This term we started with poetry, reading 'A River'. We investigated the tools used in poetry, with a goal of writing our own poems, describing the journey of something from nature.

We moved on to looking at persuasive writing, specifically: letters. We linked this to our work on waterways and made a goal of writing our own letters to persuade people to help recycle.

After this we read 'Monster Slayer', which is a version of the story of Beowulf. We investigated the description of monsters and heroes, and how they interact. We ended by writing our own meeting between a monster and hero. 

We are reading 'Interview with a Tiger' at the moment. This is a really fun book which informs us lots about animals, as though the animals can talk and be interviewed! So far, we have worked as a team to write our own interview with a Cassowary, which we saw at the zoo. And our final ever independent write in year 4 will be an interview with any animal we choose!

After reading 'A River', we investigated the writing tools used in poetry. Then, we created our own poems about the journey of a river. As we've been learning about the water cycle, some of us included some scientific and geographic links in our writing. For example, we know rivers often have a source high in the mountains, and that rivers flow towards the sea, so many of us included these facts. 

After our poetry we read a persuasive letter by the RSPB, asking people to join them in their mission to help our bird wildlife. We continued studying waterways of the UK, and found out about pollution in our waterways, so we decided to write letters to inform people and persuade them to do their part in reducing pollution. Please read our letters and do your part to help.

Year 4 have worked hard to make some beautiful models of rivers - some included collage skills we learnt about in art, others included bridges over their rivers, labelled different countries or cities that rivers went through, and found out interesting facts about the rivers.

We went to the zoo! When we were there we thought about how we group, or 'classify', animals. Looking at their characteristics, we decided whether the animals we saw belonged to the mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, or fish. A highlight was definitely going across the wobbly bridge before the Lemur talk! At our talk about Lemurs, we found out that they tell animals to go away by using a smell, which they waft using their tails. During the day we also found out about how endangered lots of animals are, and why conservation is so important.

We had an amazing time on our residential at Warren Barn. We got to do den building, orienteering, fire lighting, and bug hunting! 

Year 4 spent the afternoon working with some Engineers. They told us about their work, and we got to have a go at some of the things they do in their jobs! We examined some bridges and played spot the defect (a defect is something that is wrong with a bridge), and then worked in teams to design and build our own bridges, fitting a design brief and using limited resources. 

We needed to design a bridge to allow a donkey to cross a river. The bridge had to span 300mm, and each team could only use 25 paper straws, 2m of masking tape, and 1 piece of A3 card.

The teams worked really hard, and ALL teams managed to build a bridge to successfully span the entire gap holding the donkey. We added an extra challenge level by putting weights onto the bridges and seeing which bridge could hold the most weight. The Beaver team and Arctic Fox team both held the donkey, Wolves team held the donkey + 100g, Elephant team held the donkey + 300g, and the Whale team bridge managed to hold the donkey + 400g!