Year 4 welcomed a monk ‘from another time’ (around 793AD to be precise) to join the class today for a Q & A session. The class were incredibly respectful to ‘Brother Brian’ who told them all about the Vikings raid on the Lindisfarne monastery. The class will be using the information they gathered to create their own diary of a monk.

4GM learnt how to row in an imaginary Viking long ship today. Mrs Stanners beat a drum and they rowed to the rhythm in time. The class thought very hard about which parts of their body would begin to hurt if you were had to row for a very long time. They came to the conclusion that being a Viking – rowing on a long boat – would be incredibly hard work.

Year 4 have been creating their own masterpieces inspired by the Artist Vincent Van Gogh. We have made a foreground (observational drawing of West Earlham Junior School), Middle ground (using pastels and chalks to draw landmarks of the Norwich skyline) and lastly, a painted background of a starry night, inspired by galaxies. Here is our work in progress. The next stage is to put them all together.

We have continued with our project and in this session we learnt how to make seed bombs that we are going to explode on the field in our April session. We also selected a Strawberry tree as our latest addition to our tree planting area. Whilst the Strawberry tree will bear fruits that are edible they are best preserved and turned into jam rather than being eaten freshly like more common strawberries.

We had another successful Patron of Reading awards and the recipients enjoyed being celebrated and being presented with their well deserved book prizes.

Year 4 have been learning about Rivers and created their own model river that were labelled to show each part of the river. The class tested how well their rivers flowed using water outside in our school garden and explained to their peers why water flows downstream to the river mouth.

This week, year 4 learnt how to roast a chicken, Quorn and make bread rolls. They measured out all of the ingredients and worked in small teams to mix and knead the dough. The chicken was prepared and in trays and included fresh rosemary from our school garden, we also added fresh salad. After tasting the chicken and Quorn in a roll, we cleaned our area and even got involved with the washing up.

Year 4 have made their own unique artworks this week inspired by the Lewis Chessmen. The children studied the 2000 year old chess pieces by making observational drawings, handling replicas and researching the artefacts. The class then carved their own Lewis Chessmen design into soap which involved careful consideration and the use of a template they had prepared. In the next Art lesson the children sculpted their pieces out of airdry clay and learnt techniques such as joining clay, rolling, pinching using a variety of clay tools. The results look fantastic!