Croeso i Flwyddyn Pedwar

Teacher: Mrs Miles and Mrs Phillips

P.E. days - Wednesday and Friday (please come to school in P.E. kit)

Forest School - Wednesday afternoon, alternate weeks (beginning 13.09.23)

Please click here for our Class Information Leaflet.

Class update

Summer 2024

24.6.24-5.7.24  

We need time to slow down!!! Next week is soooo busy. Monday 8th July at 2:30- African Drumming. You are welcome to come in and see a short performance of what the children have achieved. Tuesday 9th July- Protest March in Monmouth town. We will meet at the Monnow bridge at approx. 9:30. Please could your child wear uniform and bring a packed lunch. Please feel free to join us. Wednesday 10th July- Yr4/5/6- Summer Performance at 1:30. Parents are invited. Children to wear black. Thursday 11th July at 9:30- Yr4 Parent Engagement session. This will be to perform the Spanish-Three Little Pigs and a fashion show. There will be a refreshment break in the middle where you can catch a cuppa and look at the children’s designs. Thursday 11th July at 6pm- an evening performance of our Summer Concert. Parents are invited. The children have loved the African Drumming, and we have all learnt so many new skills. We are just about finished with making our new outfits out of recycled materials and will have to have a little rehearsal, so we don’t have any wardrobe malfunctions! We definitely have some models in the making. We have been rather busy practising the songs for our Summer Performance- Macbeth. All the children sing beautifully as some of them are quite challenging. In Literacy, we have started a new book called The Dot by Peter H Reynolds. The children were given ten minutes to draw any picture they wanted to. Most of then spent a few minutes pondering about what they could draw. We discussed how this task made us feel as they didn’t have any input or clue as to what was expected of them. Words like nervous, anxious, scared, excited, jittery, perplexed etc. We recapped the meaning of a synonym. This activity will support our Literacy learning next week. Thank you for your support. 

10.6.24-21.6.24 

We had an amazing Sports Day which all children participated in- so thankful for the weather. We were really proud of the children as we do realise it can be overwhelming for some. The children have made a great start to designing and making an outfit out of recycled materials. Initially it was a struggle to thread a needle and join two pieces of material together, but we are getting there. There is lots of collaboration and teamwork going on which is great. Thank you for bringing in all the little bits and pieces to help the children along the way. We are really excited about the Protest March on Tuesday 9th July, in support of the awful sewerage and waste products that are killing our rivers. The election will be done and dusted by then, so hopefully we will be able to discuss are concerns with some MP’s. Please feel free to join us. We will be meeting up by Monnow Bridge at about 9:30am. In Literacy/Expressive Arts we have been focussing on our fashion designs and practising our Spanish fairytale ready for you to come and see. The children are doing well with their lines and pronunciation. We will also be performing this, along with all the other Year fours in the cluster at Monmouth Comprehensive on the 18th July. We are all enjoying African Drumming with Upbeat Music and Arts, focussing on call and response, reading music, tempo and dynamics. The children will be practising their own composition to impress Dave next week using body percussion. These 6-week sessions will build up to a small performance on Monday 8th July at approx. 2:15 which you will be invited in to see. More info to follow as Year 5 will be performing first. Thank you for your continued support.  

