News and Pictures

Maths Week 2023

During Maths week we completed a variety of activities. The theme this year was Shape. Throughout the whole school, everyone was busy applying their maths skills to various tasks. During the week, we used the polydrons to make nets of 3D shapes. We also had a visit from the Magical Maths team. They showed us Maths tricks and games that blew our minds! In addition, we had a visit from Natwest Bank where we learnt how to plan and budget for a party. We used our money, addition and estimating skills. It was great to see Maths in the real world!

Black History Month 2023

For Black History Month this year, we were learning about black British artists. In Year 4 we were researching about Dizzee Rascal and Labrinth. We learnt about their ethnicity, family life and career! We discovered lots about Nigeria, Ghana and Jamaica which are countries linked to both artist's ethnicity. We really enjoyed making/tasting a delicious Mango Cheesecake which is commonly eaten in the Caribbean, as well as learning a famous Labrinth song. 

Drop Everything And Read

As part of our mission to encourage everyone to read at Firs Farm, Year 4 took part in our "Drop Everything And Read' event. This took place in the morning and afternoon for 10 minutes. We thoroughly enjoyed taking a moment in the day to switch off from work and enjoy the pleasure of reading a book of our choice. 

Science Week kicked off in style yesterday for years 3 and 4 with a carousel amongst the phase. Each class went to all 6 rooms to complete different activities including:

• Making space rockets
• Powering the International Station (electricity!)
• Reaching for the sky
• Chromatography
• Boomerangs
• Olympus Mons (volcanoes!)

The children had so much fun going around the school completing these and it was great for the teachers to see how well the children worked together. A lovely had by all.

Coming up later in the week, both year groups will have a Science workshop to further immerse them in 70 years of Space!

While most of Year 4 were staying up all night, the rest of us had fun too. Can you see how we made "Teams" with good teamwork? Then we made Jubilee games and played them with our friends. Also we were lucky enough to watch the play Oliver Twist at school. 

Money madness

We have been making money containers, developing our design and sewing skills. First, we practiced different stitches on binca before choosing our preferred stich and making a purse/wallet. We had to follow our design in order to create a physical object. A growth mindset was a MUST as it was really tricky to thread the cotton through the needle and tie the knot....we all managed in the end, though! Once we had made the basic shape of our wallet, we decorated it with buttons and jewels - matching what we had initially designed. 

The Queen comes to Firs Farm!

After learning about her accession day before half term, Year 4 made information posters all about Her Majesty the Queen’s platinum Jubilee (in preparation for whole school celebrations in June). 4P had their posters sent to Buckingham Palace and were overjoyed when they received a reply the first week back (Miss Price in particular!). We hope to send more Jubilee celebrations her way later on in the year and will wait to see what reponse we get that time….

Living life as a Hindu

Take a look at the wonderful Hindu shrine Mrs Juglual created for us today. She brought all of these items in from home to create a real life learning link to the RE topic we are currently studying. Thank you so much, Mrs Juglual the children of year 4 had a wonderful experience.

Year 4 Children's Mental Health and Internet Safety

This week - 7th to 11th of February we have spent a lot of time considering two very important issues. We have reflected on our mental health and wellbeing and thought of strategies to help us achieve our goals. This has combined well with Internet Safety day and how to be safe and happy online.

Here are some of our digital wellbeing pledges and some of our personal growth hopes and strategies.

We have also Dressed to Express on Friday 11th and had lots of fun being relaxed and creative.

Year 4’s terrific trip to the Science Museum

Take a look at some of the highlights of our trip to the Science Museum. We walked (a lot), took a bus there and back, rode the tube both ways and got to see and explore lots of wonderful objects and artefacts. We each had an object hunt to complete….who could find something made from glass? Who could find something useful? Could you find something really expensive?! It was a lovely day and lots of fun (our teachers were very tired afterwards!) Thank you to everyone that helped to make the trip such a success. It was great to learn outside of school for the day!

A comedic, yet tragic, time!

As part of our Ancient Greece learning, we designed and made Ancient Greek theatre masks, inspired by tragedy and comedy shows. Did you know that the theatre dated back that far? In those times, theatres were all outside and spectators would sit on stone benches, dug from the ground. The chorus would be made up of people who would sing, dance and play music and would sit behind the orchestra. They also included an altar so people could bring gifts to the gods and goddesses.

We love our new library!

