Self-Regulated Learning

On Friday afternoons, all the Year 4s partake in Self-regulated learning. They are allowed to choose the order in which they approach tasks. The children are gaining proficiency in prioritising their own learning and thinking about what tasks they should complete in what order. A lot of educational research shows that meta-cognition is an important part of developing the whole learner. We definitely want all of Owls to show they are lifelong learners. Here are some quotes from our Year 4 students:

“We really like the choice element surrounding tasks.”

“I like how it promotes our independence and that everyone is often doing something different.”

“It’s not doing everything in an exact order.”

“We don’t have to just concentrate on one subject.”

“I like that it is ordered by traffic light colour”

“I enjoy the feeling of ticking my jobs off!”

“The teacher does not have to tell us what to do, we can do it ourselves.”

Today there was painting shields (Art) happening; there was music appreciation (with the headphones); English publishing of our chapters happening - so we can send them to the author; Maths work going on; Board game design and DT, plus some history research!

You'll really dig this lesson.

On Wednesday afternoon we undertook some Archaeology work - aiming to uncover some primary Roman evidence. We carefully excavated four Roman graves and discovered various items, including bracelets, vases and hobnails. The children all enjoyed using various tools to help them with the project. We have also watched a real archaeologist talk about areas such as carbon dating and looking at the chemical composition of their bones and the importance of teeth. All in all a muddy but educational and fun afternoon!

World Book Day and The Thief Lord Writing

Massive apologies for completely forgetting to take pictures of all the children so brilliantly dressed up. Special mention to two particular male Owls who were amazing (and I suspect a little chilly) in their dresses. It was brilliant to talk all about books and share our love of reading. We have also spent the last week and will spend all of next week writing a Chapter for the Thief Lord. The Thief Lord is our class text at the moment and I have been really impressed by not only the attention to detail in our writing (lots of Venetian place names) but also all the SPaG we’ve managed to fit into our writing. We’ve had subordinate clauses opening sentences, fronted adverbials (always demarcated with commas), some really brilliant direct speech, a range of pronouns and also some powerful adverbs, verbs and adjectives. Keep it up Owls! :)

Springtime Owls

Today we decided to work doubly hard in maths and we managed to finish early enough in order to be able to go outside. We took our sketch pads, pencils and watercolours and really enjoyed ourselves looking at all the natural life in and around the pond next to our school. It was a lovely way to spend the half hour before lunch!

Merci et Au Revoir Maurine!

On Friday we said a fond farewell to our Belgian visitor. Maurine really enjoyed visiting all of the Owls and says she really enjoyed the experience. Thanks to the hard work of Mrs. Jesse we really enjoyed dissecting owl pellets and then making yummy Belgian waffles as a goodbye treat! Maurine was an integral part of our class and we shall definitely miss her - we all wish her lots of luck in becoming a languages teacher back home dans Belgique!

Autumn Term 2018

Thank you to all of the families for making my first term here so fun!

It has been a pleasure to teach all the children and now that I have finally worked out how to blog, I shall aim to keep you all updated about the exciting goings on in class!

CLASS OF 2018-19

Class of 2018-19

Catapult Catastrophe!!

Today we created catapults out of sticks, tape, string and cones. Our main aim was to get the ball the furthest. Some of us managed to fling the ball some distance but for others it was a bit of a catastrophe! We all worked well in our teams and had a lot of fun!

Roman Shops

In Maths this week we have been learning about Roman numerals. Today we opened up our own shops selling items from our classroom. All the prices had to be written in Roman Numerals and we had to pay with the correct money. At the end we calculated how much money we had made. Click on the picture to see more.

 

Owl Class Solve the Mystery of the Missing Laptop

When we got in from break, we noticed that Miss Clark's laptop had gone missing. We also noticed that other items in the room had been moved. We dusted for fingerprints and collected fingerprints from other members of staff. When we got back from lunch we found a note on our board. We used chromatography to discover which ink had written the note. All our clues pointed towards Miss Dore. We went to her classroom and confronted her and she revealed where she had hidden the laptop.  Please click on the photo to look at more pictures of our day.

Guilty!

Today we held the trial of Goldilocks in our classroom. We took the parts of the defence barristers,  prosecution barristers, judge and jury. We also had the 3 bears as well as PC Plod as witnesses. After we had listened to all of the witnesses it was the jury's job to decide whether Goldilocks was guilty or not.

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Maths Outside

Year 4 have been learning about decimals. As it was sunny, we took our lesson outside. On our whiteboards, we wrote a decimal number between 0 and 2. We had to place our numbers on the line in the correct spot. It was fun to be in the sun!

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Country Dancing

For the last couple of months we have been learning 10 country dances with Mrs Jesse and Miss Clark. The dancing is very fun but complicated. Today we learnt The Fireman's Dance which involved lots of switching places. We are looking forward to displaying our dances at Horsham Park with other schools in June.

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New Life

Last week, we planted some pepper, courgette and squash seeds. We have given them lots of love to help them grow and watered the plants over the week. Today, we have begun to see new life and shoots appear. Eventually, when they are big enough we will plant them outside in the environmental area.

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Robin Hood Day

Today Owl Class have been learning about Robin Hood. We pretended we were the Sheriff's guards and planned ways of capturing Robin Hood. After creating wanted posters, we made guides on how to catch an outlaw and wrote descriptions of his hideout.

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