Hello, and welcome to Maple Class! 

I hope that you all have had a fun and restful summer and I am looking forward to seeing you all soon! Please have a look at the newsletter below to see some of the exciting learning that we will be doing! 

Mrs Murphy

Update - 1st December

Look away if slightly squeamish! 

Last week, our science lessons involved an investigation over 5 days, looking at how different liquids can affect tooth rot and decay.

To speed up the process, we used hard boiled eggs and compared the shell to teeth. 

The liquids that the eggs sat in were cola, orange juice, water and coffee. 

Each day, we made observations and recorded these in our science books. We also took pictures, which I will add below as a PDF of our final results table.

On Friday, we made some final observations and concluded that the orange juice caused the quickest and most rot and decay, compared to the water and coffee.

Roll Up!! Roll Up!!

The Maple Class Fun fair has come to town!

Maple Class were treated to an immersive experience morning of going to a fun fair at school. This linked to our current reading book 'The Boy who swam with Piranhas' but also it was our first lesson for our next writing unit; a setting description of a fun fair.

The children experienced a magician show, courtesy of Magician Mills, an assortment of fun fair games including hook-a-duck, bean bag throwing, tin can alley and hoop throwing games. Alongside music, a smoke machine and announcements over the microphone, the children also smelt and tasted some snacks and the infamous fun fair treat - candyfloss! 

This experience will allow them to reflect and remember their time at the fun fair for when they start writing their setting descriptions in the next few weeks. 

I have added as many photos as possible below! The quality is a little poor as the lights were off!

Update - 17th November

Over the last week in Maths, year 4 have been recapping their shape and geometry knowledge.

They have sorted 2D and 3D shapes based on properties, identified different types of angles within 2D shapes and begun to identify lines of symmetry found in 2D shapes.

Below are some photos of their practical maths work.

Update - 10th November

In science, we are continuing to learn about digestion. Today, we looked closely at a variety of food packets and discussed the main food groups each product would fit into.

We also looked at the traffic light nutritional value system used on most packaging to discuss which foods and amounts of foods help to create a healthy, balanced diet.

Update - 31st October

Rucstall children got the opportunity to do some biscuit decorating with a Halloween theme on Tuesday.

Below are some pictures from Year 4, who showed great patience and sharing when using the decorations and also fantastic creativity! 

Update - 20th October

Today was our final lesson in Science on separating mixtures. We explored evaporation and how it can we used to separate a salt water mixture.

I demonstrated the process using a portable hob, a salt water mixture in a pan and allowing it to boil. This meant the water became steam (and produced condensation against the mirror) and left the salt in the pan. 

The children wrote up the findings in the book.

Update - 20th October

In gymnastics, the children have been creating creative routines using different balances of varying degrees of difficulty. They included transition movements between each balance and ensured safety and trust was in their groups to ensure the balances were carried out correctly and efficiently. 

Update - 20th October

Last week, the children acted out their versions of the Good Samaritan parable that they had learnt about in RE lessons. 

They thought about a scenario where there might be a victim or a sufferer and a good Samaritan to help that person.

Update - 20th October

In the last few weeks, the children have been learning about separating mixtures. In the below photos, the children explored filtration, magnetism and sieving and concluded which method was the best for separating each mixture on their table.

Flour and raisins - sieving

Elastic bands and paper clips - magnetism

compost and water - filtration

Update - 18th October

In Art with Miss Radford this half term, the children have been learning about collage and designing fashion.

Here are there finished pieces. 

Update - 11th October

Today was wellbeing Wednesday and the children had some time to talk to adults, do some mindfulness activities and share positive affirmations about their peers. It was lovely to see such wonderful comments and hear the positivity coming from Maple Class.

Update - 5th October

In maths this week, we have been learning about what happens to a number when it is divided by 10. 

We firstly looked at 3 and 4 digit numbers that ended in a 0, placing counters on a place value chart to help us understanding that dividing by 10 means the number will get 10 times smaller. This will move one place to the right on our chart.

Yesterday and today we extended that knowledge to 1 and 2 digit numbers, and also numbers that don't end in a 0. We realised that some numbers, when dividing by 10, have digits in the tenths column - meaning we needed to use a decimal point to separate the whole and the parts. 

Here are some images from the start of the week. The children have had access to place value counters and charts every lesson to reinforce their understanding and check each answer and number.

Update - 5th October

We have continued to learn about separating mixtures in Science and completed some investigations to help with our understanding of the process of dissolving.

We used skittles and observed the sugar coating dissolve in different amounts of water and also different temperatures.

We concluded that hot water dissolved the sugar coating quicker as the molecules move quicker and dissolved faster.

Below are some of the images taking during our investigation. 

Update - 5th October

In Gymnastics, we have continued to practise different balances with varying levels of balance and execution needed!

Below are some images of their balances, we really focused on support our partners legs and using our arms and hands to support ourselves. We discussed why we wouldn't use our head to hold our weight and using cooperation to ensure all balances were carried out safely and sensibly.

Update - 13th September

Last week in our first science lesson of Year 4, we started to investigate our new unit of work - separating mixtures. Firstly, we discussed what a mixture was and then we identified substances that create mixtures.

Below are the pictures of the mixtures the children used.

1 - sugar and chocolate sprinkles

2 - water and vegetable oil

3 - oats and raisins

4 - plain flour and peppercorns

5 - rice and water

6 - compost soil and sand

Times Tables poster

Here is the list of Reading for Pleasure books that are available in school for children to read. Each time a child reads one, they can talk to an adult about it and they get their card stamped. There will be rewards given for reading as many as possible. We have copies of the books in school for children to borrow.