SPECIAL EDITION OF THE PANDA TIMES!

By Amelie and Angus

The end of a hard term of 4 weeks. We are looking forward to another term of fun and learning, but first we get a nice, relaxing week off! So, to end this half term, this week's edition of The Panda Times is going to be  special review on the last couple of weeks. I hope you enjoy this edition. I hope you have a lovely half term, whether you spend the week playing at home or soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere. That's all from me as I hand over to my glorious other reporter...

Hello readers! As Angus has already mentioned, we are doing a review of this half term... so get comfy because this is going to be long! Today, we have been learning all about decimals. We have been looking at their relationship with fractions. Everybody is really enjoying it and we are all very excited to learn more. Millie, 9, said 'today we learned about decimals and it was really fun!'

Now, I'm going to take you back to the beginning of the term, when we finished our fractions unit. Like decimals, most of us found it quite easy. I, however, found it quite a challenge! Now, onto our English lessons... We have been working on writing Anglo-Saxon diary entries this term. Check out our Exciting Writing books during TLC's to see the finished results.

That's all for now... until next time!

The Latest Edition of THE PANDA TIMES!

By Angus and Amelie

Today, we are writing about the end of March and dreaming about the upcoming April showers. So, before you start to thrust yourself into what Year 4 have been learning about, read this part because it will cheer you up. Happy Easter to all and we hope you have a wonderful half term. And, as we are a Christian school, think of Jesus and his sacrifice for us all before you bite into that smooth, hollow egg. 

We kicked off our last week of term with an Easter Church Service. We sang some beautiful songs and our class read an Easter story to everyone in the church. We were even treated to some poems and prayers from the Dolphins class. It was a wonderful service! Have a great Easter and remember Jesus is always with you. Now I pass over to Amelie!

This week we have had a lot of fun! We have started our new unit on TIME! We have mostly been looked at converting to 24 hour clock as the majority of us already know how to tell the time on an analogue clock! As well as that, in English, we have been making our final preparations for our recounts on the eruption of Mount. Vesuvius. Most of us will be writing from the point of view of a survivor, but a few of us will be writing as Mount. Vesuvius itself! Also, we had a volcanologist called Conor come into our class and talk to us about earthquakes and volcanoes! We took part in lots of really cool experiments and I think the other Pandas will agree... this week was EPIC!

And whilst we made Tusnamis... some of the children were lucky enough to take part in a Bikeability group!

HAPPY RED NOSE DAY FROM THE PANDAS CLASS! 

Pandas have had a very exciting day indeed today! Not only did they get to spend some time with Mr Fitzpatrick's Meerkats talking about division, they also spent the afternoon making Rocky Road with Mrs Stewart's Giraffes!

Here are some photographs for you to enjoy.

Division with Year 5

Baking with Year 1

The latest edition of THE PANDA TIMES!

By Angus and Amelie

Hello again, it's Angus and Amelie and we are bringing you this week's news! We hope you enjoy this as much as you always do!

This week was a fantastic week! We have started looking at graphs in Maths this week, finishing our unit on division. We have looked at picture graphs and bar charts. We are really enjoying it so far and everyone is doing really well. We have also started researching information for our recounts on the destruction of Pompeii. We have all found out lots of information about what happened on that fateful day and even more information on volcanoes. We have also been learning about sentence of 3 for action, a feature Miss Scane would like us to use in our recounts. Jessica M, aged 8, told us, 'I have enjoyed Maths this week. My favourite thing was completing the worksheet!'

We have also been learning lots in Topic too. We spent last week learning about how volcanoes are formed and the three different types of volcano. We also learnt about Earthquakes and even experienced our very own Earthquake drill. In Science, we have been learning about rocks and have now moved on to looking at how fossils are formed. 

That is all for this week's Panda Times. See you next time!

Read on for the next edition of THE PANDA TIMES!

Hello again, after the second week of the half term, we bring you the latest edition of The Panda Times. Amelie and Angus bring you information on what has happened this week. I suggest you read his one in two parts as you might burst with information if you read it all in one go. I hope you enjoy the 4th edition of Panda Times!

We kicked off our 2nd week back with a bang by getting ready to write our natural disaster poems. Rhianna, aged 8, told us "I enjoyed writing the natural disaster poems!" The poem topics range from tsunamis to earthquakes! We have also started learning about division in Maths in hope that our mini Rachel Rileys might some day become future mathematicians!!! Our natural disaster poems were FANTASTIC!

Here is an example of what was produced:-

The Volcano

By Rhian and Jessica M

T he volcano can erupt more than once.

H ere is lava as red as blood.

E xploding, and the lava shot out.

V iolently, the volcano shook.

O over the volcano the clouds were grey as an elephant.

L ava is hot like a radiator.

C arrying the really hot lava.

A volcano is hot like the sun.

