In the Through the Ages project, your child will learn about three different periods of British prehistory: the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. They will discover terminology relating to time and sequence dates to make a timeline. They explore the changes to people, homes and lifestyle throughout the different periods and investigate examples of prehistoric settlements, monuments, burials and artefacts in detail. They will also study how technology improved over time, including how the discovery of different metals changed the way that people lived.

Week 13

Art - Prehistoric Pots

Week 12

Reading Comprehension

Linked to our Science companion project, we used a poem called Bones by Walter de la Mare to read and answer questions on. This week we were revisiting the inference reading strand so we really had to 'dig deeper' behind the words to look for inferred meaning.

Religious Education

This week, we have been completing our innovate challenge.

Guru Nanak felt that equality and fairness were important and it was our turn to think about equality and fairness.

We reflected on the following:

What is equality?

Are you always treated equally?

Do you always treat other people equally?

How would you feel if you weren’t treated equally?

What might stop people from being treated equally?

Is equality the same as fairness?

After discussing in pairs, we feedback to the class.

Week 11

Science

This week, in Science, we have been busy learning all about different skeleton types. Our task was to sort the different creatures into whether it had an endoskeleton, exoskeleton or no skeleton. 

Some were a bit confusing but provided good starters for discussion and debate. We also enjoyed challenging ourselves by adding to the lists, using a device to source different creatures that belonged under the three categories.

Week 9

Science

This week, we were learning all about joints.

We started with linking our reading comprehension to Science this week by completing a retrieval activity on a non-fiction texts about how bones fit together.

We then had great fun investigating and making observations. We watched carefully how we use our hand, wrist and arm to drink from our water bottles. Then we covered our wrist and elbow joints with a cardboard tube so that we could bend. Even though we tried and tried, we were unable to drink from our water bottles. We concluded that our arm would not be much use if it didn't have joints to allow it to bend!

Week 8

Religious Education

We launched our new project this week, Guru Nanak Gurpurab, which is a celebration within the Sikh faith.

We talked about how Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh religion and one of his main principles was equality and the need to treat everybody fairly. We spent a lot of time discussing why he thought that was so important and how important it is to us. This discussion developed further, moving onto talking about the protected characteristics and how these help protect people from discrimination.

We ended the lesson by getting into groups and using drama to show scenarios where people were being treated unfairly. Our performances were very thought-provoking and it was lovely to see within each group the drama ended on a positive note where actions were turned round and apologies given.

Science

This week, we have been very resourceful. As a class, our aim was to learn a selection of scientific names for the major bones within the human skeleton. Before Mrs Naghen had time to get the lesson started, we had all been resourceful and used our knowledge organisers to find the terms and started labelling our skeletons straight away. Mrs Naghen helped us check that we had labelled correctly at the end using the intended learning presentation and we all had done a brilliant job! Now we've just got to remember all of the tricky words!

Design and Technology

It was a busy start to our 'Cook Well, Eat Well' companion project! We learned about the different food groups, including thinking about which ones we need more or less of in our diets. The photos show us organising different foods into their groups. We then had a go at peeling potatoes and talked about the different ways we can cook them. We decided that boiled potatoes are the healthies options and chips are the least healthy.

On Tuesday, we cooked ratatouille! We explored the different vegetables (red, green and orange peppers; courgettes; aubergines; red onion; tomatoes), making sure we knew what they were. Then we chopped them into small chunks, before following a recipe to create our dish. We used the slow cooker to cook the food so that we had a delicious snack to try just before we went home!

We really enjoyed tasting our creation! Not everybody loved the taste but lots of children tried a new vegetable for the first time or found that they liked the taste of something they thought they wouldn't! There was a lovely buzz in the room, with the children pushing themselves out of their comfort zones to try something new, and importantly, healthy!

We went back to our food groups and discussed the different options to make this into a healthy, balanced meal, covering all of the groups. We decided we could serve with mashed potato, with fruit and yoghurt for dessert!

Week 7

Science

We have had such a busy week in Science this week. We compared the diets of different animals and explored how their diet changes according to the different seasons and the food that is available for them to eat.

Then we moved onto investigating!

We were to complete a comparative test to compare the amount of fat in a variety of foods. We looked at eight different types of food; chocolate, crackers, rice cakes, crispbreads, pumpkin seeds, biscuits, potato crisps and vegetable crisps. We predicted how fatty we thought they would be, ranking them from most fatty (1) to least fatty (8).

Using brown paper, we drew eight circles, we placed a spoonful of the different types of foods on, waited an hour and then observed the amount of fat that had been released.

We were very shocked to see that vegetable crisps had the most fat released, followed by potato crisps and then pumpkin seeds. This lead to a very good discussion about why chocolate and biscuits should only be for treats when they produced no fat. We also reflected on the fact that some foods contain unsaturated fats, more healthy fats, which is the case for the pumpkin seeds.

Using our previous learning about balanced diets, we know that the body needs some fat in order to be able to absorb nutrients but this section within the food groups should be small.

Maths

Year 4 have a busy week ahead of them, exploring area of shapes! They made a great start today, getting outside and thinking about the different ways they could measure the area of rectilinear shapes. 

