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Spotlight on: Year 3 & Year 4

Spotlight on: Year 3 & Year 4

Our Year 3 and Year 4 teachers on their year group's activities this term

Year 3 – Mrs Fiona McWilliam

The Year 3 cohort is an enthusiastic class, and the girls share a desire to get stuck into all things magnetic in Science and rivers in humanities. The classroom has been filled with various magnetic toys that the girls have been learning with and in class they have also been discussing the Earth’s magnetic force and gravity, and how Sir Isaac Newton, a University of Cambridge graduate, made his life-changing discovery. The classroom was buzzing with magnetics, attracting all items that contained iron, steel, nickel or cobalt in them. If you’d like to know how many objects a magnet can hold ask any of the girls from Year 3!

The class has also been working on making a fishing game that highlights magnetic and non-magnetic materials. Old leather boots, plastic bags and aluminium cans remain on the river bed and the fish (with the aid of iron or steel) are caught, hook, line and sinker! All of the above links very well with the girls’ research on rivers. As you will be aware, the girls have been learning about the flow of water from the top of mountains to the mouth and the sea. More recently they have been locating world rivers using atlases and maps, and finding out about the uses of rivers and the topical issue of river pollution. Later in the term Year 3 will be looking at the water cycle again and will make a collage to illustrate what they have learnt.

In Mathematics lessons, Year 3 pupils have been exploring units of measurement. The class has been using cm and mm and the group is becoming more accurate – the girls’ lines are now straight in their drawings! Each pupil made a lovely star constellation, using their measuring and sewing skills, resulting in some beautiful and accurate pieces.

The pupils have been reading Michael Morpurgo’s Butterfly Lion recently and have been exposed to lots of new vocabulary, undertaken comprehension tasks on various chapters, and have also learnt lots about life in the ‘veld’ in Africa.

Mrs Cindy O’Connell and I have been delighted with the group’s enthusiasm for sports this term. The girls have been enjoying their swimming lessons and have learnt and performed some exceptional gymnastics routines. The netball court is also getting attention with the girls improving their skills rapidly.

There are only a few more weeks of hard work before everyone will be heading home for Christmas and the girls should feel proud having achieved a huge amount this term.

Year 4 – Mr Daniel Taylor and Miss Elise Hickey

It’s been a wonderful Autumn Term for Year 4 pupils! They have been busy learning all about volcanoes around the world.

In English lessons, Year 4 has explored acrostic poems and calligrams, and the girls have had the opportunity to create their own fiction stories based on volcanic myths and legends from across the world. During the next few weeks, the pupils will be putting their ICT skills to the test by creating their own brochures using the information they have learnt about volcanoes in humanities lessons. The group has also covered all things related to the creation, structure, and eventual extinction of volcanoes. The girls first learnt about the different layers of the earth, then moved on to focus on tectonic plates.

They’ve been able to use their knowledge and understanding to influence many of their other lessons, such as Art, in which the girls have been working in groups of two or three to create their own model volcanoes using cardboard, water bottles, and papier-mâché. They will split the models in half and create a visual representation of the different layers and parts of a volcano; many are excited to begin painting their wonderful models next week.


 

In order to understand how volcanoes create new landmasses, the girls have been investigating the changing states of matter in Science lessons. They have been learning about the three different states of matter and how some things can transition between states. This week the group explored how liquids can become solids when cooling, and applied this new understanding to how lava creates land through this process.

This term 4H pupils held a concert so they could share their talents with their peers. Some of the girls prepared recitals on a variety of instruments such as the ukulele, piano, recorder, violin, guitar and the clarinet. Others put on spectacular performances including ribbon dancing and singing. It was a wonderful opportunity for the girls to perform around friends and to feel proud of their hard work learning an instrument and achieving success in their creative pursuits. Very soon 4T will be hosting another talent concert, and we are excited to see what they will do!