Category

Year 4

National Storytelling Week 2022

11th February 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

This week we have celebrated National Storytelling Week in lower KS2.

As a school we already share a class story each day at 3pm but Miss Fraser asked us to try some extra activities from the list to celebrate.

Year 3 have been reading James and the Giant Peach in Guided Reading. We put our summarising skills to the test this week by making mini-books of the story so far.

We worked hard to design a suitable front cover, and drew some amazing illustrations to go alongside our writing.

Year 3's mini books of James and the Giant Peach

Year 4 chose to celebrate with Harry Potter Day (Miss Ingoe’s favourite). We watched some clips about the potions class and created an ideas board of the ingredients we could use in our own potions. The children decided what their potion was for and wrote instructions on how to make it, while listening to some magical music for inspiration. Their ideas were fabulous such as a potion ‘to make me lucky’, ‘to make me meet the Arctic Monkeys’, ‘to make me be a princess’ and my least favourite ‘to make the teachers be quiet!’.

Finally, they wrote them neatly (some children even illustrated them) in their spell books we made before Christmas.
We also had a great time with paired reading today. We chose a book to share with a friend and either listened to the story or took turns to read the story. It was brilliant to hear!

Year 4 children reading books to each other

Number Day 2022!

5th February 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

Children at West Boldon Primary have been dressing up for digits this week to raise money for the NSPCC. Here’s what each year group have been getting up to…

As part of Digit Day, Year 1 took part in a variety of Maths activities. These included using the Hit the Button game online and also playing our new favourite game, ‘Get out of my house!’, which helped us to practise addition and quick recall of number bonds.

Year 1 children taking part in Number Day activities

Children in Year 2 were having to really think about partitioning numbers to work out how to win the game! Amazing competition!

Year 2 children solving maths problems for number day

We even had time to decorate our own numbers to stick on our outfits. Such number fun!

Year 2 have also been counting their throws and catches of the ball in PE!

Year 2 counting their throws and catches in PE

Year 3 celebrated number day with a problem solving treasure hunt task. They had to find the pieces of a key which were hidden around the room, the location of each key was only revealed when children solved a maths problem. They had to work in teams to assemble the key.

Then, they took part in some solvemoji problems, before writing some of their own for their friends to solve. Some of them were really tricky!

Year 3 children showing off their numbers!

Year 3 children looking for Buddy's key!

Year 3 children creating their own solvemoji problems for their friends

It was great to see the children dressed up today. There was sports shirts, dance tops, year tops, some awesome home made ones and some very clever uses of numbers from movies etc.

With it being digit day we had to get involved with some awesome maths activity. Year 4 took part in a special NSPCC Times Table Rockstars competition (which was available only today on digit day).

We also took on some really difficult solve emoji puzzles. The children worked in pairs and it took some real brain power. They needed to use their logical thinking, their problem solving ability and skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division!!!

Some of them even had a trick element in! Every pair worked so hard and as a class we competed nearly 70 puzzles!

Year 4 taking part in Number Day activities.

Year 6 spent the morning solving maths riddles, decoding and following directions on a compass. We have also solved codes, played countdown and challenged each other in a dice game. We’ve used problem solving and reasoning skills. Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

Year 6 children taking part in an activity for number day

Class 14 taking part in their tasks for number day

Creating a suitable raft for a gorilla

3rd February 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

In Commando Joe, Year 4 are currently completing missions to help rescue a baby gorilla. Today, they had to work in small groups to make a raft to safely transport him over the lake.

They had to think carefully about which recyclable materials would float and which would keep him dry. They designed and built small rafts, and then tested them on water to check if they were suitable for the gorilla.

The children made excellent rafts and each group managed to create a boat which floated and also kept the gorilla dry!

Year 4 children testing out their rafts for their toy gorilla

Dreaming of Division!

30th January 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

Year 4 have been working so hard this week on division in maths. They started using their times table knowledge to divide, then looked at dividing using counters and finally moved on to using short written methods.

Here they are using counters to divide (in their favourite way – writing on the tables). The children worked to divide the counters into equal groups of either 2/5/4/8/3 to answer the questions. Things got particularly tricky when we had to exchange a ten counter for ten ones.

They’ve worked so hard, I’m sure they will be dreaming of division this week!

Year 4 children working on division using place value charts and counters

Gorillas in the Mist

30th January 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

Our new Commando Joe is following the adventures of ‘real life Lara Croft’ Kira Salek.

We started our journey working together to rescue baby gorillas that had been captured.

The children worked in small teams to build something to rescue the gorillas but carefully so they didn’t harm them. They worked well as a team and the children realised that good communication was key to being successful!

Year 4 children taking part in this week's Commando Joe mission

Sketching symbols of freedom

24th January 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

Year 4 have been learning all American slavery in their topic Cry Freedom.

We have studied the way the slaves were treated and how they became slaves. This week we began to look at their journey to freedom.

We had a lovely art lesson looking at sketching symbols of freedom. The children chose up to 3 symbols to represent freedom such as birds flying, chains breaking and following the constellations.

Here are some examples of our work:

African Dance Workshop

13th January 2022Miss K. Wilkinson

KS2 children had a fantastic experience of an African dance workshop on Tuesday. It was a fun, engaging and memorable essential learning experience that allowed the children to have a broad understanding of cultural diversity.

The workshops were delivered by the fantastic Tunde Olasupo, who taught them some of the different traditional African dance moves native to this wonderfully vibrant and diverse culture.

Year 3 enjoying the African dance workshop

Year 4 enjoying the African dance workshop

Year 5 enjoying the African dance workshop

Year 6 enjoying the African dance workshop

Christmas Maths Challenges

14th December 2021Miss K. Wilkinson

Year 4 have been working in pairs to complete Christmas themed maths challenges.

They had to complete a series of problems such as ordering snowmen by height, finding how many possibilities there are for different outfits for a snowman and sharing buttons following different rules.

They had to work together and could choose how they wanted to solve the problem e.g. mentally, written methods, drawings or practical resources.

Year 4 children taking part in their Christmas themed maths challenges

KS2 visit to St Nicholas’ Church

14th December 2021Miss K. Wilkinson

KS2 (Year 3-6) enjoyed a wonderful walk to St Nicholas Church this morning.

Once there, each year group sang a Christmas carol they had been practising over the last few weeks. Rev. Paul also told the children all about Advent and chose a lucky Year 3 child to come and light the candles on the Advent wreath.

Rev. Paul was really impressed with the children’s knowledge of Advent already and after that the children asked him such insightful questions about the church.

At the end of the service Rev. Paul blessed us all with a lovely Christmas prayer.

All of the children were beautifully behaved and represented our school incredibly! Well done KS2!