Thurlstone Primary School - Class 4

Welcome to  THE SMARTIES page!

Smarties Banner

Yes that what we've called ourselves...why? Because we're all BRIGHT and we're all DIFFERENT! of course!!

And what a very excellent page it is!!

Want to know...

  • what your child has been up to?
  • what's coming your way this term?
  • how you can support your child's school work at home?

Well this is where you can find out, and much more besides.

 

Class News

There's always lots going on in class 4! Read on to find out!

Duncan - our class 4 Alan the alien

LEFT: Duncan, our class mascot.

RIGHT: This is Alan the alien - he likes to spend the night with the lovely humans in class 4!

 

SATs WEEK

Not long now til SATs! You can see the timetable on the general information page, but you need to read on here to find out what the children will be doing in the afternoons!

I intend to get your children out in the fresh air after their tests, allowing them to relax and unwind. We are going to do some gardening!!

Please could you send your child to school with a bag of clothes which can be 'got mucky'?

We'll be making a start on re-vamping the garden area. On Wednesday 14th May there is only one test in the morning, so after play we're going to walk up to the Windmill Nursey to have a look around and see what we can buy that will attract wildlife; in particular butterflies.

 

LOVELY PICS OF OUR CLASSROOM DISPLAYS

nature table feelings display
Class 4's Nature Table Our Feelings Monsters
pirate display dt display
Pirate Week display DT moving buggies
writing display stained glass window display
Reading display R.E stained glass windows
persuasive letter display Duncan class mascot
What a good letter looks like! Duncan looking dapper in Thurlstone blue!

 

KINGSWOOD 2007

We had a great time again! The children were well behaved and thoroughly enjoyed all the activities.

Visit the News and events page to see more photos!

 

Thurlstone Trail with John Hislop and Penistone Partnership

Class four have finished working with local historian John Hislop on the Thurlstone Trail map - you may have seen our picture in the Chronicle! The map itself is fantastic. The children worked really hard and produced super sketches and poems. It is on display in school so don't miss it!

thurlstone class 4 Thurlstone
The children found out lots about the history of local buildings.

We got invited in to the house of one of our older friends from the village.

Mrs Hislop told us all about Nicholas Saunderson.

Thurlstone bridge

 

Mr Hislop telling the children all about Thurlstone bridge. Did you know it used to be a little hump-backed bridge and if you look underneath you can still see it?

old inn

This is the mounting block outside what used to be an Inn/hostelry on the outskirts of Thurlstone. Travellers saw this as a safe-haven from highwaymen!

an old building

 

The beams in this building are over 700 years old! That's even older than me!

 

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What's on this summer term?

It's very busy one what with SATs tests just round the corner!

  • They will also be investigating separating materials and changing state.
  • In literacy the children will be learning about writing persuasive texts, discussion texts and narrative stories.
  • The children will be investigating Rounds in music.
  • the children will be finding out about how Muslims worship.
  • In ICT the children will be investigating uses for spreadsheets.
  • In P.E the children will continue to work on Country Dancing and will be starting an athletics theme as well.
  • Children will be exploring missdorothy.com with Mrs Ward - they will be learning about taking and managing risks.
sats mad scientist

Not long now!

 

'I can do science me!'
   

Barnsley Biodiversity Trust

Colin Graham has been in to talk to us about the wide variey of natural habitats that exist in the Barnsley area. He also told us lots about bird and mammal species that are endangered or under threat. He has offered to help us develop our wild life garden so class four have put together an action plan and question we'd like answered. We've called ourselves the T BAGS! Thurlstone Biodiversity Action Group.

Watch this space for more information about our developing plans!

 

ROBOLAB

We have been the lucky recipiants of 15 Lego robots and 10 rather swish laptops! We've had them on loan for two weeks and have really enjoyed programming them to do lots of clever things. This was part of a computer control project and all the children had a great time despite technological hitches!

The laptops came in extremely handy in other curriculum areas too.

Here's some photos!

lego robot

 

parking the robot

lego robot and girl

The LEGO BEAST!

lego robot

 

The children had to programme their robot to park in a mini car

parking space.

children and laptops

Not a bad effort - better than my real life parking!

 

boys and robots

robot and boy

Very industrious looking aren't they?

children and robots

It's harder than it looks!

lego challenge

 

lego arena

The children had to programme their robots to use their touch bumper sensors to get round an arena.

children and robots

They all coped really well with the challenges and the technical hitches that came as part of the package!

     

 

KELHAM ISLAND VISIT

 

Below are some pictures taken on our recent Kelham Island visit - we all had a fab time and learned a huge amount about the life of children in Victorian Sheffield. The kids dressed up, and even bought along authenic (well almost) Victoian dinners!

