de Vere Primary School

Welcome to Wilma Rudolph Class!

Rudolph class is taught by Mrs Eaves and supported by Mrs Minnette. We might be a small class, but we have the biggest heart -making up for our small size with our super kindness, care and support of each other!

Year 4 is an exciting year as we move into the second year of Key Stage Two. The development of our learning attitude and independence is a central and crucial part to this year; we continue to develop our understanding of ourselves as a learner, reflecting on the importance of feeling safe when within a challenge, which we refer to as ‘the learning pit’. We work hard to master and rapidly recall all of our times tables, ready for the Multiplication Tables Check in the summer term.

25th May 2023

In Rudolph class, we have continued our learning journey and finished this half term with a flourish! Our times table check is approaching after half term, so we have worked relentlessly to master our times tables. Please continue this through the Maths Factor times table check website and Times Table Rockstars over half term!

In English, we have been gripped by the story of Varjak Paw, and enjoyed writing our own versions of Varjak’s adventures in the city using fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases. In Geography, we have continued our study into ‘farm to fork’ by exploring the food miles of the food in our lunchboxes. We were staggered to find out just how far so many of our foods have travelled. In Music, we have begun exploring blues music and in particular, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. We had a fantastic time using different percussion instruments to complement the music, thinking carefully about rhythm, texture and timbre of the instruments. In Maths, we have continued delving into the topic of decimals, but this time dividing numbers by 10 and 100 and making decimal answers.

12th May 2023

In Rudolph class, we have worked hard to get our torches complete after planning our design and purpose. We evaluated our success afterwards and considered what went well and how we might alter them if we were to repeat the task. The class impressed us all with their circuit knowledge and problem solving skills.

In Maths, we recapped dividing numbers by 10 and 100 through a group game. We have been able to apply this knowledge to decimal numbers. In English, we are excited to have started reading and studying Varjak Paw by SF Said – many children were keen to read a story about cats!

We have been working really hard on our times tables as our Multiplication Tables Check will be held between Monday 5^th June and Friday 16^th June. We have been using the website https://www.themathsfactor.com/times-tables-check/#/menu to practise and identify which tables we need to practice most.

At the woods, we have been working on lighting fires and building dens, self-initiating activities and problem solving. On the walk up to the woods, we were able to start our Farm to Fork topic by looking at the farmland we pass and the crop that is growing there.

28th April 2023

What a spectacular few weeks we have had – I’m sure you will agree that the children excelled themselves and put on a superb show. The children’s resilience, determination and support of each other were truly admirable throughout the pulling together of the production and presenting the show to our audiences! The buzz and accomplishment the children felt continues to make all the work for these productions worthwhile and continues to advocate for the importance of including these within the curriculum at de Vere Primary.

In English, we have been exploring a film unit from a clip about a Windmill Farmer. We have been able to write poems and are currently planning and writing a newspaper. In Maths, we have started to apply our knowledge about fractions to decimals.

In our theme, we are currently exploring a DT topic – torches. We have been able to evaluate existing products and begin to explore how we can use circuits to create our own torch. We are looking forward to using any suitable boxes and containers heading for a recycling bag at home into working torches. The Friends have very kindly purchased all of the circuit materials, so that your child can bring home their finished product.

31st March 2023

What a busy and fun fortnight we have had in Rudolph Class! We have been exploring about Sutton Hoo and how this has informed knowledge of Anglo-Saxon life. We took part in a drama re-enactment to help us learn and remember the events and discoveries made by Mrs. Pretty and Basil Brown.

We have been continuing to learn our lines and lyrics for our production as well as doing a brilliant job of reading a poem at the Easter service. In English, we have enjoyed continuing to work on ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, including designing our own dragons ready to write a non-chronological report. In Maths, we have continued to work hard with fractions – we have been working on improper fractions and mixed numbers, and we are now moving onto adding and subtracting fractions.

We have also shared some photographs of our Mother’s Day baking and our string cup experiments in Science Week.

17th March 2023

We are working very hard on our production – learning our cues and building up to knowing our songs off-by-heart. Please can all speaking parts be learned off-by-heart by the end of the Easter holidays.

We have been nearly finished our Recorder lessons. We have had great fun learning to play different songs, and taking part in other musical activities.

As part of Science Week, we have been learning about greenhouse gases warming up our planet, and how sound travels. We recieved a message from year 3, using morse code, and then passed the message onto Year 5, using string cups.

In Computing, we are learning about data. This week, we explored data loggers, and we had great fun moving around the classroom and outdoors to take readings in different locations.

3rd March 2023

Class 4 have been busy starting new units of works. In Maths, we have started to explore fractions. We have been engaging with our new topic by exploring the concept of the whole and practically dividing up the whole into equal sections by folding paper and dividing up squares and hexagons as equally as we can. We have played a game in ordering fractions up to and beyond the whole. 

