busy but exciting start to the year, establishing routines, and having fun with our friends again and of course, learning lots of new things!
We are really looking forward to Forest school and hopefully the sun keeps shining for our first session which will be on Tuesday 12th September and every Tuesday afternoon from then on. Forest school will take place regardless of the weather (unless extreme) so please can you ensure your child is wearing appropriate clothing (long sleeve tops and trousers) as well as bringing their wellies and waterproofs in a separate labelled bag to change in and out of, if necessary.
PE is on a Thursday afternoon, and we are excited to be having a cricket coach teach our PE lessons this half term. Please could children come into school wearing the correct PE kit (Longvernal P.E. t-shirt, black shorts or sports trousers and trainers). PE will be outside for the first term, so black Longvernal fleeces or green Longvernal jumpers can also be worn.
Homework - Children are to learn their personal spellings, read a minimum of 3 times a week (recorded in their reading log), complete a scrapbook style journal entry and complete 10 minutes of Doodle Maths and practise their times tables as often as possible.
We look forward to an exciting year! Keep checking our class page and the Longvernal Facebook page for updates!