N near the volcano there was a cloud.

O nly the last volcano can survive.

We hope you are still enjoying reading our newspaper!

Well done to all 14 of our wonderful Pandas who read five times or more for each of the four weeks of the Reading Challenge. I'm very proud of you all... and a HUGE well done to Owen H for winning the grand prize by being pulled out of the raffle box. He will get a very special treat from Mr Webster and Mrs Bright soon!

From left to right- Owen Y, Amelie, Angus, Hollie, Lola-May, Rhianna, Ella-May, Max, Millie, Leonie, Owen H, Maximus and Joseph. Jess C also won a certificate, however, unfortunately she was absent on the day they were handed out. 

First Week Back...

Here are a selection of photographs to show you what we have got up to during our first week back! We have presented news reports to report on the destruction of Pompeii and performed some poetry for World Book Day. I've also included a photograph of some of the amazing homework some of the children completed over half term! Come down to the red area in Year 4 if you want to see more. 

News Reporting on the Destruction of Pompeii

World Book Day Performance Poetry

Come and See Our Fantastic Homework!

WELCOME BACK PANDAS!

The Pandas class have arrived back into school with a BANG after a very relaxing week off, especially for some of the children. Skiing in Bulgaria, relaxing in Spain, walking in the Peak District... just some of the exciting holidays some children have been on in the last week. Miss Scane is very jealous!

However, back into school mode now and the Pandas have their most exciting half term ahead of them yet. This term we are learning all about... VOLCANOES, ROCKS AND FOSSILS! Everyone is so excited and eager to learn all about this fascinating topic. All of our subjects have this topic within them too, so Year 4 will be experts by the time the Easter holidays roll round. 

Listed below are the fantastic things we have planned for us over the next six weeks...

- Natural Disaster Poetry in English weeks 1 to 2.

- Recounts based on the destruction of Pompeii in English weeks 3 to 6.

- Building our own volcanoes in Design and Technology.

- Learning all about Pompeii and other natural disasters in History.

- Exploring rocks and fossils in Science.

- Learning all about volcanoes and earthquakes in Geography. 

- Creating our own information presentations on PowerPoint in Computing.

It's going to be great! Now, I finish off my introduction to Spring Term 2 with Angus and Amelie's latest edition of THE PANDA TIMES! Enjoy!

The Panda Times

Welcome again! We are sorry we haven't written in a while, but we definitely plan to write more often this term. This one is a special edition on what we are going to be doing this term. I hope you enjoy this special edition as we share with you our exciting new topic... the mighty volcanoes!

As Angus commented, this is a special edition of The Panda Times where you will get a sneak peek into what we are doing this term. On Monday, our first day back, we focused on natural disaster poetry in honour of our new topic- volcanoes! Everyone produced some excellent pieces of work based on tsunamis, hurricanes and many more natural disasters.

Joseph, aged 9, told us 'I enjoyed writing the poems.' 

We also started looking at commutative numbers in Maths and picked up on the fact that ANY numbers that are added or multiplied together are commutative. This means that you can move the numbers around in the sum in lots of different ways and you will always get the same answer!

Thank you once again for reading this newspaper special edition. See you next week!

The Panda Times

8.1.17 to the 13.1.17

Hello again and, for week 2, we are so excited to share our brilliant work. There is so much to tell you. The only problem is... we don't have enough paper! If we were you, we would go sit on the sofa and enjoy the please of spying on our child!

This week was just as exciting as the last! And now you get the opportunity to feel like you have the knowledge of your child's learning and you get to see what your child has been up too. We have been working on our times tables (take that Rachel Riley!), creating Islamic mosaics and even learning how to write our names in Arabic. Joseph, aged 8, said 'I liked using the cubes!' Eleanor, aged 9, said 'I like the idea of the working walls because they help us.' We would love to tell you more, but unfortunately it's the end of lunch. We know you don't have a time machine to look forward into the future, so you will have to wait for next week's exciting edition of The Panda Times! Or... you could just ask your child...

Thank you for reading Ladies and Gentleman. See you next week!

We have kicked off 2017 with a bang in Pandas class this term. The children have had a fantastic, relaxing break and have come back more switched on than ever! We have already jam packed the first few days of term with some interesting and challenging learning and we can't wait to share it with you all.

This brings me on to some exciting news regarding our class page. We are extremely busy in Pandas class and sometimes that means we don't get a chance to update you all on the wonderful learning we have been doing. So, to ensure this doesn't happen this term, I have appointed two children from our class to be our very own Pandas news reporters! Amelie and Angus are working hard each week to prepare for you their own version of a newspaper they call 'The Panda Times', which will provide you with the weekly on-goings of our class.

Here is their first article! Enjoy!

The PANDA Times

Introduction to the new web bloggers!

