As part of our WOW day this week, we created Viking brooches. We looked at some images and created designs in our books. We then (carefully!) used the hot glue gun to create our designs. When it had cooled, we wrapped it with tin foil and applied pressure to see the pattern through the foil. We then added some metallic paint to give it an old and rusted look.  We attached a pin to the back so we can wear our brooches like a real Viking! 

Vikings used runes to record things. These were symbols to represent sounds in words (or letters as we call them). Runes were usually carved into large stones and could be to mark territory, to provide information, to boast about their success or as a memorial to a great fallen warrior. We designed our own stone using simple images and rune symbols, and used graphite pencils and chalks to bring our designs to life.

The Vikings were skilled ship builders and travelled great distances over great seas and oceans to start homes (and raid riches) in new lands. We became skilled builders during our WOW day and built our own Longships. We had to follow instructions to cut, fold and fix card shapes to create our ships. It was quite tricky at times as we had to make sure we were careful not to cut off the flaps and that we folded the card along the correct lines. It was the perfect task to practise our growth mindset and resilience strategies!

Today is our Viking WOW day.

Keep checking our blog posts to find out what we got up to during the day.

Today we have been thinking carefully about how we act online. The theme of this year's Safer Internet Day is 'change' so we decided to make posters to promote changing behaviour.

We also watched a BBC alive assembly which taught us all about changing technology and the positive and negative sides to AI.

Challenge us to explain the ways we use technology and how we scan stay safe. Some of us brought home our activity sheets so you might want to complete these with us!

Last week, 10 fruit trees were donated to the school and the task of planting them fell to six Year 4 children. The chosen children met with Mr Sharp, our site manager, to find out what they needed to do and to plan where the trees would go. A spot in the nature area at the top of the upper playground was chosen and they spent the morning working as a team to dig plant, fill in and water the saplings, which included a variety of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees. For the next month, these children will also maintain the newly planted orchard by watering the trees twice a week.  We are very excited to watch these trees grow and cannot wait until they produce some fruit for us to enjoy!

In PE this half term, we have been practicing stretches and balances. First, we looked at the different types of balances and how they would use the different parts of our bodies. Then we created sequences of poses that flowed smoothly into each other. This week, we have looked at working in pairs to mirror each other's movements and worked as a unit to create shapes. We are starting to set our movements to music and create feelings that reflect the style of music we are listening to.

For the last two weeks our indoor PE has been practising speed stacking skills. We were all very excited when the cups were brought out and then we realised that actually there is a lot of skill involved in stacking cups! We have had to work on our hand eye coordination and follow a precise set of rules. We have practised a 3 stack, a 6 stack and a 3-6-3 stack. Next week we will be setting ourselves challenges to improve our coordination, speed and precision.

We have been investigating materials and practising our stitching in Laburnum. At times it has been tricky to thread a needle and navigate the material to ensure the cotton doesn't become tangled. However, we have been successful this week in stitching two small pieces of fabric to make a finger puppet and we feel very proud of ourselves. Ask us what we are working towards making!

Larch class have started learning to play the violins as part of our Music curriculum. Our first lesson was spent learning some information about violins as well as practising removing the violin from the case and holding them correctly. We also began creating sound by plucking the strings. The children learnt the special name for this type of playing is pizzicato. 

This week, we learnt a short piece of music called Willow's Waltz and were even able to perform for some adults from Year 4. We can't wait for next week to play even more wonderful music!