Welcome To Year 4
Welcome to Year 4
Meet the Year Group Teacher, Miss Gray…
Hello, I’m Sharon Gray. I have just finished my 35th year teaching at Oxclose Primary Academy, which was originally Oxclose Juniors when I joined. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of teaching many of our parents and even a few grandparents!
Most people know that I love teaching a ‘Creative Curriculum’ and children who have been in my class will have taken part in many themed days and events linked to our topic. I believe they give children the chance to experience events for themselves and to write for a real purpose. My recent favourites have included: spending the day as journalists on The Fairy Tale Times, Messy Science Day and Roman Soldier sessions!
At home, I have a large family with two sisters, eight nieces and nephews and four (so far!) great nieces and nephews! As you can imagine family parties and events are always large, always noisy and always great fun! I love gardening and hunting around antique fairs, but my main ambition is still to become a dog owner! (Ex pupils still ask me about my Jack Russell, Dog, the unofficial Oxclose mascot for many years and I miss all those long walks!)
Termly Curriculum Information for Parents/Carers
Children In Need
For the 10th year in a row, Maureen, from Asda, took her friend Pudsey around local primary schools. She started back in 2009 at her granddaughter’s school and has done it every year since. This year the pair are visiting ten local schools with their bucket to raise as much money as they can for the many projects Children in Need support. We all came in non-uniform and were proud to help this amazing charity.
We found out about the charity and made our own mini books featuring Pudsey and Blush. As usual, Mrs Hall baked her amazing biscuits and all proceeds also went to the charity. It was a perfect end to our Anti-Bullying Week!
Odd Socks Day
Year 4 had a great time showing off their amazing socks and there was not a single pair among them! The important thing to remember is the reason we all do this – looking different is fine! In Year 4, we think…“It’s OK to be different!”
Anti-Bullying Week
We started the week reading this amazing story “Something Else” by Kathryn Cave and Chris Waddell. The main character is treated differently because he doesn’t look like all the other animals. The story explores how this makes him feel and makes him question his own behaviour.
Then we looked more closely at the scene on page 10 where the other animals all reject the character. We investigated the setting (Africa)
and then imagined what each character said and how it made Something Else feel. We put our ideas into a narrative text.
In afternoon sessions, we discussed what bullying means and tried to
identify if examples of bad behaviour were actually bullying. We asked Are
they repeated? Are they intended to hurt? Is there an imbalance of power? Deciding on what had really happened took time and usually included talking to everyone involved in the incident.
Diwali
Look at what Year 4 have been covering this week for Diwali
Health and Happiness Week
Year 4 have enjoyed their Health and Happiness Week, especially the time to think about what really makes them happy. We started the week thinking about what made us healthy and found that we agreed on most things such as our diet, regular exercise, getting enough sleep, drinking plenty of water, being in contact with friends and family, having a positive attitude and being able to control negative emotions such as anger or jealousy. However our ideas of what made us happy were much more varied and we even found that some overlapped with those things that made us feel healthy!
We really enjoyed talking together and sharing our ideas through the week, including our session with Beth from Big Arts. We did lots at the start of the week to help us think about what health and happiness mean and towards the end of the week we tried out new activities to help us learn that taking risks in our learning can be fun! We recorded our ideas, made discussion notes, wrote acrostic poems, played Emotions BINGO, researched local footballing heroes, completed a workout circuit on a very warm afternoon (without complaining!), tried new fruits to help us enjoy a healthy diet and turned our classroom into a French café for a morning, to help us relax with our friends, try new foods and experiment with conversational French.
Dinosaur Dioramas
Click to see our amazing Dinosaur Dioramas
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Kaci’s Special Present
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Easter Cards
Year 4 created some brilliant Easter cards
Mother’s Day
We had a wonderful time making Mother’s Day cards, click below to see how we used art work as our inspiration.
Skipping Festival
We all tried really hard at the skipping festival, it was great fun. Click below to see how amazing we were!
Science Week 2019
Click here to see what we got up to during Science Week
World Book Day 2019
Click here to see the fun we had on World Book Day
Snow Day
Robots
String Telephones
Skipping Festival
Anti – Bullying Week
Children In Need
Press Day
Minibeast Hunt
School Council Vote
Achievements
Art Day
Durham University
Design and Technology Day
Mad Scientist Day
Skipping Festival
Science Week
Year 4 Puzzle Day
Thank you so much to all the parents and grandparents who came to help! We had a great morning learning to play new games and applying all the skills we have learned in maths lessons this year.
Everyone, including adults, had a go at using strategy activities and puzzles, mental maths challenges and board games (although Miss Gray just couldn’t win in Number Bond Snap!)
World Book Day
Christmas in Year 4
Roman Day Games
Anti Bullying Week – Blue Friday
Puzzle Afternoon
Armistice Day
Roman Day
Red Riding Hood – The Trial
Roald Dahl 100 Day
Tortoises – Speedy and Rafa
Speedy and Rafa are Katie’s Horsefield Tortoises. Speedy first came to see us and then returned with his friend, Rafa, to show us his ‘tortoise table’ (his home!)
Speedy (darker markings) liked being handled, but Rafa (paler markings) was much shyer and didn’t leave the corner of his home all day.
The table has a light bulb to keep the tortoises warm as they are reptiles, so cold blooded animals.
Tortoise-Eye View!
“I’m not moving!” (Rafa)
“Well I love my grub!!” (Speedy)
We all had a close look at the tortoises and their home:
Hockey Festival
Buttlerflies
Ben purchased some Red Admiral eggs and hatched them out at home. They hatched as caterpillars, then turned into a pupa before finally emerging as fully grown Red Admiral butterflies. The butterflies have been fed sugar water and fruit, but Ben will release them this weekend, now we have all seen them.
Devil’s Wood
We will be visiting this area throughout the year to study the changing seasons and how plants and animals adapt.
On our first visit we found lots of autumn nuts and fruits such as blackberries, rose hips, acorns, conkers and pine cones.
We were lucky enough to see some squirrels perform acrobatics high in the trees, a pair of magpies having a dust bath and a feral cat stalking a mouse.
Sadly, however, we also found lots of evidence of how people have damaged the woodland environment by littering, graffiti, and setting fires.
We have decided to form the Green Planet Group to try to improve things for this local habitat. We are inventing a logo and setting up a plan of action to improve the local habitat, so look out for news of our plans soon!
Year 4 Press Day
Thank you so much parents for supporting your children in dressing for work today!
The offices of The Fairy Tale Times was busy today as we tried to get the paper to press!
We started by checking out the competition and seeing what they were offering their readers, then had an editorial meeting where the paper’s owner S. Gray and its editor, E. Thornton, set out their expectations for the latest issue.
Staff wrote front page reports on the recent arrest of Goldilocks Smith and local news stories such as Miss Muffet’s story of how she overcame her agoraphobia, the mystery surrounding the death of A. Giant, who fell when a beanstalk was unexpectedly cut down, the sad experience of Mrs Pig who lost two of her sons at the hands of B.B. Wolf and the plight of Mrs Hood, a 78 year old grandmother who no longer feels safe in her own home! The advertising department were also keen to make sure all companies who support The Fairy Tale Times had their adverts placed correctly.
The editor, Emily Thornton and her deputy, Alannah Taylor made sure the paper got to press on time and staff enjoyed a welcome break in the staff canteen!
