Year 4 Gymnastics Routine with Matching and Mirroring Balances
In our gymnastics lesson today, we created and performed a sequence of actions with control and precision. We incorporated travelling, balancing, jumps, turns and rolls. Following our sequences we then peer evaluated using our success criteria. The children have really worked hard to challenge themselves and also develop their fundamental movement skills too.
Year 4 Geography - What are the main features of a rainforest?
Today’s Geography lesson focused on recognising features that make up a rainforest including specific rainforest food and animals. We looked at a range of both food and animals, labelling examples and adding these to our collection. We then moved onto classifying the animals into reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.
Year 4 - Class Worship - God’s Fire
In our class worship this week we heard the story of Elijah and how he stood up against the 450 prophets who worshipped Baal instead of God. They prayed to Baal for fire but none came. Then Elijah prayed to God for fire and God provided. We then talked about how Christians believe God lights a fire in their hearts when they follow his word.
After-school- Foodie Friends Club- Yummy, fruit scones.
In Foodie Club today, KS2 bakers made some delicious fruit scones. They did a great job weighing out the flour and adding just the right amount of sugar. They mixed in sultanas, then rubbed the butter into the flour. After that, they rolled out the dough and used cutters to shape their scones. Everyone had a brilliant time, and the best part -they got to take their scones home while they were still hot from the oven.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our Celebration Worship by reflecting on another busy week in school. This week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and thought about how we can all make a positive difference in our world. We have enjoyed focusing on the theme of building each other up as part of our Year of Prayer, Reception, Year 1, 2 and 4 have enjoyed dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts. Reception have enjoyed a visit from Rev Ben to learn about the role of a vicar and we have enjoyed various after-school clubs such as basketball, multi-sports, foodie club, Rocksteady and choir. We then congratulated Will, Hollie and Charlie in EYFS and KS1 and Arabelle, Daisy, Charlie and Rosie in KS2 for making a fantastic start to the Spring term by working extremely hard across the curriculum, always striving to improve and demonstrating our Christian Values and the Barny’s 4Bs. Furthermore, we congratulated Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 750 points and our Year 5/6 football team who represented our school amazingly well last night in the DPSSA football league against Ashleigh and St James’. We then congratulated Ella for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate for swimming across the pool with no armbands, Freddie for being awarded with his 10m swimming certificate, Callie for achieving her Stage 5 swimming certificate, Thomas for swimming an incredible 50m, Lyla for being a super gymnast and achieving a silver medal, Haydn for being awarded a huge gold trophy for his skilful tackling in football, Lydia for being awarded with Olivia at Rainbows for showing super respect and tidying up, Leonora and Iris for participating in a recent gymnastic competition and demonstrating great skill and Brooke for being selected for Blackburn Rovers Girls’ team. To end our worship, we prayed for peace in the world and said thank you for all of the things that we are lucky enough to have. We then sang ‘Build Up’ and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support and we wish you all a lovely weekend.
Worship with Rev. Matt
Today’s worship with Rev. Matt began with an engaging vote about which activities take the most time to prepare for. Rev. Matt then shared a parable told by Jesus, illustrating how we pray and connect with God. The story featured two men who went to a temple to pray: a Pharisee, who proudly listed his good deeds and a tax collector, who humbly asked for forgiveness. The children reflected on the contrasting attitudes of the two men, learning that prayer is not about boasting but about speaking honestly and sincerely with God. Rev. Matt emphasised a powerful message from the parable: Those who make themselves great will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be made great. This served as a reminder to approach life with humility and gratitude, encouraging the children to think about how they communicate with God and with others.
Year 4 Gymnastics - Matching Sequence
In our gymnastics lesson this week we focused on matching balances, moving towards a sequence. The children first matched with a partner and then completed a sequence of gymnastic actions. The Problem Solving element was to come up with different ideas to create a variety of matched balances.
Whole School Worship - Who Is My Neighbour?
In our collective worship, we were considering the question, “Who is my neighbour?” We discussed what it means to love your neighbour as yourself (as mentioned in parts of the Bible such as Leviticus and the Gospel according to Mark) and that there are times when it can be incredibly difficult. In hearing about the life of Martin Luther King Jr, as today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, we discovered that, even when it feels impossible to love our neighbour, when we are mistreated, ignored or disrespected as he and other black people have been, we must try harder to follow God’s greatest commandment, just like Martin did. Our children considered this and spent some time reflecting on the Christian Values that Martin demonstrated and the ways that they would like to make the world a better place and make a difference. Some of the children’s examples included: protecting nature, making peace when we have disagreements, putting a stop to pollution and eradicating poverty. We finished with prayers thanking God for Martin Luther King Jr and all that he did to the make the world a better place and asked Him to give us the courage to stand up for what is right. Rev Ben finished with a special blessing and we sang 'I can make a difference'.
Year 4 Art - Fabric of Nature
Our art this week is inspired by the rainforest. We were looking at the starting points in a design process with a focus on rainforest plants, flowers and animals. We selected images that interested us and then drew our own versions on a 15 x 15cm square. Next we used various media including pastels, chalk, pencil crayon and felt to enhance our designs. The end result was amazing and the children were all super proud of their efforts.
Year 4 - Linking Schools: Curiosity Questions
In Year 4, we are preparing for our first online meeting with our linking class by thinking of curiosity questions. Before we can write good questions for our linking class, we needed to explore curiosity questions with each other. We played human bingo, in which we had to work in pairs to find one person to match each statement on our grid. We asked questions such as, “Are you left-handed?” and “Do you like pizza and chips?”, to get to know a bit more about each other. Then in our next session we will be considering questions for our friends at St Matthew’s.
Year 4 - RE: What is most important in prayer?
Although we pray at least twice a day in class, sometimes it’s worth taking the time to look at why we pray, and our current Year 4 RE unit is giving us the opportunity to explore this. This week, each group was given 18 statements about prayer and the task was initially for the children to remove 5 statements that they considered unimportant to the act of praying. They then had to choose another 5 statements to remove. The final step was for them to read their 8 remaining statements and pick out the 5 statements they considered to be most important. Each group then had to present their final 5, stating why they felt these were the most important aspects of prayer. Most groups agreed that it is important to speak to God through prayer and ask Him for forgiveness.
Year 4 - PE: Acro
The Year 4 children are so lucky to be receiving specialist dance coaching again this half term. This time they will be learning Acro skills. Their first session saw them demonstrate their abilities to perform forward roles, handstands and cartwheels. The coaches taught the children about correct hand placement and body positioning for optimal results. Every pupil had already improved in at least one area by the end of the session.