Class 4's blog

Keep up to date with the learning and fun from Class 4 at St. Giles CE Primary, Matlock

  • Explosion Art

    Meet Cai Guo-Qiang – an artist who is re-known the world over for his art installations, especially those using explosives. It is the unexpected outcomes of the explosions that make is work interesting.

    In our art work this week, Class 4 have looked at his work and created mini-room installations using stencils to make positive and negative images, and then flicked, thrown and glued a range of art materials into the mini-rooms. It was interesting and exciting to see the effects made.

  • Friendship flowers

    Our value this half term is Friendship and in Collective worship w listened to a story about a new girl in school who brought brightness and joy to her class by mailing flowers, even though the other children were unkind to her.

    In our classes we made our own flowers and gave them as a gift to someone in the class, they then hung them on the tree in our reflective area. our tree now has its Spring blossom and kindness hands.

  • Doodlers

    In Class 4 this week, we have combined our knowledge of circuits and our design skills to create Doodlers: fun drawing machines that walk across the floor creating patterns, depending on where the balance is placed.

    There was lots of success, but also plenty of adjusting our designs in order to make the Doodler move successfully without overbalancing, and with different drawing tools for the best effects.

  • Red Nose Day 2024

    What a wonderful day Class 4 had learning about Red Nose Day and why it is important. It built on a week of learning about challenges people might have in their lives, and the protected characteristics people have. The children learned what their donations could do for other children who face challenges to health, learning and life. And of course, as a class, we did something funny for money!

    We have written a rap, working in the style of some children who attend a Wrap Club funded by Comic Relief. This Wrap Club has meant that children who struggled to access school due to challenges such as autism, have grown in confidence and self esteem.

    Here are a few verses of the rap that we wrote.

    FISHY RAP

    I love fish, they’re so cool

    Every day, swimming in a school

    If you really hate them, you’re a fool

    Chlorine sucks, they hate the pool.

    Life in a river, pond or stream

    is almost like living a dream.

    I took my coin and made a wish

    my wish was to be a real life fish.

    There’s some fish I really wanna meet,

    But there’s also some I really wanna eat.

    I say, why don’t you take a seat

    To taste some of the fishy elite.

    I go to the pond every day

    Just to see the fishes swim away

    They’re so fast, I just wanna say

    Don’t leave me fishes, please won’t you stay?

    I knew a fish called Dale

    He ate a short fat snail

    Then he escaped from jail

    And was eaten by a whale.

  • Exploring Shadows

    This week was the last of of lessons about light in Class 4. We were thinking about shadows, about how they take the shape of the object blocking the light, and how their size changes according to the position of the light source.

    We were tasked with investigating where to place sunshades around the pool in order to give the most shade to those sunbathing and using the pool.

  • Internet Safety and Mental Health Week

    This week we have been learning about staying safe online and what is important to us and that our voices are heard.

    We discussed online safety, the advancement of technology (we were a little surprise that phones used to plug into the wall!) and that some apps have more capabilities than what we use them for.  We looked at the suggested age ratings for various applications and games and the importance of checking our settings with a trusted adult to ensure we remain private and safe.

    We looked at what was important to us, at what mattered in life. The key messages were:

    •What is important to you matters.

    •What is important to you should be respected by others.

    •No-one has the right to make what is important to you seem bad or unimportant.

    •It is our responsibility to respect the views of others, even if they are different to ours.

  • Number Day in Class 4

    On Friday, Class 4 came dressed to impress in their numbered outfits. In English, they were exploring the character of Puck from a Midsummer Night’s Dream. One of Puck’s lines is that he would ‘circle the Earth in forty minutes’ giving us the chance to think about how fast he would have to travel in that time.

    We also tried becoming Puck, thinking about what he would be thinking, and how we would perform that. In our numbered outfits, we certainly took on the colourful, cheeky playfulness that comes with this character.

  • Moon Poems and Bikeability Success

    Class 4 have been learning how to use similes, metaphors and personification in their writing, then using these to create poems about the moon. We hope you enjoy these poems.

    Bikeability Success

    Y6 have also been completing their Bikeability training. The first session was all about basic skills, controlling the bike and how to ride safely.

    Part 2 saw the children take to the road, applying the skills learned on the playground in Session 1 in a live traffic situation.

    We are pleased to report that all the children successfully passed Level 2. Well done Year 6.

  • A Visit to Eyam

    To complement and add to our learning about the Plague of 1665/66 we visited the village of Eyam, world famous for the approach it took to stop the spread of the plague to local villages.

    We started by visiting Museum, on the trail of the people who were affected. First, we looked at an image of London depicting the city in 1665. Some of dressed up, while other went on the hunt for the Latin name of the Black Rat.

    We learned about how the villagers tried to combat the plague; went hunting for infected fleas in the chest of fabric; looked for who were the first and last to die in the village and came face to face with the Plague Doctor and a plague victim.

    In the afternoon, we explored the village itself, using the Ordnance Survey map to guide us from key point to key point. We climbed the hill above the village, then headed down to Lydgate and the graves located there. After, this we headed out to the Boundary Stone, where the villagers put money in holes filled with vinegar in order to pay for goods. then went to see the grave of the wife of William Mompesson (Catherine) was buried, and then finally the plague cottages on Church Street. At each point we ensured that our maps were orientated the correct way, and identified where we needed to head to next.

    We had a great day, and have learned more about this fascinating local village.

  • Shelter Building in Forest School

    Guest editors: Bridie and Melissa

    It was a drizzly, wet morning when Year 5 set out for Forest Schools today. But that did not deter them from looking forward to and taking part in this week’s activities.

    First, working in groups, we tied a knot around tree, this was called a Timber Hitch; then we learned how to tie a Bowline knot. After this we swathed a tarpaulin over the rope to make a shelter and secured it to the ground with camping hooks, using a mallet.

    The shelters were great for eating our biscuit snacks!

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