Week 1 for Owl class and key info for year 4.

It was lovely to meet all the children properly and I want to wish a big welcome to year 4 for all the parents too! To begin life in Owls class we wrote some descriptive poetry about owls using the style of William Blake. They look brilliant up on the walls of our classroom. In maths we are going over our knowledge of place value and we will be exploring numbers in the thousands next week. Our topic this term is "I Am Warrior!" and we will be learning all about the Romans. So far we have been learning key facts and some Latin names for things. Ask your child what a “pugio” or a “gladius” is to see if they can remember.
I have been checking Google passwords for all the children and I am creating new passwords for those that have forgotten theirs over the holidays. We will send a letter home next week with the new one so don’t worry if it doesn’t work currently. It really helps things in class if you can avoid changing them. I have also sent home a letter with login details for tt rockstars as we use this a lot in Year 4.

Key things for you to keep track of in Year 4:

Our P.E day is Thursday and our Forest school day is Friday.

Reading records: Myself or a TA will read with your child every week and write in their reading record (This will start from week 2). Whilst they should be reading everyday for at least 10 minutes, I award house points for children that have at least 3 days of reading per week in their books. It doesn’t have to be an adult writing the entry since in the children are old enough to do this sensibly.

Times Tables Books: I expect children to do 3 columns per week of any times table they need to work on. These will be checked on Friday and house points will be given to those who have practised.

Times Tables Rockstars: I will check for at least one login per week and I will award house points on Friday morning for those that have used it.

Spellings: These will be given out on a Friday afternoon via Google Classroom and tested on the following Friday morning. The children will be given a couple of chances to practice in class during the week.

Homework: This will usually be posted on Google Classroom on a Friday and due in by the following Thursday. For this week answer the question:

Can you think of anything we use today that dates back to Roman times?

That’s all for now and please don’t forget to respond to the Fishbourne Villa Trip letter by Wednesday 15th. We are going on Monday 20th!

Mr Butler

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An energetic start to the term with sports week!

We have had many treats this week. Firstly Mr Butler got to do his favourite thing for a whole day and teach ultimate frisbee to every class in the school. The children did really well and especially those year 4’s who came to the new after school club, you got double frisbee this week!
On Wednesday the playground looked a little different with a massive “Cave bus” parked in it. The children loved exploring the tight passages inside with their helmets and flashlights.
On Thursday we learnt some break dancing moves and tried our best at street dance.

Finally, Friday was our sports day and the children ran extremely fast, competed heartily and cheered on everyone for taking part.

In the classroom we have been looking at our new topic “Blue Abyss” writing poems about the sea. We also took a dive right down to the Challenger Deep, the deepest, darkest spot of the ocean.

In maths we have been looking at pictograms and bar charts for statistics. Please keep up times tables practice as we are doing the national multiplication check soon. There is currently a battle between boys and girls on tt rockstars!

What a Whirlwind term in Year 4!

We have had a great 6 weeks looking at our amazing topic “ Road Trip USA!” . We wrote postcards from New York, exploring the sights and taking a closer look at the Statue of Liberty. We discovered the most famous landmarks across different states and planned a busy five day itinerary jam-packed with adventure. We even learnt how to type emails to and from some of the fanciest hotels in the world. The last few weeks have been focused on Native American culture and we memorised some traditional stories off by heart. We even created our own stories and artwork so make sure you ask your child to re-tell it to you, possibly even around a campfire in the most traditional way! We also released our pet tadpoles into the nature area pond. A huge thank you to Skyla’s family for finding them for us and William’s family for caring for them in the Easter holidays.

In Maths we have looked at telling the time and working with money. Our times tables knowledge has been getting so good that we were even able to beat Year 5 in a Battle of the Bands contest on Times Tables Rockstars. We did not fair so well against Year 6. I hope everyone keeps up their practicing since the times tables check is approaching just after the break.


In science we explored simple circuits and made lightbulbs light up after learning about Thomas Edison’s discoveries. We also made our own push switches. In P.E we have been learning Ultimate Frisbee and I look forward to seeing lots of Year 4’s in my afterschool club, starting on Thursdays after half term.
I hope you have a fantastic half term and I can’t believe we will be in the final part of year 4 when you return! Our next topic is “Blue Abyss” and we will be journeying to the very deepest parts of the ocean.

Mr Butler

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Week 5 - Making helmets and battle speeches!

We’ve had a productive week finishing our Roman helmets, or cassis as we say in Latin! The children will be able to take these home on Monday, along with their shields, they are ready to ward off any Barbarian invasions.
In maths we have been working on written methods of addition. We’ve used resources to demonstrate how to add 3 digit numbers together and use the key term exchanging when two of the digits add to more than 9. The children should be able to explain this term with hundreds, tens and ones columns.
The real highlight of the week was performing our soliloquies, with special guest Miss Moss Silverson present to see progress the children have made with their writing. We listened to actors performing Roman and Celtic soliloquies on the eve of going to battle and then created our own. We are lucky to have some lively performers in the class that really got into character and gave some fierce speeches!
We have now started our weekly spellings, this weeks focus is -ly endings. New spellings will be added to our Google classroom on Friday afternoon and children will be tested on Thursdays. Please get in touch if you need help with accessing this, thanks to those parents who have already been in touch via google classroom. The children have been told if they are in Green or Blue group.

Week 2 in Owls Class

This week I’ve been so impressed by the Creative Writing everyone has done. I had to pick 4 pieces to share with Mr King for head teachers awards!

