It has been another busy week in Year 4. We have started a new art unit and have enjoyed getting creative and setting up our sketch books. We have also experimented with creating tints and shades using water colour paints. We learnt that you add white to a colour to make a tint and black to a colour to make a shade.  

In Literacy, we have finished our balanced argument unit where we wrote our own independent piece about school uniform. We have now started a poetry unit which we are all enjoying writing about a small dragon that we have found in various different locations.  

In science, we have been classifying different vertebrates. We got into home groups and then went off into our expert groups. Whilst in these expert groups, we learnt about the features of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Once we had learnt the facts, we then went back to our home groups and each expert taught their group. Then, we used this information to sort and classify different creatures according to their features. We really enjoyed learning in this way. 

Year 4 have had a great time building their pavilions. They started by constructing the sides of their buildings and then used glue guns to make their three-dimensional structures. They thought carefully about the areas surrounding their pavilions and decorated their bases inline with their plans. Once these were complete, they started to add cladding to the outside of their design. This included using paper weaving and folding techniques. Some children even added moving doors and stairs to their designs. We were all really proud of our finished products. In Year 4, we are architects! 

It has been another busy week in Year 4. After finishing our 'Feast' stories, we have started a new literacy unit based on a book called 'Float.' On Monday, we had an experience day where we had to make an origami boat. Mrs Jarman and Ms McAnuff picked a hard design that none of us had tried to make before. We thought about our feelings as we were making it and discussed the vocabulary. It started off quite easy but gradually got harder and some of us felt very overwhelmed. However, we persevered, and we were very proud of our achievements at the end on the lesson. 

Cedar class were lucky enough to work with Trestle theatre group. During the session, we used masks to get into character and explore different emotions. It was great to see the class developing their acting skills and getting into character. We have been able to borrow the masks so hopefully other children in school will get a chance to work with them in the future. 

In Science, Year 4 have been investigating melting. They have planned and carried out an experiment to investigating how quickly ice melts when it is placed in different places.

It has been a busy week in Year 4. In Science, we started investigating how drinks affect our teeth. We placed egg shell, which we used to represent teeth, in five different liquids: coffee, tea, cola, orange squash and water. We were shocked by the results! The squash started to eat away at the egg shell straight away! We found out that the squash caused the most damage to the 'teeth' as the outer shell was eaten away and it became squidgy. The coffee stained the 'teeth' the most although the cola and tea also stained the shell. We looked at the ingredients in the squash and realised that as well as sugar, it also contained citric acid which we concluded would have been one of the reasons for our results. 

We had the pleasure of watching the Year 6 production this week which was amazing. There were lots of great costumes and we loved all the songs and acting. Well done Year 6.  

In Computing this week, we have been exploring the program 2Calculate to make number games and have used a timer and the spinner tool which was fun.  

It was second time luck for our sports day! We had a great time competing in our houses and having a picnic with our friends and family. 

Year 4 have been preparing for the King’s coronation. We have created portraits of King Charles. Some of us used our sketching and shading skills to draw a portrait of half his face and others had a go at creating a caricature style sketch of King Charles.  

We have also decorated a material square which we then put together to make a class tapestry. We thought about things that were linked to King Charles and royal family and used these to design our own squares. We are all looking forward to celebrating the coronation on Friday afternoon as a school.

At the end of last week, we were also lucky to work with the artist Amanda Jewitt and created some amazing artwork based on beetles. We started off by finding out about three different artists who focused on this as a subject. When Amanda came in, we worked on shade, tone, texture and proportion when creating our own artwork. This week, we have continued this work with some follow up tasks. 

At Roebuck we are artists. 

Year 4 were delighted to be joined by so many parents and carers this week for our Egyptian style baking sessions for our Fantastic Finish! We thoroughly enjoyed learning how to make the aromatic flatbreads and in addition to this, being able to apply our learning from across the curriculum, from History, learning that there were depictions of bread making within hieroglyphics from the time of the Ancient Egyptians, use of our maths knowledge of fractions and measures to accurately measure ingredients, using our reading skills to navigate the recipe and even some Science in understanding the chemical reactions and changes which occur when proving the bread. We certainly enjoyed tasting the freshly baked bread- so much so that lots of parents and pupils requested a copy of the recipe so that they could bake them again at home! Many thanks again to all who attended! 

In addition to all of this, we have been enjoying experimenting with making music in computing, broadening our bank of strategies for mindfulness and have been refining our map work skills in Geography by completing puzzles and utilising digital reference tools such as Digimaps to answer true or false questions about the River Nile.