We had a royal day out at Hampton Court this week where we discovered more about the life of Henry VIII. We explored the Great Hall, the Great Watching Chamber, the Council Chamber, the Chapel and his magnificent kitchens which served 600 courtiers every day for lunch and dinner.
Year 4 have all completed the mandatory Multiplication Table Check (MTC) in the past 2 weeks. The children complete the test online and have to answer 25 random times table questions up to 12 x 12 with only 6 seconds to think of the answer and input it. I wonder how well parents would do on the test? The children have been practising at home and at school all year so most were well-prepared. We ensure that the children do the test in a calm environment with no distractions and we will not be publishing the results as this is only a snapshot of how the children performed on one day. We do not want them to feel any pressure about this assessment; the children use their recall of times table facts every day when solving maths problems or calculations.
Year 4 have been continuing to learn notes on the clarinet. If you listen very carefully on Thursday afternoons, you may be able to hear Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Year 4 have begun to learn about the Tudor dynasty. Read on to find out more...
Year 4 enjoyed an afternoon of 'Platinum Time' this afternoon as they celebrated the Queen's jubilee with year 3. During the day they learnt about the reign of Queen Elizabeth and made decorations ready for the party.
As part of the enrichment opportunities we offer at Sheen Mount, year 4 learn the basics of playing the clarinet. On Thursday afternoons, we are joined by teachers from Richmond Music Trust who have been teaching us how to assembly our clarinets and to play a few notes.
Year 4 had an amazing day on Wednesday when we spent the whole day pretending that we lived in a Roman town in Britain. In the photo you can see some of our soldiers marching and protecting the town from Celtic uprisings as we carried out our tasks. We had many jobs including making clay lamps and pots, crushing olives to make oil for the lamps, creating mosaics, designing frescos, crushing charcoal for writing, making wax tablets, making jewellery and creating medicines and beauty treatments at the bath house. Many thanks to the parents and older sibling helpers who made all these activities possible. Read on to find out what we did in the afternoon.
Next Wednesday Year 4 will finish their history topic of Romans in Britain with a Roman themed day. The children should come to school in costume and be prepared to pretended that they live in this time period for the day. However, in order for us to have the best possible day with lots of activities, we need some more parent helpers for the morning. Please let us know if you can help - we guarantee that you will learn new skills and have lots of fun!
We have reached the end of our core text, Kensuke's Kingdom. An emotional roller-coaster of a book with an equally emotional ending (I won't give it away but do ask your child to explain why it is both happy and sad). The children have written their last piece of work based on this book which documented the change in the relationship between our two main characters. Read more to find out about other learning from this week and to get a hint of what we will be writing about next week...
We have started our new science topic: sound. The children had lots of fun making string telephones this week and have learnt how sound travels as vibrations along the string. They also completed a sound walk around the school where they discovered that there was nowhere in the buildings or grounds which was completely silent. They have some interesting homework on this topic for the weekend.
Year 4 have learned how to make sushi this week as part of our final day focusing on Japan.
On the last day of last half term, Year 4 excitedly boarded a coach to Kensington to visit the Science Museum. Elodie, Luke and Alex have written about the day.
