Welcome to Neptune 

      Year Three and Four

Miss Leslie - Teacher

Mrs Pearce -TA

Mrs Yaldiz - TA

We had a super time at Wessex Water treatment facility at Sutton Bingham reservoir today. We were so lucky to have the sun on our backs all day; despite it being a little chilly, the children excelled themselves and were impeccably behaved throughout. 

We started our day learning all about the water cycle, absorbing new vocabulary along the way. Can you tell your parent what condensation or precipitation means? 

We then moved down to the reservoir edge to watch Sam measure the turbidity of the water using a Secchi disk. Can you remember what the word 'turbid' meant? 

Next, it was our turn to measure the turbidity for ourselves! 

Once we had made our measurements, it was time to clean the water! We used a sieve to collect the bigger pieces of debris, then cotton wool and sand to filter out the smaller particles. We were amazed to see the difference in colour! We then took another measurement using a Secchi disk; our results were fascinating! 

Investigations complete, it was time to explore the draw off bridge. This was a little scary, so much water flowing beneath us! It was like looking into a giant plughole!

Our final stop before lunch, was a special tour around the treatment works. Sam showed us the special suits that the scientists have to wear if there is chemical leak. Can you remember any of the names of the chemicals used during the process of cleaning our water?

Scientist Mark showed us his laboratory, he was checking the water for impurities. 

We couldn't believe the amount of energy it takes to clean our water. We came up with some ingenious ways of saving water, we will certainly be turning the tap off when we are brushing our teeth from now on!

We finished the day, taking a walk along the edge of the reservoir. We thought about all the different people who use it and what a valuable resource water is to us. 

A huge thank you to Sam from Wessex Water for hosting us - we hope to return soon!

Merry Christmas! 

What a terrifically wonderful term we have had! The children have worked tremendously hard and have relished every learning opportunity. We have acquired many new skills including, completing our swimming sessions, creating beautiful pieces of artwork and using increasingly challenging punctuation in our writing; just to name a few! 

Thank you to all those who came to watch our Christmas Nativity, we absolutely loved performing it and singing our hearts out! 

We have enjoyed reading our fabulous stories to each other this week and sharing our favourite piece of work that we have done. We are incredibly proud of our achievements!

The children have enjoyed learning all about Ancient Civilisations during our History lessons. We finished our topic by mummifying apples! We can't wait to uncover them after Christmas! 

We worked really hard to create these beautiful Christmas decorations! 

The children were fascinated by the collection of skulls Deon brought in to share with them today. They looked at the adaptations of the different animals teeth and what that meant they would eat. Can you remember the names of the different types of teeth?

A big thank you to Deon for sharing his endless knowledge and answering all our questions! 

We started the day by joining a special webinar directed by a marine biologist. We learnt so many interesting facts about the ocean and how different scientists research, is helping us to understand how we look after this precious resource. We had no idea that a leatherback turtle could dive to over 1000m! We are going to use all of our new found knowledge to inform our persuasive piece of writing this week. 

We have worn odd socks to celebrate National Anti Bullying week. Thank you for all your kind donations. 

Remembrance Day celebration

This week, the children have been reflecting on the significance of Remembrance Day and the symbolic meaning of the poppy. They have shown great maturity and compassion throughout these discussions, showing respect and enthusiasm for learning about historical conflict. 

These discussions fuelled our writing within English, the children produced fantastic poems celebrating the lives of soldiers and the meaning of wearing a poppy in their memory. 

We were incredibly proud of the quality of writing of all the children. A collection were shared during our Remembrance service. Well done to those children who read so eloquently. 

We have completed our unit of work around Ancient Sumer and have moved on to exploring the Ancient Egyptians. The children have discovered that they built structures called nilometers to measure water levels and predict flooding. Moving forward, the children will be carrying out their own mumification of an apple - watch this space! 

Within our maths lessons, we have been practising column calculations and then using the inverse operation to check our accuracy. This has proved tricky! Well done to all of the children for sticking at it and having a go! True resilience on show! We will keep practising over the coming weeks. Next week we are looking at multiplication and division. Can you create a reasoning question using multiplication or division at home to use in our lesson? 

Our classroom was filled with the sound of singing during Computing this week! We are learning how to record audio using Audacity. During this topic we will create and edit own Podcast about a subject we are passionate about, we can't wait to share them with you! 

We are exploring the work of artists Pierre-Yves Riveau and Ileana Hunter, whose technique of shading is used to create depth and shadow in their pictures. We used different pencils to experiment creating tone and texture. We focussed on our own eye using a mirror to ensure we could capture all of the detail. 

We are practicing our Times Tables daily in class and appreciate any time spent practicing at home on TT Rockstars. We are noticing huge improvements in the children's speed and accuracy when completing their Soundcheck, so thank you for your continued support.

We will be celebrating Protect Our Planet Day on Tuesday 12th November, starting with a webinar about ocean life, led by a Marine Biologist. This will feed into our English lessons, where we will be looking at how to write persuasively. We look forward to sharing some of our work with you.  

Sharing our knowledge of what we have learnt in Science so far this term. 

Our Thankfulness tree. Each child has described what they are most thankful for in their lives.

We have been busy creating beautiful pieces of artwork ready for Church this afternoon, we look forward to celebrating Harvest with you all.

What an enthusiastic start to the year we have had! The children have settled well into their new classes, showing a desire to learn and always giving 100% - well done! 

An electrifying start to the year for Year 4 

We've filled our afternoons with colour!

Sharing our love of reading 

Keeping our minds sharp with daily Times Table tests!

Please encourage your child to log in to their TTRockstars account, just five minutes a day will really make a difference! Each child has been sent home with log in details, if you have not received this, please talk to a member of staff. 

We look forward to the next half term of learning; developing new skills and working in collaboration with our peers. 

Here are some of the exciting topics we will cover...

During Maths, we will be focusing on Place Value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. 

We are going to delve into the past and explore the world of ancient civilisations in History. 

Year 4 are focusing on Electricity in Science, building circuits, investigating how electricity travels. 

Year 3 will be exploring the human body and the nutrients that are held within our food. We would love you to cook a nutritionally balanced meal with your child, please share the photos with us.

Our PE lessons will take us on a journey through dance, starting with a Roman jig!

Hope you had a fantastically AWESOME Summer!

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow. The term and year promises to be an exciting adventure!

PE - is on a Monday afternoon. Please remember to wear black shorts, red PE t-shirt, trainers and red hooded top, if needed.

Spellings - will be given out on a Wednesday and tested on the  subsequent Monday. Therefore please ensure the blue spelling book is returned each week on the Monday.  

Reading - as much as possible at home, at least three times a week. We encourage children to read books from home or alternatively they can take books from school.