20.5.24-7.6.24 

The last term!! We can’t quite believe it, and we have so much to fit in. Our Spanish Fairytale is now well under way, with the children doing well with beginning to learn their part. We will get information about costumes out to you as soon as possible. We are on the lookout for a few props- mainly a collection of sticks that we can tie into a bundle- about ½ metre long, a similar size bundle of clean straw and any soft toy bricks- only a few- do let us know if you can help with any of that! The children had a great trip to BBC Cymru Wales. What an interesting day. We visited the Newsroom together with the Weather studio and it was explained how presenters read from the autocue. We then went to the radio studios to discover the secrets of making a BBC programme. We had a sneaky peak at the TV galleries and other broadcast facilities. In Literacy/Expressive Arts, we have been researching facts about the fashion designer- Dame Vivienne Westwood. She was so passionate about environmental issues and recycling clothes rather than constantly buying new items. We have also begun to plan a design that we want to create. So, please can your child bring in an old item of clothing that we can turn into a new garment. It can be bigger, as we can alter it! Or something from a charity shop. We have also looked at what a catwalk is and how designers demonstrate a new design which is then usually adapted to sell on the high street. It was so exciting to commence a 6-week block of African Drumming with Upbeat Wales. It definitely exercises the brain through stimulating cognitive functions like perception, attention and memory. We began with group drumming which reduces the experience of anxiety, depression and loneliness. So, I think we all need a bit of African Drumming! I absolutely loved it and I know the children did too. The River Festival took place last Saturday and Angela Jones (swim wild) displayed their poems. She said that lots of people loved the honesty and were touched by their words. How lovely to receive these comments. We are so proud of your children and their passion about our local rivers and can’t wait for the protest on the 2nd July- same week as the General Election, so should be fun.  Please feel free to join us, more the merrier! Thank you for your support. 

7.5.24-17.5.24 

It’s so lovely to have some sunshine at long last. The walk to the forest is so much more enjoyable in the sunshine, however I think the children enjoy the walk in the rain!! We have made a start on researching music and fashion throughout the 40’s. We then continued into the 60’s. It has been so lovely and interesting to see how seriously some of you have gathered information from home. In Literacy/Expressive Arts, we have been listening to different types of music and thinking about how it makes us feel. When we see the video, we analyse how the story fits with the music. We have made a start on persuasive texts and identifying the language and text features of a balanced argument. At Forest School, we identified the various hedges passed along the way. There were some very interesting conversations about the wildlife that rely on natures heroes together with environmental advantages. We have made a start on designing and making our protest banners; together with making flower sculptures in the style of the Artist Marisol Escobar. It’s amazing what you can create with a bit of cardboard and kitchen roll holders! We have completed a couple of lessons to identify what a micro:bit is and how we can program it to complete various tasks. The children enjoyed making a beating heart, creating emotion faces; and then had lots of fun experimenting with the different components. Our Spanish Project is going well, and we are now on to the fairy tale itself-we will be sorting the script in the next week or two so that the children can start to learn their part and will communicate costume ideas soon too. Please can you ensure your child has a waterproof coat in school. Every day we go outside even when it's raining. Thank you for your support. 

22.4.24-3.5.24 

We can’t believe we have reached May! Hoping the sunny warm weather isn’t too far away! We’ve had a great few weeks in Year 4, making a start on our new topic- Rock Around the Clock. This will focus on the Expressive Arts area of the curriculum, with plenty of opportunity to make links to all other areas. We have begun to plan and record a podcast during our ICT work based on informing people of the pollution and concerning state of the River Wye. Here we have discussed our target audience and the tone of the podcast. The children have thought about how to make it interesting and entertaining, despite the serious nature of the podcast itself. Last week we had a visit from Angela Jones who is a strong campaigner for clean rivers. She explained to the children how she has worked tirelessly on gathering information, data and holding those to account who disrespect our natural resources that nature kindly shares with us. Angela has appeared on many programmes such Panorama and she regularly goes to Parliament with updates of the pollution in our local rivers. She loved the poems that the children have written, and she wants to display them at the Usk River Festival on the 1st June. Angela has also offered to take our letters that we wrote to the Senedd (no reply), to Westminster and deliver personally!! We have decided that we are going to go on a protest with Angela through Monmouth town in the near future! So, now we now need to make some banners so, if you have any boxes we can use to make the banners. We will let you know what’s happening next. Remember the home learning blog is available every week via Google Classroom for extra information about the work we do in class. Thank you for your support. 