In History, we have begun to explore our new theme of Invaders and Settlers. We have been ordering events from the Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions/settlements of this country. We reenacted events and wrote persuasive letters to the Anglo-Saxons, trying to convince them to join us to support us fighting against Pict and Scot invasions. 

As you will know, we have carried out our auditions and allocated parts. Rehearsals are now in full swing! Please support your child in learning their lines at home. 😊 

10th February 2023

Our final weeks in this half term have been filled with lots of learning and fun! We had our Geography Experience afternoon, focusing on natural disasters and the water cycle. As part of this, we watched the reaction between vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to recap on our learning about volcanic eruptions. We built our own towers out of wooden blocks, and watched the effects of earthquakes on these. We then looked into the details of the Haiti 2010 earthquake. After this, we built towers out of Lego bricks, and we talked about ways that countries, like Japan, prepare for earthquakes and building regulations used to minimise damage and help buildings move with the tremors. We finished our afternoon by creating our own water cycles in a zip lock bag with water and food colouring.

In Maths, we have been learning about written multiplication and written division methods. We have loved the challenge of learning and applying new methods. In English, we have been having great fun using Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as our stimulus. This has included inventing and explaining in writing our own sweets!

27th January 2023

We have had a superb fortnight in class 4! We have been finishing our writing based on Narnia, and we all enjoyed planning and writing our own beginning for the story.

In Maths, we have been working on our written multiplication methods. Our times tables we know off-by-heart have been a good help for this.

In Geography, we have begun looking at our topic of water. We started with atlases and naming up the main seas surrounding the United Kingdom and the main rivers in England, Scotland and Wales. We have been learning about the water cycle and making our own diagrams for this in groups.

We have continued with our recorder lessons with our visiting recorder teacher. He is really impressed with how quickly we are progressing, and we have been playing lots of different pieces with the notes B, A and G.

13th January 2023

In Class 4, we have had a great start to the term! In these few days, in Maths, we have explored factor rainbows and also learned how to make numbers 10 and 100 times bigger. In English, we have been continuing with Narnia, and we have looked at learning similes, metaphors and punctuating direct speech. We had a visiting teacher from Essex Music Schools to teach us recorder. We had great fun, and the teacher was impressed that he can go straight into pieces of music with three notes! 

9th December 2022

Class 4 have had a super busy couple of weeks! We have had so much fun! We have been making our PowerPoints about natural disasters, adding animations and fancy effects to what we have learned so far. In English, we have been focusing on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We have been miming parts of the story and using this to help us develop our writing skills. We have been adding different openers to our writing to make it more interesting. In Maths, we have been looking at recalling times tables more rapidly. We created times table flowers that we can peg our answers to – we had great fun laminating our flowers to make them last longer! We have been able to share books together as part of our book club.  In DT, we have been working towards making our own pencil cases! We have explored our own pencil case designs from home and have begun working on developing basic stitch techniques. Watch this space for our progress towards our pencil cases.  

25th November

We have started our new topic of Natural Disasters. We have learned about volcanic eruptions and earthquakes already! We learned about the different parts of volcanoes by making collages of them and labelling them. We have learned about the causes and effects of earthquakes too. In Computing, we have been learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation, and we are making these based on natural disasters.

We also had out wonderful trip to the park as our class reward. We had great fun playing together!

On decoration day, we started by looking at Floating Ice by Monet. We explored Monet, some of his art and the painting style of impressionism. We moved onto looking at Monet's Waterlilies and used this to inspire some hanging clay flowers, using the skills we developed in Art. We moved onto experimenting with origami with some help from Mrs. White.

11th November 2022

In Rudolph class, we have been focusing on our sculpture project. This has built on from our recycled materials models. We started by looking at sketching a person in proportion. We used this to design our own Greek sculpture. We had to work hard to persevere with producing an armature out of wire. We used this as a basis for our clay sculpture (maquette). Super perseverance Year 4 and a super start to learning how to use clay and how to sculpt. 

In Maths, we have been learning how to use and apply our written method for adding and subtracting. Ask us to show you what we have learned! 

7th October 2022

In year 4, we have been so busy as we have continued our learning about the Ancient Greeks. Our English has been linked to this as we continue reading ‘Who let the gods out?’ This has inspired our non-chronological text planning around the Greek god, Charon. We have researched about him, planned out our text and are getting ready to write and present this work. In maths, we have worked up to understanding numbers up to 10,000, reading Roman numerals and begun to learn about rounding numbers to the nearest ten. We have been learning to count in french. In science, we have been learning about local habitats and recording potential environmental dangers.

What a super start we have had in Year 4! We have had lots of hands on and real life maths activities. We have used lots of resources to help us understand place value up to 10,000. As part of this, we looked at scales on a variety of measuring resources, looking at what the scales were counting in, and what value would be halfway between the intervals. We have begun to explore poetry and myths as part of our study about the Ancient Greeks too.