Mrs Dowdall's class.
On a very chilly Monday, 24th April, years 3 and 4 visited Celtic Harmony in Brickenden to learn more about the way of life in the Stone Age through to the Iron Age eras.
Splitting into 2 groups, the children learned how Stone Age people used flint for everyday tools and weapons. The weapons were for hunting food, as they rarely fell out with their neighbours and war was unheard of. Instead of napping flint, they used a small tablet of soap to replace the flint and a lolly stick to replace the round hand stone which our ancestors used to shape the flint.
Next, we moved on to making some bread. First, the children ground some flour from wheat using a quern stone. This is basically two very large round stones placed on top of each other. The top stone has a hole in the top, through which the wheat is passed. The top stone is turned by hand and the wheat is then ground between the two stones. Sometimes it can take more than one go, to grind the wheat into a fine enough powder. This is then mixed with water to make the dough – a very messy experience!
We then moved on to the Iron Age and learned how to make a coil pot. The pots of the time were bulbous at the bottom, with a lip at the top, so they could be hung over a fire for cooking. Later, beakers were from bronze, introduced by the Beaker people, immigrants from other parts of Europe and named after the pots they made. These had a flatter bottom, were smaller and used for mixing things and carrying liquids. The were decorated with lots of small dots or other patterns.
Finally, we ended the day with a magic story about a warrior who had upset the druids and been turned into a frog. He broke the spell, only when he was accepted into a family’s home. As the story was being told, the fire magically changed to have blue and green flames!
The children thoroughly enjoyed the day and their learning will be a platform for our current topic Horrible Histories.
Year 4 ended their Spring Term topic, Incredible Inventions, with a Grand Prix of their balloon powered (pneumatic) cars.
The children had made their cars in Design and Technology using a recycled plastic bottle for the body, straw for the axle sleeves, dowling for the axles, 50mm wooden wheels, plastic tubing and of course ballooons. They had been using hacksaws, glue guns and scissors to make their creations, and some had even given them ’go faster’ names, such as Cheetah!
The big event took place in the new build, and the children raced their cars across the tables. Most only managed a short distance, but Leila and Fjolla managed almost two full tables lengths with their cars stopping with a dead heat, which then required a final to decide a winner.
Using Mrs MacCormack’s go faster ball pump, the eventual winner was Leila, by a length.
As you can see the girls were delighted with the result.
Our current science topic is Animals Including Humans, focusing on teeth and the digestive system. We have conducted an experiment to see how sugary drinks affect our teeth. The children chose the drinks we should use, and we had eggs to represent our teeth as the outer shell is similar in construction to the enamel on our teeth.
We left the eggs immersed for days before taking them out to see the results. Milk and water had little effect on the shell, coffee and cola discoloured the shell, but Lucozade Sport and Apple Juice actively destroyed the outer layer of the shell! As you can see the shells left in these drinks do not look very appealing. This had quite an effect on some children with them vowing not to drink certain drinks in future!
We discussed ways in which we could adapt the experiment, and ideas were to ‘clean’ the egg shell with fluoride toothpaste first to see whether this had a protecting effect or even washing the egg in mouthwash before it was emersed. Both great ideas – well done Year 4!
On Thursday 3rd March Year 4 had great fun dressing as either their favourite book character or clothes that they like to read a book in. We had some amazing costumes as you can see from the class photo. Can you spot who they are?
Our current focus book in year 4 is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which they seem to be really enjoying. Many parents and adults that I have spoken to remember this story from their own school days, and it is one that stays on your memory!
It was a great response to World Book Day and we will try and introduce more stories and texts so that the children can be inspired to read for pleasure.
On Monday 16th January, Year 4 visited the Science Museum too see how inventions over the years have changed the way we live. This linked with our current topic Incredible Inventions. We travelled by coach and saw Lord’s Cricket Ground and Buckingham Palace garden wall on the way, which caused some excitement!
Once at the museum, our two main focus points were Making the Modern World on the ground level, and the Secret Life of the Home in the basement. In the Secret Life of the Home children saw everyday home appliances and how they have changed over the centuries. The first thing they met on arrival was the toilet. On display were types of every design, including some beautiful pottery bowls, but of course ‘flushing the poo’, showing how the flush system works, was the highlight! Everything from cookers to hairdryers, fridges, microwaves, televisions, radios were on display. We learned how things we take for granted today, and which make our lives easier, were once not so simple. Did you know, that to watch the first televisions, the lid had a mirror to reflect the screen, which was situated on top of the unit facing the ceiling? In the 1940’s an American company used an elephant standing on its fridge to show how sturdy it was. Interesting though, as children learned in their Dig for Victory topic last year, that many British families in WWII did not own a fridge, and many had outside toilets.
On the ground floor, were the huge steam engines, which changed the course of our history. Children will be learning the impact these had and how the Industrial Revolution changed the way Britons lived. Again, we saw some of the first inventions of their type from telescopes, x-ray machines, toys, irons, cars, aeroplanes to name but a few.
We also paid a visit to the space section and saw how the pioneers of space made their journeys, how new Earth-like planets have been discovered, but that it would take 250,000 years to get to them! Wow!
The children had a great day and quite a few were out for the count on the coach journey home. Signs of a day well spent!