8.4.24-19.4.24  

Welcome back to the Summer term! We have been busy this first few weeks already with finishing off our ‘Scrumdiddlyumptious’ topic- We made a hot chocolate drink in the style of the Maya- grinding cacao nibs and adding a little sugar and chilli. Some of the children found it delicious and others disgusting! We then melted chocolate and created various shapes, described the aroma, texture and taste? The children were then encouraged to write a list of words to help them with a rhyming couplet poem which we were very impressed with. Next week we will be commencing our new topic- Rock around the Clock. The emphasis will be on Expressive Arts. We will be asking the children for suggestions on what they would like to learn. The idea is to build up to the children creating a fashion show with something they have made/adapted/ for themselves. We thought, maybe looking at music through the ages and creating some sculpture art. Initially, in Literacy we are going to base our writing around a music video. We have focused on measures in maths, in particular length and capacity. Here we have looked at the relationships between different units and the ability to convert between them. This has mostly focused on lots of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000, so keeping key skills on the boil! We have discussed setting ourselves personal goals in Health and Wellbeing sessions, including ways to help make these goals actually happen, e.g practising or joining a club. Ask us what goals we set- they were very varied! We have made a start on our Primary Cluster Fairytale Language Project- this year we are going to be learning to re-tell the fairytale Los Tres Cerditos (Three Little Pigs) We started by learning simple Spanish greetings such as buenos días, hola and adiós and looking at Spanish culture. It’s an exciting project to be involved in and such a fun way to develop a new language. Thank you for your support. 

Spring 2024

11.3.24-22.3.24  

Well, where have the last few weeks gone. The Spring term is always busy with Eisteddfod, Comic Relief, World Book Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and Science Week. When we come back after half term, we will continue for a few weeks to complete our topic work before commencing a new exciting topic. Last week we completed our letter writing to the Senedd about our concerns for the pollution in our rivers. There has been a bit of a shake up in the Welsh cabinet, so we are not sure if we will have a new member for climate change. We shall have to wait and see. This week we have been identifying the language and text features of a report and then we created our own version of what we think a Snozzwanger could look like together with creating an animation. We had a visit from Technocamps, where the children attended a workshop on how to make Lego Robots, which was really exciting. In Commando Joe’s we invented a new game together with a set of rules that could be considered as a new sport. This week we looked at improvising the game so that a disabled person could participate. The children’s creativity, together with enthusiasm never ceases to amaze us.  Next term we will be starting an International Languages project- involving other year 4 classes from across the cluster with the help of staff from Monmouth Comprehensive. The project will involve us learning Spanish and will finish with us performing ‘Los Trez Cerditos,’ in July at Monmouth Comprehensive, as well as watching performances from other schools of ‘Petit Chaperon Rouge’ and ‘Aschenputtel.’ It’s a great project to be involved in and we very much look forward to starting this after Easter.  Keep your eye on X (Twitter) for updates! We hope you liked the Easter cards we made and finally we hope you have a lovely Easter break- hopefully enjoy some sunshine. Thank you for your support. 

26.2.24-8.3.24  

Last week was Eisteddfod and the children worked hard with the various entries. It always amazes us how creative the children are. Thank you for the homework entries- it was so hard to choose just a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Everyone was a winner! Also, well done to the musical entries as I know some of you were so nervous, but we were so proud of you. We have focused on angles this week in maths- looking at the name and size of different angles, we have talked about where in the real world we use angles. Ask the children what they can remember! In Literacy this week we have been looking at grammar and punctuation and in particular the correct use of full stops and capital letters. Then we have been identifying homophones, prefixes and suffixes. We have discussed how a suffix or prefix changes the meaning of the word. This is quite a tricky concept but does help with spelling words correctly.  Today is International Women’s Day and the children have been finding out the significance of this day and why it is associated with the colour purple. We have been busy making Mother’s Day cards in the style of Van Gogh; and the children have chosen their own resources to create their own designs. I am sure you will love them as some of them actually look better than Van Gogh!! Another Commando Joe session was completed. We had to build a road block to stop a group of invaders, so it needed to be robust! The other team will have to try and breach the roadblock. They could only move one piece of equipment at a time and that is only if the team could answer a question about Arthur Wharton. We had a fantastic day on Thursday for World Book Day- the children all looked amazing, so thank you for the effort you went to! It’s these sorts of days that the children remember for years to come! Happy Mother’s Day to all you lovely mums, grannies, nannies, aunties, nieces, step mums, cousins……Thank you for your support. 

