Amber Class

Hi! Our names are Miss Redpath and Miss Routledge.

We will be your child's teachers!

Please see below for an overview of what your child will be learning this term.

Tuesday 14th January

The children have began a new dance topic within their PE lessons this term. They have been required to think of steps they will use in 'canon' (like a domino effect then returning back to the beginning of their sequence. They are creating a dance in the style of 'The Greatest Showman'; some of their ideas are really quite something! I was very impressed! Ask your children to show you some of their dance moves in the style of the ringmaster! 

Wednesday 8th January

Happy New Year! 

We've had a blast stepping back in time in our history lesson today! We chatted about the time of the Aztecs and figured out where they fit on a big timeline of history. We got to talk about what BC/AD and BCE/CE mean and even arranged different events in the order they happened. We also had a great discussion about very important dates and events, and how some of them happened at the same time. 

Week 6

We had our last visit to the library until after Christmas so we spent some time perusing for new books and reading with our friends.

Our Christmas dinner was delicious! We ate with our friends and grown-ups as we listened to Christmas music and showed off our Christmas jumpers!

Week 5

We have been furthering our understanding of the 3 and 6 times table this week. We have been using counters to group or share numbers. It has helped us to use counters to see the representations of the numbers and make groups and share the counters equally.

Did you know that a switch is used to break a circuit to prevent an electrical current from flowing? That's something we have learned in science and this week, we had a go at making our own switches! We knew that the switch would need to be made from metal as most conductors of electricity are made from metal. We made our switches with paperclips and pins and it was amazing to see them work.

After we got our switches to work with our initial circuit, we then had a go adding more components to our circuits!

Week 4

We have been developing our programming skills in computing by learning various commands and putting them into practice. This week we focused on using 'REPEAT' which saves time by not having to write multiple lines of the same code. Some of the shapes we had to make were quite tricky, but we were making our own before long!

Week 3

This week, Amber Class began looking at Area in maths. We began by finding 2D objects around the classroom and drawing around them on paper. We discovered that the shape we had drawn represented the objects area, as it covered the total space taken up by the object. We then explored how to use squares to represent the total space taken up by an object. We used cut out squares to create our own shapes and discussed how the area remained the same, regardless of shape, as we had used the same amount of equal sized squares.

An artist came to visit us on Friday this week and we spent an exciting morning using water colour pencils to create beautiful artwork of British wildlife! We can't wait for our work to be displayed as part of the Eskdene Rise housing project!

Week 1

We had the best time during Outdoor Learning Day! We got busy in mud kitchen, making cupcakes and ice cream, while others went for a very muddy roll down the hill. We played football and built a huge fortress out of wooden pallets and tyres!

Week 7

We visited the library this week to swap our read books for new ones for the next two weeks! Once we have chosen our book, we can still quietly and read with our friends and share what we like about the books we have chosen. We'll be visiting the library again after half term.

Week 6

Year 4 have been practicing painting with different tones and tints this half term. We first created secondary colours before adding white or grey to them to make a tint or a tone. We looked at examples of atmospheric paintings and how the different tints, tones and shades were used to create a mood. We then explored how reflections of objects appear in paintings - we discussed how the details aren't as deined and the paints are blended together. After practicing, we painted our own atmospheric painting with a reflection.

Week 5

We began learning about the digestive system this week and created our own model of how food finds its way through the body. We mashed weetabix and milk in a bowl in the same way the food would be mashed by teeth in the mouth. We then used a food bag with orange juice to act as the stomach and tipped in the weetabix. The next step was to move the mixture from the stomach to the small intestine for which we used tights. As all of the nutrients are removed during this stage of digestion, we squeezed the mixture in the tights so all the 'good stuff' would come out before it is dried out by the large intestine. The final step of our digestion system model was to cut a small hole in the tights to represent the anus so we could squeeze the faeces out.

On Thursday the fire safety team came into school to talk to us about fire safety and about how to stay safe with fire.  We look at the consequences of playing with fire and of lighting fires in the community. We also learnt a lot about how to keep us safe in our homes if there was a fire and how to stay safe in school if there was a fire.

Week 4

As we have continued learning about teeth in science, we decided to undergo an experiment to find out what liquids could be the most damaging to our teeth! We used eggs to act as teeth because the texture of their shell is very similar to the enamel on our teeth.

We used 6 eggs and 6 different liquids: water, milk, fresh orange juice, Coca Cola, energy drink and vinegar. First, we made a prediction - which liquid would be most damaging to the 'teeth' and why.

We made sure it was a fair test by changing no variables other than the type of liquid but keeping the volume of liquid the same too!

We left the eggs to soak in their liquids for 24 hours before making our final observation.

As we observed the changes made by each liquid upon the egg, we concluded that vinegar would be most damaging to teeth as the shell had been completely dissolved, we could see through what was left to the yolk inside! We decided this was because of the acidic content of vinegar - this is also why the fresh orange juice damaged the egg's shell a lot.

Week 3

We were archeologists this week! We completed a workshop with Durham University to study ancient Roman artefacts and we even translated an ancient Roman tablet.

Week 2

In science this week, we learned all about how to keep our teeth healthy. We practiced brushing techniques on carrot teeth with white paint.

Week 1

We began our history topic by discussing the terms BC/AD and BCE/CE and what they mean. The children looked at major historical civilisations and events which they then organised chronologically to determine where in time the Ancient Roman civilisation occurred.