Please feel free to come and have a look at our Victorian's display!

NO CHILDREN WERE HARMED IN THE TAKING OF THESE PHOTO'S!(HONEST)

 
 

child with chalk board

 

The children used slate boards and pens to practice Copperplate writing.

 

group of boys

 

Butter wouldn't melt.....!

group of boys

"We'll have none of that face pulling my lad!"

boys grinding

These two ragamuffins are grinding metal bars.

child lifting crucible

The children used victorian tools to lift crucibles - right heavy they were!

victorian teacher

Oh dear - the cane for this grubby child - after all 'cleanliness is next to godliness'.

 

girl grinding

children in victorian class

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

What can I say!

What a shameful bunch!

child in victorian class

"Bow your head in shame boy!"

 

children in victorian class

That'll teach them to slouch and fiddle!

beating rug

These servants have been put to work in Bannerdale Hall.

children buffing

More raggamuffins grinding....

children buffing

....and buffing!

children in victorian house

Emptying slops - mmmm everyones favourate job!

child playing

Only a brief moment to play before back to work!

   

Good behaviour

The children will be awarded stickers and certificates if they are spotted doing any of the following:

  • being warm and welcoming
  • helping someone to calm down
  • being brave or confronting a worry or fear (not in the slaying a dragon kind of way!!)
  • solving problems - using their initiative

Encouraging these social skills at home will support our work here in school!

The children have also been encouraged to nominate people for Friendship Tokens. If anyone gets three tokens, they get a mini-certificate. It's all part of our mission to develop the children's understanding of what being a good friend means!

All this and the usual spelling, times tables work and everything else...we are one busy class!

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WHOLE SCHOOL CURRICULUM TARGETS

The Whole School Literacy and Numeracy targets have now changed. The Literacy target is now focused on spelling, whereas the numeracy target is now focused on written methods of division . There are new displays in class so please feel free to come and have a look!

Here's one of them!

 

   
display display
Literacy display Numeracy display

 

 

 

 

 

Ways you can help support work done in school

Here are a few simple things you can do to help out:

  • When your child is reading, encourage them to read out loud with plenty of expression in their voices. This will help with drama work.
  • Solving multi-step word problems in numeracy is always tricky. Give your child some money problems to solve.
  • Encourage your child to be creative with their literacy homework - the new green books help with that!
  • Please feel free to write in your child's homework diary...your comments will be much valued and I'll do may best to reply as soon as possible! The diaries need to be in every Thursday.
  • Try to get your child to practice their times table as often as possible...keep it practical though...get your child to make some simple matching games.

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Just a reminder

Pumps and bag

Please could you ensure you have a pair of indoor shoes and a bag to keep them in? There are still some of you that don't have indoor shoes and you walk mud into school on a regular basis! So please...get some in door shoes!!

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Contact us

If you have any specific queries about class four goings-on, please feel free to come in and talk to Mrs Gibbins.

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Big writing

Big Writing - "wow" words display

The children are making fantastic progress with their writing.

Big Writing focuses on the principle that good quality writing contains high standards in what is known as V.C.O.P or vocab, connectives, sentence openers and punctuation.

Come in to school and see our displays!

 

 

 

Kingswood 2006

What a totally brilliant time we had! The weather was great and the activities we did were fantastic.

The children all behaved brilliantly and were a pleasure to spend time with!

Check out the photos...there's more to follow!

 

children

We had lunch in a field on the way up!

GROUP

BIRTHDAY

The birthday girl eagerly awaits the cutting of the cake.

HIGH ROPES

The Leap of Faith was really scary!

highropes

We all had a go and deserve lots of Bravery stickers!

 

kids

leap of faith

 

spoon on nose

The boys are nervously awaiting their turn to experience Zip Wire The scary Leap of Faith! Mmmm not sure what activity this was!

 

fencing

fencing

"I challenge you to a duel"

 

group

archery archwry archery
archery

 

disco

 

disco

Oooh that was a close miss! Groovy girls! Mmmmm....not sure what to say about this one!
disco

 

Disco fun! Don't know where we got the energy!

resevior

 

Very wet girls!

girls and boat

mr c

"Just go in up to waist...."

 

canoe group

 

We had completely brilliant and very wet fun canoeing.

What a fine figure of a man!!

resevoir
group

Mr Paul Rolinson was our leader for this activity...he sure knows his stuff and made us all laugh.

KINGSWOOD IS A GREAT ACTIVITY CENTRE! W'LL BE THERE AGAIN NEXT YEAR!!!