Mrs Furness arrives back from Kenya!

Last week Mrs Furness arrived at our link school in Mombasa, Kenya as part of our ‘Connecting Classrooms’ work. On Monday she told Year 4 all about her exciting trip. She said that the teachers and families from Maridadi School had been extremely welcoming and friendly.

Before Mrs Furness went, we gave her a list of questions which we wanted to find out, about Maridadi School and the children that go there. We looked at different objects that she had brought back from her travels and tried to guess what they were used for. It took us a long time to identify that some twigs Mrs Furness brought back were used as toothbrushes and were from a very special tree!

This term we will begin some science work about the habitats around Maridadi School and what plants can grow there. We will then compare these results to our school grounds to see what is similar and/or different.

Year 4 children look forward to meeting the Kenyan teachers when they come and visit us soon.

Maridadi School in Mombassa

Mrs Furness showing us a Galimoto toy

Mrs Furness showing us a video of Maridadi School and the children that go there.

Year 4 Printing in Art

This week Year 4 have been developing their printing skills in Art and have created some fantastic prints inspired by African patterns.

We used a printing block and etched a pattern into it. We then pressed the printing block down to reveal a pattern. It was very tricky to get right; we had to practice our technique a couple of times to get it just right. 

Year 4 Harvest Assembly 2013!

On Wednesday 2^nd October, Year 4 performed their Harvest assembly to the whole school and then performed it to parents and carers in the afternoon. This year our assembly was all about the history of the Harvest festival. We learnt some very interesting facts!

Year 4 did a super job of learning some very tricky lines and were fabulous when performing to the whole school.  

In our assembly we included some of the acrostic poems that we had written in R.E. Here are some examples that were read out in our assmebly:
 

H is for happiness for the food we eat,
A is for appreciation for the things we have,
R is for rain that helps the crops grow,
V is for the variety of fruit and veg,
E is for eating everything we grow,
S is for the sun that feeds our plants,
T is to say thank you for the farmers and God.

By Isobel Class 4

 

H arvest has begun,
A ll the farmers get together,
R ise and shine,
V egetables to pick,
E veryone sings,
S pecial food,
T he harvest has ended.

By Tyler Class 3

Donations of food this year were given to the Coleford Food Bank. They were very grateful to receive the food and wanted to say a special thank you to all those at Coalway who kindly donated.

 

Visit to the Cotswold Wildlife Park

As part of our Africa topic, Year 4 visited the Cotswold Wildlife Park. We had a great experience talking to the zoo keepers and spotting African animals within the different enclosures.
We were extremely lucky as we had the opportunity to see the Cotswold Wildlife Park's first baby rhino. It was very cute! Another one is due any day so we are busy checking for news on their website.
This visit will help us to compare different animals and consider how they have adapted and how they cope living in different habitats.