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As part of our topic: The USA we have been learning about the history of Thanksgiving and comparing how people celebrate it nowadays. We took the time to socialise and appreciate things in our lives which we were grateful for. We realised that there were so many things to be thankful for and that we sometimes take things for granted. It was superb way to end our interesting topic by reflecting on our learning and being with our friends.
Last half term year 4 delved deep into the Amazon Rainforest. They explored the different hemispheres on a map and were able to find out where the world’s rainforests were located. Next they found out about the Tropics and how the weather and climate in these areas is hot and wet all year round!
The children used their fact finding skills to make wonderful fact files for different species of animals that live in the Amazon and found out about the four layers of the rainforest where these animals live.
The Amazon Rainforest is huge! So large, in fact, that it covers nine countries! The children used their map skills to locate the names of each of these countries. As an end to this topic the children painted cardboard tubes from wrapping paper to create a beautiful classroom display.
In Autumn term 2 our topic is The Ice Age and we have had lots of fun within History and Geography. We started our topic with an escape room challenge where we had to read information to gain clues to break the code to escape for break time.We then researched lots of facts and made our own individual non-fiction book.
We learned a lot about how homosapiens communicated with each other through drawing and then created our own cave drawings.
This Autumn term we have been learning about artists and comic books. This has been completed through lots of different mediums and we also made our own comic book! In D.T. we made a cape, selecting our favourite textiles for the hero character in our comic.
Superheroes!
In science we have had fun learning about transparent, translucent and opaque materials as well as light sources and reflections with lots of different experiments. Some of our favourites were making an opaque shape using foil to create a shadow and tracing a line on the ground using the reflection in the mirror.
Today in Acorns we invited our families in for a ‘Festive Fun’ session. We had the challenge of building a Christmas tree from recycled materials. Everyone worked well together and we had lots of fun. The tree looks amazing! Afterwards we had festive refreshments and listened to some Christmas music.
Thank you to all our families who attended, it was lovely to see you all!
During the Autumn term, Sycamores have been on two class trips. As part of our ‘Rivers’ topic, we travelled to Newcastle where we walked along the Quayside of the River Tyne completing different geography fieldwork activities. We studied the land use and how it has changed over recent years. We then walked up to the Discovery Museum where we explored the River Tyne exhibitions. We had great fun!
To end our topic, we went to Sunderland where we visited the Winter Gardens and Museum. We took part in a workshop all about the River Wear. The workshop leader was so interesting and showed us lots of artefacts connected to the history of the river. Her family had lived in Sunderland for many generations so she told many fantastic stories. 
During the second half of the Autumn term, Sycamores have read ‘The Witches’ by Roald Dahl. We created fantastic WANTED posters about the Grand High Witch, which featured carefully written character descriptions.
As part of our Geography topic ‘What makes the Earth angry?’ we invited our families in for an afternoon of D.T. We made volcanoes by attaching masking tape to half a bottle and base; making the volcano shape. We then used paper mache to cover the structure and build up the crater. Year 3 had a brilliant afternoon! We then finished off our afternoon by solving a range of Maths problem solving activities. We can’t wait to paint then explode our volcanoes.
In Acorns we have been exploring a range of tools and how they are used. We have practised our skills using hammers, saws, screwdrivers and wrenches. We also used sandpaper to smooth off rough edges. It’s important to be safe when using tools so we were very careful. We hope to use our skills to make some items out of wood.
As the weather changes and becomes colder, we were concerned about what the birds would eat over Winter. We decided to make some bird cakes out of seeds and fat, and put them out for the birds to enjoy. They were eaten really quickly! The birds must have really enjoyed them!
