Sycamore

Welcome to Sycamore Class!

 

We are Year 4 and we are taught by Miss O'Brien and Mrs Weaving.

 

 

Drama – 20.09.19

 

Today we took our English lesson outside into the sunshine as we thought about what we have read so far in our class story: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Using the key events in the story so far, we worked together in groups to create freeze frames of the scenes. We all worked together really well, and although we didn’t have long, we managed to create some amazing frozen images for our class mates to guess!

 

 

 

 

Mini Marines Day – 18.09.19

 

We were lucky enough to spend 1.5 hours outside with two men from the marines. We took part in a range of activities, which were all very fun!

One of the activities was a team building exercise where we had to work as a team to get across the area without touching the floor. Using tires was a good way to do this, although it was tricky to fit everybody on at the same time!

 

We also learnt about fire safety and how to start a fire, putting our skills into practice when we toasted a marshmallow over the open fire.

 

Finally, we took part in an inflatable obstacle course! We dived, climbed and weaved our way across the course, showing good team work as we helped our friends along the way. What a great day we had!

 

 

 

PE Lessons: Yoga – September/October 2019

 

In our indoor PE lessons in Term 1, we did some Yoga lessons. We worked hard to create new positions and shapes with our bodies, working on our balance to enable us to hold them. We looked at individual yoga poses, as well as partner poses (these were the most fun!). We really enjoyed these lessons, which were a nice relaxing end to a Monday afternoon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papier Mâché masks – October 2019

 

In Art, we made Aztec masks using papier mâché and paint. We planned our own masks in our sketch books, thinking about shape, pattern and colour. We then made the cardboard base and used newspaper to build up contours. Once the masks had dried (a few days later!!), we painted them white before drawing on and painting our patterns. They all turned out great and have been on display outside our classroom for all to see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arts Week – 21.10.19 – 26.10.19

 

During Arts week this year we were creating some new artwork for the huge display boards in the hall! Each class voted for their favourite book and we then based our artwork on this book. We chose Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We spent the week creating lots of great, wacky pieces of Art for the display. We made a giant chocolate river, some giant boiled sweets and some edible mushrooms. The artwork is now up in the hall – do have a look, it looks great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malawi Workshop – 7.11.19

 

On Thursday 7th November, we were lucky enough to take part in a Malawi workshop at school. We took part in lots of great activities and produced some lovely Christmas cards at the end of it. We particularly enjoyed trying the crisps!

 

 

 

Well-being Festival - November 2019

 

 8 children from Sycamore Class were lucky enough to attend a Well-being sports event at Faringdon Community College. They took part in lots of fun activities such as trampolining, Yoga and an agility course! We loved hearing all about it back at school!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Poetry Performances (and Christmas Jumper day!) – 13.12.19

 

On Friday we worked together in groups to perform a Christmas poem to the rest of the class! First, we all laughed along to Michael Rosen performing his poem ‘Chocolate’, before deciding on a checklist of what makes a good poetry performance. The children then had some time in groups to practise their Christmas poem before performing to the class. Everybody did extremely well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christingles – 17.12.19

 

In RE we have been learning about symbolism in the Christmas Story. We also looked at the Christingle and learnt about what each element represents. We then put our knowledge into action and made our own Christingles! We loved this activity and did very well not to eat the marshmallows (no matter how tempted we were!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Snow Queen – 18.12.19

 

On Wednesday 18th December we were luckily enough to travel with Years 1-6 to Oxford to see the production of The Snow Queen. We were all extremely well behaved and enjoyed the show greatly! The actors were very talented, and the special effects were great! Everybody did John Blandy School extremely proud! What a lovely end of term treat!

Merry Christmas everybody!

 

Dragon’s Den – Victorian Inventions - 13.01.20

 

In history this week we have been learning all about the Victorians. We have been focussing on Victorian inventions, looking at what problem they solved in society. It was hard to imagine that a telephone or a bicycle used to not exist! Once we had learnt about the inventions, we worked with a group to come up with a pitch to convince the rest of the class that our product was the best. We worked hard to create a poster to show the product and to write a pitch to deliver to the rest of the class. We then presented each of our inventions, before having a vote for which invention we wanted to invest our money in. It was a bit of a surprising result, with the Christmas cracker being chosen as the most wanted product!

 

 

Gymnastics – 13.01.20

 

In indoor PE this week we have started our work on gymnastics. We had a think about how tensing our body can help us to balance, providing a strong base for any partner work that we might do. We worked hard with a partner to come up with some interesting partner balances, as well as trying out some challenging examples. We are looking forward to taking this further next week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music – WB. 20.01.20

 

In Music we have been learning about grime music. We learnt a song called ‘Stop Bullying’ and then composed our own verses. After lots of practising, we then put our verses together to make our own class rap. Have a look at the videos below!