5.2.24-23.2.24

Welcome back to another busy term. We hope you all managed to get a little rest. The weather wasn’t great but we are looking forward to the Spring. In maths this week we have been focusing on multiples and factors of numbers- please do ask your children about these terms- also remember to have a look at the home learning blog on Google Classroom, which is available every Friday from 3.30! This week we have been busy preparing for Eisteddfod- Learning a Welsh recital, handwriting, creating a poem about our local rivers and making a Welsh Mascot. The children are especially enjoying creating a mascot. It always amazes me how creative they are when using recycled materials. We have recommenced our Buddy reading this week with Reception class which all the children seem to enjoy, together with potting some primroses with Mrs Cornish and Mrs Marsh. We are doing a sponsored read- more details to follow, and the children will have an opportunity to buy a book on Monday 4th March, Tuesday 5th March and Wednesday 6th March. All profits will be used to buy books for all classes. Don’t forget the Eisteddfod homework-use ICT to produce a poster that advertises Wales and the Welsh language. Photography- Produce a landscape photograph that reflects Wales/Welsh culture. Art- Welsh Dragon collage or Dragon sketch. We have some fantastic opportunities coming up over the next week with our visit from an athlete from Team Wales this Friday afternoon and an anti- racism workshop next Monday! Never a dull day in year 4!! Thank you for your support. 

22.1.24-2.2.24

We are really impressed with the children’s Literacy work based on the text- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The children have invented some interesting definitions and characters in the style of Roald Dahl. We have also created a story of how the Oompa Loompas were treated in Oompa Land and how they escaped; using some of the skills previously taught. We are now looking forward to creating a new sweet with some interesting and unusual features! In Forest School, we consolidated our knowledge to create fractions using natural materials. We have been learning a Welsh Dance together with Reception Class, which we will be performing at Eisteddfod. In Science/Numeracy we have analysed the nutritional content of various cereals. Discussions with the children have been interesting- initially they thought the names and what the cereal looked like, had an impact as to how healthy the cereal is. We looked at the difference in content such as vitamins and iron. The children then created graphs on google sheets and analysed the data. Currently, the children are now producing an advertisement to market a new cereal in the style of Roald Dahl- together with music and annotation. Bendigedig! We took part in a live lesson using Adobe Express on Hwb, the focus was Saint Dwynwen’s Day and the children used many skills to create a flyer using various animation and features of Adobe. We continue to practise past tense Welsh language patterns, such as Es i I'r ( I went) Ces I ( I had) and  Gwelais i ( I saw). Next week we will be commencing our work in readiness for Eisteddfod. Thank you for your support. 

