What a brilliant half term we have had! We have continued learning about famous explorers and their expeditions around the world in our theme, ‘Adventurers and Explorers’. 

The children took part in a Kahoot quiz all about the moon, to spark their interest. They were then inspired to write persuasive letters to Elon Musk, currently working with Nasa to send a spacecraft to circumnavigate the moon. They worked so hard to persuade Mr Musk to give them a spot on the rocket, and had great fun including their persuasive brags in their letters!

We found out about the freezing cold temperatures of the Arctic, and challenged ourselves to take part in a polar expedition.  In small groups, children navigated an obstacle course with a ‘crew mate’ on a stretcher in order to get that injured person to safety!  At the same time, other intrepid explorers were busy scaling sheer cliffs on the front yard!

After learning about Ernest Shackleton, we used Lego to create Stop Motion Animations about his famous expedition to Antarctica.

We also learnt about the adventures of the explorer and presenter, Steve Backshall. Using atlases and Google Maps, we were able to find out about how many places he has visited around the world. We used our numeracy skills to create tables and graphs to depict this information.

We finished off this half term looking at the threats faced by polar bears in the wild. We made our own polar bears from clay and then debated whether zoos were the right place to keep animals. There were lots of different opinions and we learnt how to share our points of view using our Talk Tactics.

Eisteddfod
What a wonderful day we had celebrating St David’s Day. In readiness for the Eisteddfod, the children enjoyed using adventurous vocabulary to write stories about mythical creatures. For the art Eisteddfod competition, the children looked at the work of Valley Arts artist, Martyn Evans. His imaginative, colourful townscapes inspired the children to create their own colourful townscapes, which involved sketching detailed drawings of buildings.

World Book Day

Once again we were amazed to see the creativity involved in the ‘World Book Day’ costumes. The children looked outstanding. They had a day full of fun, reading, meeting famous authors and illustrators virtually and sharing their favourite books with friends.

Techniquest 

We had a fantastic time exploring, investigation and learning in Techniquest!  The show, ‘Stem, Wales and the World’ showcased work from some of our very own Welsh scientists and provided opportunities for the children to consider how science is all around us here in Wales as well as in the wider world. 

Forest School

In our wonderful Forest School classroom we used magnifying glasses to carefully scour the area on a mini beast hunt. We were able to capture some and put them in small pots to have a closer look but had to be very gentle with them before returning them to their homes.  At the same time, other children were using special whittling tools to shape and cut willow branches.

Happy Easter from all the Year 4 team 🙂