Rufford Park Primary School

Weekly Update-29/4/22

Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog

Hello everyone,

We've had another excellent week. This week we have continued our new science topic called Forces and Magnets. We have been focusing on friction, what it is, how it occurs, where it occurs and how it can be  really useful. We conducted an investigation to find out how much friction would occur between car tyres and the different materials that it was driving along. For this we used toy cars, a launching ramp, five different types of surfaces for the car to move along and we also used rulers to accurately measure the distance that the car had moved along each different surface. The children understood that if the car went further, that is because there was less friction being created and they also knew that the less distance the car travelled, that meant that more friction was being created between the tyres and the material it is moving along. We discussed how we would make sure it was a fair in order to produce accurate results. The children absolutely loved the practical investigation and it was fantastic to see that all the groups achieved incredibly similar results, which shows how accurately they conducted the investigation. We then discussed the features of those surfaces and how that contributed towards creating less or more friction. Here are some images of the children conducting their investigation.

We have also been continuing our work with decimals, focusing on dividing by 10 and 100 and converting decimals into fractions and vice versa. They've all been working extremely hard and we have done a lot of practise on place value grids to really help them understand which way the digits are moving, by how many places and most importantly, what those digits are now worth after they have moved.. It's been so lovely to see children becoming increasingly confident with this method and using it independently for their work. Here we have a member of the class doing 529 divided by 100 and showing the movement of the digits accurately.

We have continued our writing work around The Story of Tutankhamun by Patricia Cleveland-Peck. The children are absolutely loving it and it's great to see such enthusiasm, which then translates into some super written work, such as the non-chronological reports that we have been working on this week. We also had a lesson, which revolved around distinguishing between facts and opinions and the final part of the lesson revolved around the class deciding whether they thought Tutankhamun died due to illness, by accident or through murder. Once they decided which category they wanted to be a part of, they had to discuss why they thought that and argue their case to the rest of the class. It was an excellent discussion, and they shared some super opinions with each other. Nobody thought it was an accident, they thought it was either murder or illness.

That's all for now :)

Mr Kyriacou :)

Weekly Update-22/4/22

Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog

Hello everyone,

We've had a lovely first week back. The children have all come back with lots of enthusiasm and ready to learn. We have started our new topic, which is about Ancient Egypt. The children became archaeologists for a day and were searching for and discovering ancient Egyptian artefacts that were around the school grounds. We discussed what it means to be an archaeologist, what primary and secondary sources are, what tools they use to dig with and why. They absolutely loved being archaeologists and were fascinated with what they found. These artefacts included: a mummy, a sarcophagus, canopic jars, wall paintings, scarab beetles and an ankh. They made predictions in groups about what these artefacts were for, we had a fantastic class discussion about them and then we revealed what these artefacts were actually for.

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We have also started our guided reading book, There's a Pharaoh in our Bath by Jeremy Strong. As part of our writing, we are also reading The Story of Tutankhamun.

Some of the children have also been getting creative over the holiday time and they have created some lovely book in a box pieces for their favourite books.

That's all for now,

Mr Kyriacou :) 

Weekly Update-1/4/22

Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog

Hello everyone,

This week the children have been presenting their fantastic Fairtrade projects. To find out more about their projects and see some lovely images of them presenting them, please click on the link below.

https://www.ruffordparkprimary.org.uk/classes/year4beech/y4-fairtrade-projects 

The children have also been working on writing their letters to the instructors at Nell Bank to say thank you for the great experience that they had and to tell them which activity they enjoyed the most. They have edited them, typed them up and they are ready to be posted to Dave and Libby and Nell Bank.

Enjoy your holiday time and stay safe :)

Mr Kyriacou