Today, we were able to visit our brand new library and see all the changes that have been made. Our School Council members, took us on a tour and acted as our librarians, checking out the books we wished to borrow. A huge THANK YOU to Mrs Hughes and all the School Council members for spending so much time creating this extra special place for us. Here's what some of 4P thought of the new library:

"It looks a lot different to before! It was a lot more organised and there was a great choice of books."

"The library was nice and I liked all of the books. It was nice to have a place to sit and read."

"I thought the library was great. I enjoyed ticking the names off as each child in my class chose a book."

"The displays are really nice - I saw what 4P made! There was a great selection of books which you could see clearly on the shelves."

Sounds like Science!

For our current unit, sound, we have been looking and learning about what sound actually is, what a vibration is and how sounds travel. We will also be looking at what big and small sounds are as well as why sounds sound higher and lower. All of our learning will be celebrated in a trip to the Science Museum later on this half term. Take a look at some of the investigations we have completed so far....

Mini Marathon

After completing 2.6 miles of the playground earlier this year, Year 4 have now received their Mini Marathon badges to celebrate their achievements. Here are some of the children proudly showing the badges off!

Take One Picture

Take a look at some of the fantastic art work we completed for our Take One Picture project. We studied the picture of the storm and then created our own versions using different mediums. Paint for the background, oil pastel for the bigger ship and colouring pencils for the smaller ship. When painting, we tried to mix the colours so it all looked like one image with an accent of different tones. The oil pastels were very effective and they are bright and the colour really stood out.

Roman WOW day

To celebrate all of our learning on the Romans, we took part in an extraordinary WOW day. Everyone was allowed to dress up as a Roman (or wear odd socks as it was Children in Need day too!) and come off timetable for a day of creativity and fun. Each class took part in mosaic making - all of which look great, Roman food tasting (pitta, eggs, olives, grapes) and had a workshop led by a Roman centurion! We learning how to fight like a Roman, hold spears and shields and acted out the rise and demise of the key Roman Emperors. This was such a fun day and it was great to learn in a different way. A huge thank you to all of the Year 4 team for organising this and to the adults at home for, as always, supporting everything we do.

Black History Month

In the UK, Black History Month is celebrated in October and at Firs Farm, we have marked this by learning about different Caribbean Islands. In Year 4, we have been studying the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. We have learnt about its history, slavery, geography, sports, food and famous people; producing a leaflet to display our knowledge. We have made flags, located cities within the islands and compared their traditions to ones of the UK. As well as that, our PE was based around soca music and we worked in groups to create 32 beats of dance, before putting this altogether and finally, we celebrated by making smoothies using fruit that has been imported form Caribbean islands. We were also lucky enough to have a poet, Samantha Rodgers, visit our school and explain her background and how she came to be a published author and poet, along with sharing some of her favourite poems. It was an excellent week of celebration and learning. We wonder where in the world of black history we will be taken next….

Mini-marathon

Over the last few weeks, Miss Constantinou challenged us to run 2.6 miles for the London Mini-Marathon. This meant we had to do approximately 16 laps of our daily mile. We broke the run down into a few sessions to help us complete it successfully. After each session, we thought about the challenges we had faced and reflected on what we could do differently next time; maybe we’d walk some laps, maybe we would set off as fast. It was amazing to think the real London Marathon was 10 times the distance we had completed! As a reward, we all received a certificate for our efforts.

Plank Challenge

As part of National Fitness Week, we took part in a whole school plank challenge. Each class had to hold the plank position for as long as they could. It was very tricky and we had to engage our core stomach muscles in order to maintain a good position for as long as possible. Well done to everybody for taking part and showing resilience!

States of Matter

This half term, in Science, we are learning all about states of matter. Every week we have been lucky enough to take part in an experiment, but this week has been the best of all! We used our learning of salt and ice to make ice cream. Did you know that salt has an effect on the melting point of ice? Using milk, sugar, vanilla and a lot of shaking, we created our very own ice cream! Some were a bit too salty, some a bit too sugary but it was a great experience and we were able to reflect on what we would do better next time.

For National Fitness Week, we challenged ourselves to complete the bingo board set by Miss Constantinou. We understand that staying fit is important as it keeps us healthy and will enable us to live a long and fulfilling life. We had lots of fun; running, jumping, lunging, squatting and playing different sports games. Take a look at what we got up to….