8.1.24-19.1.24

We hope you had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. The new year has begun with a bitterly cold spell of weather. (Better than the rain I suppose). Year 4 has “seized the season” by creating some gorgeous ice decorations. They have been on display at the willow dome for us all to enjoy. The children have experimented with putting a key in each decoration which meant that they didn’t freeze as well, and the ones without any natural materials didn’t look very appealing! We also thought about the coldest part of the school grounds we could put some of the decorations so they would last longer. Our topic this term is Scrumdiddlyumptious and the book we are basing our Literacy on, is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The children have created some interesting character profiles together with synonym chains about the Oompa-Loompas. This week we have created our own characters just like Roald Dahl and made up some very interesting and quirky definitions. We have commenced Commando Joe’s this term which has enabled the children to work as part of a team to achieve a goal. We created a vessel to carry Arthur Wharton to England. (He was the first black professional football player in the world).  Our next mission this week was to build a wall that has collapsed. The children are allowed to choose their own equipment and discuss their choices with each other. At all times the children are encouraged to respect each other’s opinions on how the mission will be achieved. In Numeracy we have been focusing on fractions and decimals. We began by looking at equivalent fractions and then moved onto place value of 2 decimal place numbers. Please have a look at the weekly learning blogs on Google Classroom if you haven’t already- there is much more information here on how to support your child with this learning, We are developing our skills of netball on a Friday now for this next half term, so please ensure they have plenty of warm layers for this. Our Welsh home diary (Dyddiadur Cartref) is now up and running- children will get chance to bring this home, and write a short account of some things they have done over the weekend/week. Can we please ask it stays inside the bag provided when it is not being used to keep it nice and clean- diolch! Thank you for your support. 

27.11.23-8.12.23

Busy! Busy! Busy! The Christmas celebrations have well and truly begun. We have been trying to think of different ways we can use natural materials to design and make some natural decorations. We collected lots of interesting things at Forest School which encouraged the children to become more aware of their surroundings. It was quite exciting when we found an interesting piece of gnarled wood! We will be selling these on Friday December 15th and all the profit will be spent on Year 4 children. The children are busy learning Carols ready for the Carol Service on Tuesday 19th December. In Humanities, we have looked at the development of farming through Stone Age and the different foods people eat. We made a simple, healthy stone age stew and bread which the children seemed to enjoy. The bread was so simple to make that some of the children made some at home too. In Literacy this week we have been using all the skills we have learnt this term to create our own story based on the story of Stone Age Boy. In Numeracy we have been focussing on division by 10 and 100 and consolidating our place value knowledge as we shift digits as we divide. See the home learning blog for more information on this. It was exciting that we could all participate in the planting of some new trees around the school. We will certainly be keeping a check on their growth as we pass them on the daily mile each day. We have been thinking and discussing things we are grateful for this week and have written a little tag with a message on to hang on our school gratitude tree. The children impressed us with their mature and thoughtful responses. Thank you for your support and look forward to seeing you over the next few weeks at our Christmas activities.  

24.11.23

A busy and productive few weeks in Year 4- we really enjoyed celebrating Children in Need Day last Friday- where we had a rather cosy day in our pyjamas and dressing gowns! This Monday saw us dress up again, this time in ‘Blue’ to mark World Children’s Day. Thank you all for your support with these days. In Literacy last week we were discussing why the boy from Stone Age Boy decided to become an archaeologist. Who inspired him? What were his dreams for the future? We then moved on to our dreams and aspirations for the future. Which people do we aspire to and why? What have they achieved in their life? Do you have a family member that inspires you to do something?  

Swimming lessons commenced last week which was all very exciting. At Forest School the children made a range of analogue and digital clocks using natural materials. They never cease to amaze us with their creativity and imagination. We regularly check in with “pupil voice” and in discussion about our topic, the children would like to cook some of the things stone age people would have eaten. We may have to substitute some of the foods as I did find it a challenge trying to catch a woolly mammoth! In Numeracy, we have worked hard with analogue and digital time and can see the progress the children have made- it hasn’t been easy! In Welsh, we have been working hard to read a Welsh text called Yn y goedwig, yn y nos. (In the forest in the night) There is a copy of the text in our Year 4 drive. The children have been practising their reading skills and pronunciation as well as being able to ask and answer questions about it- da iawn!  

As always, spellings and some suggestions for home learning are in our Google Classroom every week. Thank you for your support. 

10.11.23

Every term is just so busy, but we have a feeling that this one is going to be packed with lots of excitement and fun. It won’t be long until we start practising for our Carol Concert, creating an enterprise project and designing and making Christmas cards.  