It all started when we received a letter from Emperor Claudius asking for recruits to join his Roman army to invade Britannia. We picked our new Roman names, held a mini Boot Camp outside to test our skills and then began to persuade Claudius why we would be a good fit for his army. We also learnt some key Roman terminology so they can tell their pugios from their cassis!
In maths we reminded ourselves of number lines and figured out how to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000. We have also begun completing the Year 3 assessments as these weren’t able to happen in June.

Every child should now have a reading record and times table book to take home with them. Ideally these will be practised as often as possible. Just 10 minutes at a time is fine, a little and often is better than one big practice a week. I will award House Points to children that have read 5 times a week and done times tables 3 times a week.
Any questions please get in touch by the school office.
Mr Butler

Week 1 in Owls Class

We had a great first week in Year 4!

It was lovely to meet everyone properly and welcome them into our freshly painted and decorated classroom. To begin life in Owls class we wrote some descriptive poetry about owls with creative illustrations. In maths we are going over our knowledge of place value and particularly focusing on numbers in the thousands. Our topic this term is "I Am Warrior!" and we will be learning all about the Romans. So far we have made Roman Mosaics and begun reading some ancient Roman myths. Can you think of anything we use today that dates back to Roman times?

Mr Butler

Hello from Mr Butler!

I want to say a big hello to everyone involved with Year 4 at Plaistow and Kirdford!

I’m so excited to be full time teaching again and to learn about the wonderful community here! It feels great to be back into the routine of school life after all the uncertainty of 2020 so far.
I have been a qualified teacher for 5 years and worked in a big primary school in Brighton for my first 3 years. I’ve since done 2 years supply teaching and worked at many different schools in all year groups between Reception and Year 6!

My fiancée and I have recently moved to Worthing and I’m still enjoying the drive to work amongst the beautiful South Downs countryside. We love travelling the world together and we are so grateful to have completed our big adventure through South, Central and North America before Lockdown began.
I look forward to meeting all of you soon!

Disaster!

Okay Year 4, today I have had an absolutely embarrassing day!

We are meant to be doing a fire alarm test in school next week so I thought I’d practise with my Year 6 bubble.

While they were busy working away on maths I youtubed ‘Fire alarm sound’, this was a bad idea.

I accidentally chose the exact sound as our actual school alarm, 5 minutes later, half the school were evacuated and the office thought there was a real fire…

Thankfully Mr. King turned my speakers off and realised what had happened…

In short, very funny but very embarrassing…. I think I’ve turned into the school prankster, my mum won’t be happy… Hahaha!

Happy Half Term

Hello Year 4,

I hope you’ve been enjoying a lovely half-term break, filled with fun and relaxation. We have been busy doing lots of walks, picnics and a safe trip to a quiet beach. Tilly has done some baking of chocolate crispy cakes with my wife, with messy results as you can see! :O

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It’s not been all fun and games though, I am in the middle of writing 33 end of year reports - mwhahaha! Also a miracle has occurred in our classroom, my desk is TIDY, not only tidy but clear and clean:

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It’s a Miracle!

Finally ,of course, it goes without saying that the classroom is a sad and empty place without you all. With all the new guidance and how clean and tidy (:O) we have to be I have had to de-clutter our entire room. It is now very minimalist but quite sad feeling. At least it will have 10 Year 6s to brighten it up on Monday. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your half term. Miss you Year 4 and take care, Mr. Ind & family x

Happy Weekend!

Oh Owl Class since moving over to Google Classroom I have really slacked off my blog! Shocking. So I will try to update it every week from now on, with a personal touch. I have to say it was really lovely to be able to scroll back through the photos of all we have done over the last year. I went back all the way, through the trade fair, electricity, potions and to the Romans and Bignor.

My father in law has one of the coolest jobs in the world (I think, and definitely thought so at 5 years old!). He is a train driver and he took this photo of the train he was driving from Chichester to Southampton Central, it is the Southern Rail tribute to the NHS. Amazing!

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Elsewhere we have done lots of walks as a family and I have tried to do less eating. Oscar keeps beating me at garden football (I might be going easy on him!) and Tilly is the mini menace as usual. I hope you’re all enjoying the bonus family time too. Missing you all very much. Take care and I will blog soon. Mr Ind :)

P.S. Can you spot me up a tree in one of the photos?

Here is a quick guide to accessing and handing in work on Google Classroom

Please note most of the time I will not be providing individual feedback on the work. I will be providing the answers the next day in order for the children to self-mark their work. I am absolutely happy to answer queries or make suggestions if they are stuck on any concepts etc. Obviously I (like all of you) are juggling with home educating and looking after my own children! So stay safe and kind and do what you can. :)

Welcome back!

Dear lovely Owls,

Welcome back! I hope you had a lovely Easter break. In order to streamline my output I will now be positing all work onto ONLY Google Classroom for Year 4.

We are the first class to trial it completely on its own.

Please ask your parents to check their e-mails for instruction how to get on.

The classroom can be found at: https://classroom.google.com/w/NjEyNTI2MTc0MDFa/t/all

Password to join is: utidmrh

P.S. Make sure you are logged out of all your google accounts.

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Hard work!

Happy Easter!

Have a lovely Easter break everyone!
Work will start again on Monday 20th April.
Please try your best to log into Google Classroom and familiarise yourself with how it works - I will be posting on here after Easter Holidays!