Week 6

Science

We were very excited to start our Science companion project last week, Animal Nutrition and Skeletal System. 

This week, we have been looking specifically at Human Nutrition. 

We worked in groups to sort a variety of food into different food groups. Some foods were a cause for scientific debate as we thought they belonged to more than one food group.

Religious Education

After reading the story, Looking for Ganesh, we thought about which obstacles a new child may have when starting our school. We produced lots of interesting ways for them to be able to overcome obstacles by producing a new pupil checklist.

Geography

In Geography this week, we have been data analysts. We spent five minutes on the playground, analysing the passing traffic and noting all of the vehicles that we saw. Together, we then discussed our findings and concluded that Gipsey Bridge is very quiet (unless a tractor is passing!), safe for pedestrians as there is a footpath all the way through and clean - we only saw one piece of litter! We compared this to some other locations with data we had in the classroom and were very pleased with how Gipsey Bridge compared!

Week 5

Religious Education

This week was our INNOVATE challenge.

Hindus believe that Lord Ganesh can move obstacles and it was our turn to think about obstacles. As a class, we reflected on the following:

What does the word obstacle mean?

Are obstacles always physical?

What gets in your way?

How do you overcome these obstacles?

Does anyone help you overcome obstacles? Parents? Teachers? Friends? God?

Have you ever overcome an obstacle? How did you feel?

In groups we made a board game. We had eight cards with an obstacle that you may come across in life and a reward for if the person can find a solution to overcome the obstacle (moving forward) and whether they can’t (moving backwards). We rolled a die and moved along the board game. When we landed on a star, we picked up a card to reveal the obstacle.

We loved playing the games and it was great how we all supported each other with the obstacles that we came across.

History

In History, we are learning about wealth and power during the Bronze Age. The children explored different ways people showed their wealth or reacted to others' power, such as: conflict; jealousy; theft; building walls to protect their land and ornate weapons and clothing. In groups, they then created a freeze-frame of one of these factors and answered questions from the rest of the class, such as, "How does it feel to be so much poorer than the chief?" and, "Why are you stealing someone else's possessions?"

PSHE

In PSHE, Mrs Clarke challenged the children to alphabetise a set of exercise books. They had to work together to be the fastest team, thinking about their strategy, listening carefully to each other's ideas and making sure everybody's voice was heard. A lesson full to the brim of our 5 Rs!

Week 4

Religious Education

We have been really enjoying learning about the Hindu celebration Ganesh Chaturthi. After many lessons exploring Ganesh, this week we have been making our own Ganesh Murti from salt dough. These are religious images or statues that people of Hindu faith worship to during prayer.

The salt dough was a bit sticky so we had to use lots of flour to form our Murti

Week 3

Art

In order to complete our Innovate challenge we created a colour composition using our chosen colour palette. We used our knowledge of colour from the Contrast and Compliment companion project to select from warm colours, cool colours, complementary colours, tertiary colours or analogous colours.

Here are our final pieces of art with which we are so proud!

Geography 

We spent Wednesday afternoon developing those all-important relationship and teamwork skills by reading maps to locate countries, rivers and mountain ranges. 

Week 2

Literacy

The children worked in groups to use their knowledge of the discovery of ‘Cheddar Man’, as well as any attributes they thought Stone Age people would need to have, to build up a description of the main character for our historical narratives, which we will be starting next week. 

History

In History, we have reached the end of the Stone Age. We considered different factors affecting this period, such as jobs, inventions, settlements and the introduction of bronze. The children researched their particular area and then shared their knowledge with the rest of the class. 

Geography 

We have been learning about Stonehenge, as an example of a pre-historic monument. The children wrote about what they had learned: its uses, materials and nearby landscape. 

Our trip to Flag Fen

During our class trip, we explored all kinds of pre-historic aspects, from tools to settlements, to food and more! In the morning, we had the opportunity to handle different artefacts from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. We were asked to 'think like an archaeologist', by asking the following questions:

- What is it made of? 

- When might it have been used? 

- What was it used for? 

Next, we used clay to make our own Bronze Age pots. We followed the instructions perfectly, listening really carefully and making sure we used the techniques we were shown. Then we were able  to decorate with the tools, replicating the examples we were shown. 

After lunch, we had a tour of the grounds, thinking about the uses of the plants that grew there - we didn't know stinging nettles could be used for so many things! The we listened to a story in the replica roundhouse, which was very exciting! Chris, our teacher, shared the legend of the first iron sword and we joined in with making a wish, as the legend suggested. 

We had a great day! We learnt lots and also realised that we already know a lot! The children were able to apply the knowledge they have already gained on tools and materials during the Stone Age, thinking carefully about all of Chris' questions. 

Thank you to all of the staff at Flag Fen for a very enjoyable and informative day and to all of the parents and carers for making it possible with your generous contributions. 

Week 1

Art and Design

We have had a brilliant week beginning our new art and design companion project, Contrast and Complement.

We spent the lesson exploring our new water colour paints, experimenting with how to layer the translucent paints to provide bolder and darker colours.