Buzzard Class Y3&4 2017-2019

As we're learning about where our food comes from, and how it gets here, a local fruit company (Bakkavor) came into school and brought LOADS of delicious free goodies! They helped us realise how many countries we import food from and what happens to it once it arrives at their factory. Apart from sampling a variety of lovely fresh fruits (melon, orange, pineapple, apple, orange, mango, kiwi and watermelon) we also tried on the special protective clothing which all the factory workers have to wear. Finally, we each created our own fruit salad to take home and did some maths to work out how much we could sell it for in a shop.

PS   A few days later, we were still enjoying the left-over fruit!

This is our exciting topic for the summer term, with plenty going on!

We'll be finding out all about which parts of the world our foods come from, and how they get into our shops. Visitors from Bakkavor (fruit and salads) will be bringing lots of delicious samples of fresh fruit from around the world and we're taking a trip to Pizza Express so the experts can help make us our own pizza (yes, we'll be bringing it home!). In school, we'll also be doing some cooking and food preparation, with the opportunity to create and taste our own fruit smoothies.

And of course there's 'Operation Pillowcase' to look forward to on June 14/15: a 'residential sleepover' in school with a World War 2 evacuation theme.

How will we fit it all in? You'll see...

This Spring term, we're going to be 'Tomb Raiders'! In History, we'll be looking back at life in Ancient Egypt, investigating what daily life was like, why the River Nile was so incredibly important, why the pyramids were built and so much more. To help 'bring it all to life',  'Mr Egypt' (an actual Egyptologist) is coming into school on March 11th to share his expert knowledge about historical artefacts (including some that he found himself during his work) and what the hieroglyphic symbols mean. It's going to be an unforgettable day!

Maths in Buzzard Class

February - we're currently learning about different ways that statistics and data can be presented. Plenty of practice, reasoning  and problem-solving tasks with pictograms, bar charts plus line graphs for Year 4. Please take a look at some of our work below...

Calling Year 4 Buzzards! - why not head over to the Nightingale class page to see yourselves in action in Mrs Peters' Science lessons this year? There are lots of photos covering our topics so far: States of Matter, Sound and Digestion.

On our first day back in September, the children discussed in groups what they thought our 'class vows' should be. These ideas were then put together and the 5 vows can be seen on this display.

Our topic this term is 'We Will Rock You', taking a look at what life was like in Britain, way back in the Stone Age, and which changes took place during that very long period of time. We will be using various texts including 'Stone Age Boy' (by Satoshi Kitamura) to take a look at it through the eyes of a modern-day child.

Our class novel is 'The Firework-Maker's Daughter' (by Philip Pullman); a beautiful story that is rich with descriptive vocabulary which will inspire our children's own writing.

Here you can see some of the prompts we are using to encourage every child to develop greater resilience and keep trying, even if they find something tricky at first.

Maths in Buzzard Class

This term we've done lots of work on place value. Here you can see some examples of the ways we have looked at different ways of showing numbers and calculating answers

Children teaching children

Our Year 4 children have been learning to use Roman numerals up to 100. To help them prove how well they've learned this, they were asked to teach the Year 3 children. Mr James was very impressed with how well everyone did; some of the children will make good teachers when they're older!

This term we took part in a new challenge: 4 different events where our personal scores were recorded and then entered online in a 'virtual competition' against other schools around the country. The events we did were 1km run, 5-metre shuttle run, standing long jump and throwing a tennis ball. Each time, the challenge was to try and beat our own personal best score and earn more points for the class. 

As well as running, jumping and throwing, the children enjoyed taking on leadership roles by timing, measuring and recording their friends' performances. Everyone improved their personal best scores (and their overall fitness) in all the events, so we're waiting to find out how we did compared to the other schools. In the meantime, our 3 most-improved children were presented with their medals:

Gold - Erin

Silver - Ashton

Bronze - Caedeigh

Well done to all the children for their fantastic energy, effort and cheering each other on!

Well what an amazing, unforgettable day we had! Because we won a competition with BBC Super Movers, the prize was a visit by the actual Premier League football trophy...

First, we had a whole-school assembly using some Super Movers activities and the adults joined in too. Then we did some more in the classroom and made up our own. Later in the morning, we did some football skills on the field before having a class photo and individual photos taken with the trophy. It's made of solid silver with a real gold crown (by the company in London that makes the Queen's jewellery) so NO-ONE was allowed to actually touch it because it's so precious. 

