Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 🎅❄☃️🌲

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. All the students in 4th class have worked extremely hard this term. I hope you enjoy your Christmas break and I will look forward to seeing you in the New Year. Here is a short video and some pictures of 4th class preparing for a Christmas this week at school. I hope you enjoyed our Christmas video.

Beat the buzzer 2020

Beat the Buzzer 

 Following our recent lessons on electricity, 4th class used their new knowledge of conductors to create the game beat the buzzer. They also got the chance to play with motors and create some simple machines.

We had a special guest at Merlin Woods 🎅

Electricity

 Science: Energy and Forces

Great teamwork at this pod

This term 4th class have learned about electricity. First we learned about simple circuits. We used different materials to power a light bulb. We predicted then tested what would happen if we added an extra battery or light bulb to our circuit. Here are some of our results...

Adding an extra battery

Next we explored conductors and insulators of electricity. We predicted what materials were conductors and would allow the flow of electricity and what materials would permit the flow of electricity known as insulators.

Testing different materials to check if they are conductors or insulators.

4th class were very curious if other materials in the classroom were conductors or insulators so they decided to test their pens, rulers and other stationary. We all got amazing results... 

This pod discovered that our tin stationary box was a conductor of electricity. 

During the week we discussed how our electricity worked at home and in school. We realized that we needed to use a switch to power our lights in school, so our 4th class students used switches to turn on and off the bulb in their electricity circuit, but next they were set the challenge of constructing their own switch. 

We were very curious to see if our pens/pencils were conductors...

Then we had time to explore and play with other materials such as buzzers and switches.
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We waited patiently, but the day finally came when 4th class and all the other students got to experience our new playground. It was a day like no other, the excitement was intense and our faces were beaming. The wait was worth it. Here is what we got up to...

Who doesn't enjoy a fun maths puzzle!!

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This week we were set different challenges using Maze to 100.
This was the challenge that 4th class were set. We got very competitive.
Challenge: In this maze there are numbers in each of the cells. You go through adding all the numbers that you pass. You may not go through any cell more than once.
Can you find a way through in which the numbers add to exactly 100?

-What is the lowest number you can make going through the maze?
-What is the highest number you can make going through the maze? (Remember you may not go through any cell more than once.)

                              

Afterwards, 4th class students discussed the different ways they solved these puzzles and we discussed some errors we made. 

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We also got to play one of our much loved games on the IPADS last week called "HIT THE BUTTON". This has helped 4th class with their maths tables. Here is the link if you would like to try it at home: 

 https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

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Microbits- track the moisture in the soil

Last week during our computer time, 4th class were coding microbits. This time we coded our microbit to track the moisture in the soil. We explored our own class plant, the plants along the corridor, the flower bed at the front entrance and we even looked at the flowerbeds in the infant playground. 

During our coding lesson we ran into a lot of technical difficulties and we had to debug any mistakes in our coding.  Next we had to follow a procedure to create a moisture sensor. Once we downloaded our code, we had to follow the instructions to build this circuit, unfortunately we didn't have all the required materials such as the nails, but 4th class put their thinking caps on and thought of materials we had in the classroom which would be made of the same materials and that could potentially work. Eventually we decided to use scissors as they too were made of metal.

Procedural Writing

 S'mores with a twist...

In November 4th class have been working on procedural writing. After working so hard to master the structure and grammatical features of this genre, we decided as a class that it would be fun if we could make something and then write a procedure about what we did. 
                       
First we had to decide on on our title and goal for this procedure. Next the students decided what ingredients and materials were required. Then we had to follow a sequence of steps to make our delicious s'mores with a twist. We were all very excited to get to the final step. 



4th class students even came with excellent qualifiers, explaining what we need to be careful of when making our s'mores.



Afterwards, 4th class wrote excellent procedure's on making delicious s'mores with their classmates. We all had lots of fun too.