It's been another great week in Year 4 with lots of learning and fun. Take a look at what we have been up to over the last few days.

4JP

We finished reading our class novel 'Tiger, Tiger' this week. The story is about two tiger cubs who are hunted, captured and sent to Ancient Rome. They lead very different lives as one tiger ends up living in a palace as a pet and the other fights in the colosseum. We were absolutely hooked in the last few chapters because the two brother tigers finally meet and end up facing each other in the arena. We wrote reviews and gave the book a star rating. All of us decided we would recommend this book. It teaches you a lot about what life was like in Ancient Rome and it's also really exciting!

We continued the Roman theme in forest schools too. This week, we listened to the story of Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni tribe. We learnt how she led a rebellion and how her army destroyed Colchester, the capital of Roman Britain. We divided ourselves into two groups - the Celts and the Romans - and we reenacted a battle. Mrs Purdom filmed us. We are going to be film directors and make a slow motion film and set it to music.

After all that serious battling, we enjoyed a well deserved hot chocolate!

4CW

Our tigers have now been completed for the whole school art project.  It took several sessions to make them but we are really pleased with how they look.  Although we all followed the same instructions and  used the same yoghurt pots and materials, they have all turned out differently and all have their own personality.  We hope you like them.  We know which one belongs to each of us and we are looking forward to spotting them around the display boards around school.

4SS

This week we have finished our whale paintings for the new whole school art project. Each class has created artwork to display all around the school fitting the theme of endangered animals. In Y4SS, we have created large paintings of different types of whales with powder paints. Our powder paints are in the primary colours (plus white) so we only had red, yellow and blue to start with. Lots of experimenting took place as we had to mix all of our own colours. After much trial and error, we had palettes full of all sorts of gorgeous yet appropriate colours. We had lots of fun doing this and made quite a lot of mess! Luckily, we had a team of helpful children who got the classroom spick and span again!

After a couple of sessions painting, we added finer details and richer colours with pastels. Can you see the barnacles on the whales and the wonderful textures of their bodies? We are absolutely delighted with the results! What a class of artists!

4JD

We have also finished our whole school art project on the theme of endangered animals. We painted some beautiful gharials and found out a bit about them too. These rare creatures, we discovered together, are a type of crocodile with a long thin snout. On the end of their nose they have a bump, which is where they get their name from! In India (which is where they live) an earthenware pot is called a ghara and the bump looks like one of these pots upside down! We also learned about why they are endangered.

We used some pearlised paint, mixed with poster paint to really make our gharials stand out on their black backgrounds. After they had dried, we used black pens as a finishing touch. These really gave our gharials their texture and personality. I'm sure you agree our gharials are totally brilliant. We can't wait to see them displayed around the school next week.

And finally, we promised we would let you know how much we raised as a school for Children in Need. It was a whopping £1196.89!

Well done everyone and thank you once again for all your support.