Geography – WB. 27.01.20

 

In Geography this term, we have been learning all about maps. We learnt how to use a compass and made our own maps that use all of the compass points. We then moved on to looking at OS maps and had fun getting out the rather large maps and hunting for symbols. We used the key on the map to identify what each symbol meant. Next, we moved onto looking at aerial maps and then created out own aerial maps of the local area. It was great fun! We also spent an afternoon on the Chrome Books, exploring Google Maps. We learnt how to do lots of things, such as how explore on Street View, find out what year the image was captured in and how to turn the map from satellite to aerial view. We then used all of our knowledge to create a guide to Google Maps!

 

Life Education Bus – 06.02.20

 

On Thursday 6th February, we were lucky enough to go onto the Life Bus. We learnt about the digestive system, the nervous system and the lungs and heart. We also watched a video about friendship and how important it is to talk to your friends. The next video we watched was about how boring it would be if we were all the same. It was very fun because we got to go into space. Some people in the class described it as “amazing” and “incredible”. At the end, we all got a book mark with a giraffe on it!

 

Ultimate Times Table Challenge – 14.02.20

 

During our maths lesson on Friday we all completed the Ultimate Times Table Challenge! This challenge consists of 144 times table questions, covering all of the times tables from 1 – 12. The children were given a maximum of 15 minutes to see how many of these questions they could answer correctly. We then peer marked our answers to see how many we had managed to achieve. Most of us were very pleasantly surprised with our scores! We will repeat this times table challenge at the end of each half term. At the end of the year, there will be 4 prizes to give out:

       Most improved girl

       Most improved boy

       Highest scoring girl

       Highest scoring boy

I look forward to seeing who will impress me with their progress and scores over the course of the year!

 

Sycamore Class Assembly – 28.02.20

 

On Friday 28th February we performed our class assembly to the whole school and our parents. We really enjoyed telling and showing everyone about what we have been up to in Sycamore class this term.

 

STEM day at FCC – 10.03.20

 

On Tuesday 10th March, we all visited FCC for the day to take part in a STEM workshop. We worked in groups to make balloon-powered cars and then took part in a competition to see how far they would travel. It was so much fun! As a school, we did extremely well, with many children making it through to the finals!

 

STEM Week – 09.03.20 – 13.03.20

 

During STEM week, we worked together in groups to plan and conduct our own science experiment linked to keeping healthy. We decided to investigate a range of things, such as, which fruit bruises the least in our lunch box, which foods contain the least fat and which type of activity raises your heart rate the most. We then presented our findings to the class before having a vote for our favourite science experiment. The winning science experiment was investigating which fizzy drink stains our teeth the most. Well done Evie and Jessica!

We also took part in a Forensic Science workshop where we had to find clues and work out who had stolen from the safe! We loved becoming detectives for the morning! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEM Week – Curly Wurly Challenge! 13.03.20

 

During STEM week, Mrs Kingdon set the whole school a challenge to see which class could stretch a curly wurly the furthest. On Friday afternoon, we set out to stretch our curly wurly. We started off stretching it the length of one table, but then soon had to add 3 more tables as we had stretched it so far! Once we were finished, we called for the judges to come and measure it. We managed to stretch it a whopping 3 m 75 cm! We were ecstatic to find out that we were the winning class! J

 

 

Sports Relief – 13.03.20

 

On the Friday of STEM week, it was also Sports Relief! Each class took it in turns to go into the hall and take part in a Danceathon. We danced for 30 minutes straight to a mixture of Just Dance and Go Noodle routines. There were some fantastic dance moves going on!

 

 

RE – WB 16.03.20

 

In RE last week, we were learning all about Jewish beliefs and Kosher food. We also spent some time looking at the story of Passover, and the significance of the food eaten at the Seder meal (on the first night of Passover). On Friday, we were lucky enough to try some of the food that is eaten at this special meal! We tried a version of Charoset, an apple dish which is eaten with Matzos crackers. The Charoset reminds the Jews of the mortar used to build the houses during their years of slavery in Egypt. The matzos crackers are eaten to remind the Jews of the hurry that they left in, once the Egyptian Pharaoh let them free after 200 years of slavery. There was not time for their bread to rise, meaning that it baked in the sun on their long journey home, producing unleavened bread. Most of us really liked the Charoset and kept asking for more! J

 

Homework

Helpful links and documents

 

Times Tables