In Literacy, this week we have been identifying the different jobs that people did during stone age time- hunting, making tools, fire etc. We then compared these jobs to present day jobs and how things have changed. We also created freeze frames to act out the various scenes from Stone Age Boy. The children created poems using personification to celebrate Remembrance Day and we were very proud of their adventurous vocabulary. In Science, after completing an experiment as to how food is absorbed into their bodies, they drew and labelled the digestive system. We are still completing digital Art in the style of Alma Thomas’s abstract style which is looking very bright and colourful. Maths has been lots of fun with looking at telling the time on both analogue and digital clocks; as well as reading information from timetables. Keep up the hard work Year 4!  

Thank you for your support. 

20.10.23

To celebrate Black History Month, the children are embracing our learning on Alma Thomas. They have started to create digital drawings in the style of Alma’s abstract style. In Literacy, we have started to read Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura which fits in perfectly with learning about our past. We have started to use different types of punctuation for affect and used expanded noun phrases and connectives to extend sentences. Our maths sessions have focused on area and perimeter. We have explored mostly rectangles so far and are beginning to realise how the area and perimeters of shapes doesn’t have to be the same. In humanities, we have started to look at the timelines of human existence and the definitions of words related to this period. Thank you for supporting our School Harvest Festival, and I think you will agree how fabulous the children were. It was quite a tricky song to sing, and we were very proud of them. In Forest School, the children created bridges to travel to a central station, and they never cease to amaze me with how creative they are. In Science, we started to learn about the part teeth play in digestion and we have found out some interesting facts. Did you know we produce about 1 litre of saliva a day!  

Please can you ensure your child has a coat in school every day and they bring their reading book in daily.  Thank you for your support.

6.10.23

Busy, busy, busy in Year 4 in the last two weeks. The children have created some amazing art in the style of Gustav klimt which has certainly brightened up our classroom. A range of materials were used together with gold foil to create a Tree of Life that was personal to them. This week we have finished our book- Journey, which is a wondrously, illustrated picture book about self-determination, perseverance, equality and unexpected friendship. This week we have been looking at similes that we could use to describe sections of the story and completed our learning by writing a descriptive poem. In ICT we followed a live learning session on how we can enhance our knowledge and language skills by using Adobe on Hwb- lots of new skills were learnt that will be reinforced in the next few weeks. The children really surprised us with their teamwork, strength and communication whilst creating a Sukkah in forest school. This is a temporary hut that is constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. We have been recapping our knowledge of verbs during Welsh sessions and asking and answering about what we like to do, such as swimming-nofio, play football – chwarae pel-droed and singing-canu. Ask your child ‘Beth wyt t’in hoffi wneud?’  

                                               

22.9.23

Our topic this term is- Memory Box. We will be focusing on our immediate environment- looking at Trellech in the Bronze age and how things have changed over time. Local historian and Archaeologist, Katie Churchill came in to talk to the children about Trellech and how archaeologists have been able to piece together evidence of how Trellech looked in the past. Katie brought lots of interesting objects and bones for the children to examine. The children were so enthused, with so many questions, which was just great. Fortunately, we were then able to visit the archaeological dig at Court Farm where Dr Mark Lewis from the National Museum in Cardiff explained to the children how to undertake a geographical survey in the field. Just so fascinating! The children were then able to have a go at digging, sieving and washing bits of pottery that they excavated with Katie Churchill.

A local Author, Margaret Iggulden is coming in to talk to the children on 25^th September about her recent book which is all about a family living in the Wye valley in the 21^st century; where they visit an archaeological dig site and discover a mysterious bronze mirror. We are currently reading this fabulous book and we will have an opportunity to purchase her books on the same day. (Schoop message to follow). In Literacy, we have been studying the picture book Journey by Aaron Becker. We have been describing the setting using interesting place openers together with adventurous adjectives and verbs. In Numeracy, we have been subtracting numbers by finding the difference, reading numbers up to 100 and beyond, and understanding each numbers value