In the afternoon, we worked in teams to plan a match report. We went outside and had 2 short football games, with the watching teams taking turns to write notes. Back in the classroom, we learned more about how to turn those notes into match reports.

The Premier League staff were so lovely and the coaches from Nottingham Forest gave us some really fun activities. Also we had our picture taken by the local newspaper who are going to publish it and make us famous. We'll never forget the day the Premier League trophy came to Billingborough School.

To support our RE learning, we had an enjoyable day of discovery at the mosque and cathedral. Most of us (even the teachers!) hadn't been inside a mosque before. We all took our shoes off and it was really interesting to hear from Mr Ansar Ali that Islam is all about being good, being kind and looking after everything because Allah created it all. This is a really important message as some recent world events have given some people a very false picture of Muslims. We learned more details about the 5 pillars of Islam, why fasting is importnat during Ramadan, the prayer times and how Muslims wash themselves in a special way (called 'wudhu') before praying. Upstairs we saw an amazing chandelier with Arabic writing all the way around it, with messages from the Qur'an (holy book).

A short bus ride then took us to the cathedral for our packed lunch, before having a quick look at the main features of the building. We saw the font, stained glass windows, altar, pulpit, choir, lectern and cathedra (the Bishop of Peterborough's special seat). Finally we stood by the grave of a real queen! Katherine of Aragon (from Spain) was the first wife of Henry VIII and is buried under the floor of the cathedral because she died nearby.

Such a busy day and it was very useful to help us compare the 2 different places of worship

What an amazing day we all had! Our two visiting experts brought so many genuine objects for us to see, hold and learn from. Firstly we learned about lining up ready for combat before 'charging' at the enemy. In the playground, we played the 'Boat Game', working in teams to get our 'boat' to the shore of England so we could invade. Next we played a game where we all had to guess whether the Anglo-Saxons did or didn't eat certain foods. This certainly threw up a few surprises: we heard how they used to eat things like animals' brains and dolphins but not potatoes because these hadn't yet been brought across from America at that time. They even mixed blood in with some foods (just like we still do with black pudding today). We then used their 'futhark' alphabet to decode mysterious 'runes' (messages) which were clues about some of the objects on display. And that was just in the morning!!

After lunch, we heard about how the Anglo-Saxons carefully wove together lots of strands to make beautiful,  colourful braids for rich people to have on their clothing. Next we dressed up Mr James as a warrior, complete with chainmail, helmet, sword and shield. He said it was all quite heavy and would be difficult to fight in, though he did manage a very loud roar! At the same time, we dressed Mrs Possnett as a wealthy lady with beautifully-coloured garments and precious jewellery. She quite liked that idea! To finish off the day, we took turns to hold some of the helmets, axes, swords and armour from Anglo-Saxon times.

We had a really wonderful day and learned so much by time-travelling 1,000-1,500 years back into our country's history; a real 'hands-on' experience to see what life was like in those days when they had to make everything themselves.

This year's theme is 'Sculpture'. So, as our own class topic this term is 'Going Places', we made our own transport. Firstly, we worked with a professional clay artist, Richard Gibson, who showed us how to make a boat. Later, we each designed our own sail and painted the boats brightly. 

Our second piece was an aeroplane made from simple clothes pegs and lolly sticks. Again we each designed our own colour scheme before putting all the parts together.

Homework Projects (Autumn term)

What a fantastic range of homework projects: models of the Taj Mahal, fact files about India, beautiful rangoli patterns, tales of Indian meal experiences, a shadow puppet theatre, maths work involving shopping lists and a fitness workout programme. Well done to everyone who has taken their time to produce these wonderful pieces of work. We hope you enjoyed making them, as much as we all enjoyed looking at them!

In our Design Technology lessons, we have prepared and tasted some Indian food. For some of us, this was a totally new experience.

Vegetable samosas - we carefully chopped, peeled and mixed the vegetables, then wrapped them in filo pastry. Some of us thought we wouldn't like them...but we all agreed they were delicious! 

Cucumber raita - lots of chopping. Most of us enjoyed it in the end

Poppadoms and mango chutney were also a big hit!