Welcome to Silver Birch's class page

Your teacher is: Mrs Efrat

Class email address: silverbirch@kafed.org.uk

Welcome to the Summer Term

It has come round so quickly, but we are here, at the beginning of the summer term!  This term, our topic is 'All things Great and Small'.  

The children are already working very hard and have started learning about Ramadan and The Romans.  Please refer to the Year 4 curriculum letter to find out more about Year 4's learning for this term

The Iron Man

Year 4's focus text this term is The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.  They have written emotion poems as Hogarth, a young boy in the story, who encounters Iron Man on his way home from fishing; they are currently writing diary entries as Hogarth about his experience that evening.  

Watch this space for their wonderful writing....

Welcome to the Spring Term

Silver Birch have made a great start to the New Year and have already been working hard this week.  Let's hope this term will be a fun and healthy one.

DT - Freedom Quilts

This half-term, linked to their history, year 4 have been researching Freedom quilts used by the Underground Railroad helping escaping slaves reach freedom, and designing their own freedom quilt block.  We are hoping to get all their quilt blocks (once they are finished) sewn together to make our own Freedom quilt.  Watch this space for progress.

This week, the children began choosing their material.  They first made paper templates of their design to make sure it fitted onto the quilt square.  Once they were happy with their design, they cut out the shapes from different coloured or patterned material, ready to be sewn on to their quilt square.

Before beginning to sew, the children have been practicing their stitching.

Guitar - 22nd March

The children have been learning guitar now for just over half a year and are making great progress.  This week, they worked beautifully together helping each other learning a new tune.  All of the children seem to be really enjoying learning to play guitar.

Science Week 14th-18th March 2022

During science week, Year 4 will be participating in two science investigations: Do taller people jump further than shorter people? and, Which sweet has the best elasticity?

Hopefully, the children will have great fun and learn a lot not only about science, but also maths with all the measuring and data handling involved in both investigations.

Book Week 

For book week this year, we are reading the story 'Here we are' by Oliver Jeffers.  The book is written by the author to his new born son and it introduces the world and everything in it to a newborn. 

It discusses, through beautiful illustrations; the earth, the environment, animals and people. 

Memorial Flames

Silver Birch class have been thinking of who, how and why we need to remember certain people.  They have though about different things we can do.  For example, light a memorial candle, take a moment to think of them, to treasure a special item they had and many other ways.  

They also made collages of memorial flames by layering different coloured paper and or card to create a beautiful representation of a memorial flame.

Science

Our science topic this half term is electricity.  We started off with a bulb, a bulb holder, two wires and a battery.  Our challenge was to make the bulb light up.  We had to be resilient and keep trying different ways but, in the end, we were all successful and managed to light up the bulb by making our very first complete circuit. 

Year 4 are thoroughly enjoying the project with Peoplescape.  They are working on their performance to be held on 10th December (details to follow).  The performance is based on journeys people have made to Lewisham from various places around the country or the world at large.  

The children are enjoying learning to express themselves and working together in smaller groups and combining their parts into a class performance.

Swimming

Year 4 have now had 4 swimming lessons; all the children are thoroughly enjoying them.  Any worries or concerns regarding swimming any of the children may have had have completely gone.

It is a pleasure to see the smiles on their faces during their lessons.  All of the children have made visible progress in the 4 lessons they have had so far and are gaining confidence in the water.  A few children have even moved up groups!

Geography

In geography, Year 4 have been learning about the continents and the difference between a continent and a country.  They have been using atlases to identify countries in different continents.

They have also been learning about the equator, northern and southern hemisphere, the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn and what the climate is like in the tropics.  

Using the index of an atlas, the children found given countries and had to say what they noticed about where they were located in the world and why this made them good places to grow cocoa beans.

Peoplescape Theatre

Year 4 have been lucky enough to get the opportunity to work on project with the Peoplescape Theatre.  This will involve 8 workshops in school and culminate in a performance that the children have created themselves.  The workshops will begin after half term.  However, last Friday (24th September) Peoplescape visited the school and performed for the Year 4 children.  The children were totally mesmerised and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Guitar Lessons

All this year, Year 4 will be learning to play guitar.  They have got off to a flying start and are all enjoying the lessons.  They can play a short piece of music using the g, b and e string.  They have learnt how to count a beat of four, including rests.  They have done really well over the past two weeks.

RE - Judaism

This half term, Year 4 will be learning about Judaism.  They will be learning some of the stories of Abraham.  They have already learned that Abraham is considered the father of Judaism by Jews because God made a covenant with Abraham and that is where Judaism began.

The children learnt what a covenant is and acted out a scenario where a promise was broken.

In order to help them learn the story of Abraham and Isaac, they split the story into 8 key parts and acted out the story in groups.

Science - Matters of state.  

In science the children have been learning about the key properties of matters of state.  We all turned into particles and acted as a solid, liquid or gas particle

Important information for children returning in September:

On Thursday 2nd September children will be returning to school.

Mornings:

The gates on Elfrida crescent  will open at 8.45am and your child can come to school anytime between 8.45 and 9am using the yr 2/3/4 gate.  We are asking parents to stay outside school each morning.

Gates will be locked at 9am and you will need to bring your child to the main office to have them booked in.

Parents and carers of Yr  4 

Parents will be allowed in at 3.20pm. The children will be ready for collection at 3.25pm.

Parents will be allowed onto the school site to collect their children from the yr 3/4 playground.

Parents will be allowed to walk through the playgrounds to collect children from other year groups once on site.

Staff and sign posts will be present to navigate you to the correct playgrounds.

See you in September!