Year 4

Teacher: jowhitney@whitchurch-primary.devon.sch.uk

Autumn 2018

Mandalas

We had a lovely morning out in the autumn sunshine on Friday making mandalas from leaves and other natural materials. We had to make sure they were symmetrical and had an inner and outer circle. They are based on traditional Tibetan Buddhism mandals which are a spiritual representation of the universe and self . We think they were amazing!

Class Treat!

We worked hard to earn all our class stars and really enjoyed our board game afternoon. It was great fun!

Diwali

Year 4 learnt about Diwali on Wednesday 7th November. This is a festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs. We learnt the story of Rama and Sita and made our own diva lamps. These special lamps are lit during Diwali to symbolise light winning over darkness. We made red lentil dhal and chapattis with Mrs Whitney, who came in to help, it was delicious! We also enjoyed special coconut sweets that are eaten around the festival of Diwali and made cards to give to our family.  It was a great day!

Outdoor Learning Day at Cotehele – Tuesday 30th October

As part of our Outdoor Learning in Year 4 we went to spend the day at Cotehele with Jamie, the Head Ranger. He taught us how to identify lots of trees and seeds as well how best to build a den and how to be around a camp fire safely. In groups we spent the first part of the morning building our dens, it was hard work but great fun.

Next we used clay and natural materials to make faces to act as guardians for our dens.

At lunch time we all ate in our dens.

After lunch we made played in the park and made huge piles of leaves to jump in, hide in and throw. It was very funny!

To end our day we had a camp fire and toasted marshmallows. We also had hot chocolate to warm us up! Everyone had a brilliant day. Thank you Cotehele and Jamie!

The Hodgeheg

As part of our English this term we have been reading the book ‘The Hodgeheg’ by Dick King-Smith. We are busy writing book reviews about lots of Dick King-Smith’s books at the moment, but as part of our work we had a fun afternoon baking hedgehog bread with Mrs. Whitney. We each made an individual hedgehog to take home and a large Hedgehog to share in class. It was delicious!

We also used leaves and other natural materials to make our own hedgehogs. We think they look amazing!

Apple Crumble

We picked apples from the school orchard and made apple crumble for the class.

Outdoor Learning

As part of our outdoor learning we went on an autumn scavenger hunt. We had to identify different leaves, fruits and seeds. We also planted acorns and learnt about oak trees in detail. We took bark and leaf rubbings and each collected an acron. We were also lucky enough to find some oak galls too!

Tangrams

We had great fun using our new Tangram puzzles. These mathematical puzzles are originally from Ancient China. You used the seven shaped pieces to create different pictures or shapes. It is quite tricky!