Rowan - Year 4

World cup week

During World Cup week we learnt about the countries Colombia 🇨🇴 and Argentina 🇦🇷. Throughout the week we participated in different activities such as making our own version of Colombian guacamaya baskets, copying art work by the Colombian artist Pedro Ruiz and trying Argentinian hot chocolate.

Board Games

Today in maths, we played with the board games we made for our ‘Time Takeaway Homework’. We had lots of fun and all this practice is definitely improving our time telling skills!

Passover

Today, we learnt about the importance of the Passover Celebration in the Jewish Faith.

We re-enacted the Passover meal, trying some of the foods they have on the Seder plate and learnt what the food represents.

• Beitzah - hardboiled egg symbolises the festival offerings brought to the Holy Temple.
• Zeroa - shank bone symbolises the lamb sacrificed at the Holy Temple in ancient times.
• Charoset - mix of apple, nuts, spices and wine symbolises bricks and mortar to show the hard work of a slave.
• Chazeret - bitter vegetable (celery or lettuce) symbolises the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.
• Karpas - vegetable such as parsley, onion or potato is dipped in salt water and symbolises tears.

On our plates we had the charoset (made with apple, sunflower seeds, grape juice, cinnamon and brown sugar), lettuce, parsley and unleavened bread. We also had a glass of Ribena to represent the wine. The children really enjoyed the experience, especially trying some new food.

Money

This week in maths we are focusing on money. Our first challenge was to see how many different ways we could make different amounts of money. Next we moved on to converting between pounds and pence. 

Design and technology

This term we are focusing our design and technology lessons on problem solving and team work. In class, we had a challenge to get into groups and make an obstacle course on a Lego board to make a marble travel down it in exactly 4 seconds. Two teams got it but it was really close and really hard. You also needed to decide how steep the board was. Some teams had their boards really steep while others didn’t. 

Written by Chanelle

Earth Hour

On Sunday 22nd April, it is Earth Day, a day where people try to do their bit for the environment by using less electricity or things that are harmful to the world. This year the focus is on plastic pollution. The children in Rowan Class researched Earth Day on Wednesday in preparation for today, as the school decided to have an Earth hour. During this time we were not allowed to use laptops, smart-boards or paper. The children came up with lots of ideas of what we could do in this hour and how we could incorporate plastic into it so we were reusing it . This afternoon we spent the hour making an obstacle course out of the bottles the children brought in and taking it in turns on each event. As you can see in the photos, the children had lots of fun!

Anglo-Saxon Museum

This afternoon Year 4 have presented all their homework projects and learning over the past two terms. In class, the children have learned about the Anglo-Saxon burial site at Sutton Hoo and made artefacts found at the site out of clay. Also, they have learned about the different Gods the Anglo-Saxons believed in and made posters about these. We also displayed some of the objects we made on our trip to Carymoor such as Willow fences and Anglo-Saxon houses. 

The children have worked really hard and produced some fantastic work! Well done Year 4!

Highbridge Festival

A huge congratulations to both Maple and Rowan Classes who entered the Highbridge Festival Choral Speaking Category. Maple Class performed 'Macavity the Mystery Cat' and Rowan Class performed 'Gran Can you Rap?'. Both Classes performed brilliantly and received fantastic comments from the judges. Well done to Maple Class who achieved a Merit with 83 marks out of 100 and Rowan Class who achieved Commended with 85 marks out of 100 and a Bronze Medal. All the children should be extremely proud of themselves.