Hello there! We are Amelie and Angus and we are your weekly bloggers for The Panda Times. We will keep you up to date with all of the latest news from our cool classroom. Angus is a budding sportsman. He plays in almost every sports match and he has lots of sports rewards. Amelie is a passionate singer. She loves to go out on stage and perform in front of busy crowds. We hope you enjoying reading this newspaper because we enjoy writing it!

We kicked 2017 off with an exciting week. In Maths we enjoyed learning about multiplication and the other three mathematical operations. Millie, aged 8, said "I enjoyed learning about different ways to show the four mathematical operations." Leanne, aged 8, said "I enjoyed everything and there couldn't have been a better week!" In English we started looking at our new topic, The Golden Age of Islam. We took part in some acting to understand what exactly happened back in that time. We studied The Silk Road and how trade was moved along it. Louis, aged 9, said "out of the whole week I enjoyed the wonderful acting." The week was a stunner and everyone can't wait for next week!

The Eye Factor

All I can say is WOW! I am so incredibly proud of the Pandas and Dolphins. The Eye Factor was a huge success from start to finish and the final show was spectacular! The children worked hard from the moment they auditioned right up into the final curtain fell and we couldn't have asked for more support from the parents and carers. So a huge thank you from us to you for helping with costumes, hair and make up and turning your sweethearts into the superstars they all are. Their confidence has soared and it's been an emotional change to watch. I'm very proud to be their teacher!

Here are some photos from the grand finale!

Spring 1 Curriculum Letter

Dear Parents/Carers,

During Spring Term 1, Year 4 will be investigating the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. Whilst we refer to this period as ‘The Dark Ages’, the Islamic world was gathering together knowledge and wisdom from the Greeks and Romans then building on their learning. The battery, the camera and the first clocks all come from this time along with much of the common language we use today as well as our number system. The music of ‘Scheherazade’ by Rimsky-Korsakov will be studied in order to show how instruments can become ‘voices’ and tell stories. In Art, we will discover the meaning and symbolism of Islamic Art and enrich our learning about Islam with a visit to the Faizain E-Madina Mosque in Peterborough. The visit will be in the school day and the cost will be approximately £3.50.

In English, our focus text will be ‘The Arabian Nights’, filled with fantasy, mystery and wonder. The children will base their narrative writing around Ali Baba along with Explanation Texts based on our Geography focus on the development of the Silk Road Trade Routes; the foundations for the spread of the Islamic Empire.

In Maths we will be securing our understanding of multiplication and division by using practical real life items and situations. Parents and Carers, be at the ready to chant those times tables.

The Year 4 teaching staff are so proud of the enthusiasm, motivation and focus the children have shown so far this academic year, particularly with their efforts in the ‘Eye Factor’. We are looking forward to seeing them blossom and grow.

Year 4 Teachers

Curriculum for Life Skills

This week we used thinking hats to come up with a solution to an internet safety problem. I took some lovely photos of the children using the hats, but thought it would be nice to share this lovely group photo of them all using the blue hat to make a final decision on the solution!

We had a great few weeks writing our Julius Caesar biographies! The children all wrote their own fantastic versions and I'm extremely proud of how hard they worked!

For the next week and a half we are going to be looking at narrative poetry. The children began this unit of work by looking at all different types of poetry and deciding what the liked and didn't like about each one. Below are some photographs of each of the groups, very proudly showing off the work they produced by the end of the lesson! Well done Pandas!

Ellie, Louis, Owen Y and Jessica M

Jess C, Ausra, Millie and Ella-May

Maizie, Joseph and Adrian

Lucy, Leonie, Dylan and Max

Leanne, Rhian, Amelie and Owen H

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Angus, Hollie and Lola-May

Lydia, Rhianna, Maximus and Eleanor

Welcome to Pandas Class!

We have a really exciting year ahead of us in Pandas Class, jam-packed full of engaging topics and fantastic learning opportunities! The class are really beginning to settle in to being back after the long summer break and, despite how tired we are all feeling, we are still enthusiastic and ready to get stuck in to all of the fun learning we have planned! 

This term we are going to be learning all about the Romans! We are going to be starting the term creating our own Roman biographies in English and following this with a myths and legends unit on Romulus and Remus, looking at Roman numerals in our morning challenges, creating mosaic designs in Art, looking further in depth at everything Roman in History and even listening to some music based on the planets (named by Romans!) in our Music lessons. I'm so excited for the children to be able to share with you everything the children have learned!

Some useful information for you to know:

- Swimming is on a Thursday afternoon so if your child has been chosen to swim this term they will need swimming kit and a swimming hat every week. If you would like your child to wear goggles you need to send your child in with a permission letter please! 

- We are very lucky to be able to have two PE slots this year. This term's PE days are a Thursday and Friday afternoon. 

I've really enjoyed teaching the Pandas so far and I'm very excited for what the rest of the year brings!

Miss Scane