Hello year 4,

I hope you have all had a restful and enjoyable half term and managed to step away from your devices and go on some outdoor adventures with your family. Over the next two weeks the timetable will look slightly different, this is due to the fact we have lots of school events including ‘No Screen Day’ this Wednesday, and World Book Day and our National Gallery Tour the following week. To help guide you through the week I have included the timetable below and have put the activities in order for each day rather than in subjects. This should help you all see what needs to be done each day.

No Screen Day: This Wednesday we have ‘No Screen Day’. We have organised all the activities that day so you don’t need a screen to complete them. You have got an outdoors maths lesson exploring fraction walls. It is important that you have downloaded any relevant information on Tuesday, so you won’t need to do it on Wednesday. You will also need to have completed Day 1 of our topic on Tuesday in order to be able to complete Day 2 on Wednesday. We will still be doing zoom on the Wednesday, but this should be the only contact you have with a screen all day. It would be lovely to see any photos of the activities you do that day.

I look forward to seeing you on zoom.

Mr Mackriell

Monday 22 nd February

ICT

Keep working your way through the BBC Bitesize Dance Mat challenges to improve your touch-typing skills. This is the perfect time for developing a fast-typing pace to support all your fantastic work in class. Follow this link for BBC Dance Mats. Over this term we will be giving you some extra ICT time to focus on using these skills to publish your best work from the week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zf2f9j6/articles/z3c6tfr

Reading Activity – see Monday comprehensions on our class page. Choose the comprehension task appropriate for you.

Tuesday 23 rd February

Art/Topic

This is a two-day activity. Today is the planning day, tomorrow (no screens day) is the creating day. You can choose between two paintings.

Choice 1 : Look at this painting by an Austrian artist called Gustav Klimt and read about the symbolism in his painting called The Tree of Life.

Think about how you could create your own ‘Tree of Life’ – you could use buttons, small scraps of material, newspaper or tissue paper to make a 3D tree.

Each main branch could symbolise something in your life that has already taken place or something you hope will happen. Think carefully about how you could express different events or people who are important to you. Today, collect together all your materials and sketch your tree on scrap paper.

Choice 2

Look carefully at this painting by Henri Rousseau. It was created around the same time as Klimt’s painting above. Think about how you could recreate this jungle scene using natural resources from your garden or collected on a walk. You could combine your natural treasures with a painted or tissue paper background. Note there are some flashes of bright colour in the painting. How will you create the blue, the red and the bright white?

Plan your picture today – go for a walk or hunt in your garden, collect any other materials you want to use and sketch your picture on scrap paper. You might also want to collect some sticks for Wednesday’s Stick Investigation.

PE:

Wednesday 24 th February:

Art project

Use the materials and ideas you gathered yesterday, get going on creating your own piece of artwork. I look forward to seeing them later this week.

Outdoor Learning:

Thursday 25 th February

ICT

To enable you to put your dance mat touch-typing skills to good use, I would like you to choose one piece of written work that you are especially proud of and type it up. Please email it to homelearning3and4@cds.school along with today’s Maths.

Music

The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky – Russian Dance

Let the music of Tchaikovsky and the story of The Nutcracker inspire you to write a short description of the scene of the Russian Dance.

First of all, watch the below video to find out as much information as you can about the piece of music.

CBBC - Ten Pieces, The Nutcracker - Waltz of the Flowers and Russian Dance by Tchaikovsky: An exciting introduction

Now watch the full performance of the Russian Dance:

CBBC - Ten Pieces, Russian Dance from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky: The full performance

Answer the following questions:

How fast or slow is the music?

How many beats per bar? (listen to the description in the video)

Use two adjectives to describe the music.

What is the dynamic? Is the music quiet or loud? Does it change?

The music makes me feel…

Which characters are in this scene? (Think about the characters the man describes in the video)

Using the ideas you have put together, write one paragraph to describe what is going on during this piece of music.

Finally, listen to the piece of music again. We know that it is two beats per bar. With an adult clap the beat of the music.

What’s the difference between beat and rhythm?

If you want a reminder then have a look at this video to help you:

(1) Music Lesson: Beat vs Rhythm - Sing! Step! Grow! - YouTube

Listen to the Russian Dance, one more time. This time can you clap the rhythm of the piece.

On Friday, you will be using the Rhythm of the music to create your own basketball/ball throwing routine using the Russian Dance.

Friday 27 th February

Science:

Today we will start our zoom by looking at your results from the Big Birdwatch and I will be sharing the final class results from the website.

While we are home learning, we are going to look at the Wetlands Trust resources to support our learning. Wetlands are home to some amazing animals. These activities will introduce you to some of these incredible creatures.

Download the Wetland Wildlife Cards and print them out.

Warm Up:

• Take either all of the wetland wildlife cards or a selection of the cards.

• Lie them down with the picture side face up.

Which animals can you name?

• Don’t worry if you don’t know the names of all of the animals at this stage. You can simply turn over the remaining cards to reveal their names.

• Place the cards picture side up again. Can you sort them into different groups? For example: Animals that fly or swim or have wings. There is no right answer.

Main Activity: Once you have completed the warmup choose a challenge from below. Organise your cards into the relevant groups and label each group with the animal type, then take a picture of your groups and send it in to be marked.

If you can’t print the pictures then write each animal group as a subheading, then either list the animals or draw pictures of the animals that fit into each group.

For example:

Birds:

Grey Heron

Kingfisher

LO: Can I classify living things? Friday 26th February 2021

Mild: Step One - Sort your animals into vertebrate and invertebrate. Use the keywords below to help you.

Step Two - Take a picture of your groups and send it into be marked.

Spicy: Step One – Complete the mild challenge.

Step Two– Using the Spicy group descriptions, organise and label your animals cards into each group. Make sure you read each description thoroughly and check each picture and animal description to see which group they fit into. Step Three – Take a picture of your groups and send it into be marked.

Hot: Step One – Complete the Mild challenge.

Step Two – Complete the Spicy challenge.

Step Three – Using the different group descriptions, organise and label your animals cards into each group. Make sure you read each description thoroughly and check each picture and animal description to see which group they fit into.

Step Four – Take a picture of your groups and send it in to be marked.

Mild Keywords:

Key word: VERTEBRATE

An animal that has a backbone. Vertebrates include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Key word: INVERTEBRATE

An animal that doesn’t have a backbone. They either have a soft body, like worms and jellyfish, or a hard outer casing covering their body, like spiders and crabs.

Spicy Group Descriptions:

Hot Group Descriptions:

PE: Today we are going to continue the work we did on rhythm using The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky – Russian Dance.

Step One - First remind yourself of the piece of music.

CBBC - Ten Pieces, Russian Dance from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky: The full performance

Step Two – Grab a ball, preferably a basketball. Listen to the music again. Listen to the beat, can you clap the beat. Now can you either bounce or throw your ball to the beat.

Step Three – Watch this video of a class in America who have created their own ball sequence in response to the rhythm of the music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL2zuOx24GM

Step Four – Answer the following questions:

1. Do the children bounce the ball on every beat?

2. Do they use different basketball skills to create their sequence? For Example: Bouncing the ball from one hand to another or rolling the ball around their body.

Write down all the different aspects of the children’s sequences.

3. How have they used the music to decide on what kind of movement they might do? For example: They bounce the ball on the bouncy bit of the music.

Step Five – It is now your chance to create your own sequence using this piece of music. Make sure you rehearse your sequence lots of times until you are happy with it, you may film it and send it in for us to watch. Good Luck.