Parents and Carers

Sometimes we all need someone to turn to for advice and support. We're glad to help and are happy for you to talk to us. In addition to what we can offer, please click on the following link where you will find information about organisations that you might find useful. Thank you. 

Zoom

Mr Mac and Miss Smith are running Zoom lessons throughout the week, covering a range of learning across the curriculum. If you haven’t already registered and would like to join in, please ask an adult to click on this link and fill out the form. Please remember that when you join the Zoom meeting, it gives you an option to change your name. You must join with your name, so that we know that it is safe to let you into the meeting.
https://forms.gle/8ex6GfXdKYXs3ZxX7

Friday 29^th January 2021

It’s …Friday! 

Well done everybody, there has been so much great work sent to us this week and we couldn’t be prouder of the superb effort that you are all continuing to put in day in and day out. We’ve got a great day for you today. Don’t forget to watch the Celebration Assembly which can be found on YouTube, Learn it with Mapledene’s page.

Let’s start today by celebrating the GREEN ZONES superstars.

 Well done everybody.

In Doodle Maths, our green children are:

Drake, Harley, Tyler, George G, Finley, Alex, Harry, Grace, Lexi, Lujaina, Aidan and Charlie

In Doodle Tables, our green children are:

Will, Drake, Tyler, George G, Harley, Finley, Alex, Fynley, Oliver, Thomas, Grace, Lexi, Lujaina, and Charlie

In Doodle English, our green children are:

Bella, Will, Drake, Tyler, George G, Cohen, Grace, Harry, Lexi, Lujaina, Charlie, Elarna and Oliver.

In Doodle Spell, our green children are:

Will, Drake, Tyler, George G, Finley, Harley, Elarna, Grace, Lexi, Duaa, Oliver, Charlie, Lujaina.

AND…merits for the children that are green in all of their doodles go to:

Drake, Tyler, George G, Lujaina, Grace, Lexi and Charlie

If we have missed anyone please tell us at advice@mapledeneschool.com and we will rectify it as soon as possible!

So here’s a timetable for today:

Assembly

Find it on YouTube, Learn it with Mapledene’s page.

Who are our shooting stars, merit and Doodle winners this week?

Times tables

Now it’s time to have a go at our times table speed test! We would like you to go onto the following website (as we usually do on a Friday morning):

https://www.timestables.co.uk/speed-test/

Mild challenge: 1, 2, 5 and 10 x tables

Medium challenge: 3, 4, 6 and 8 x tables

Hot challenge: 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 x tables

When you feel ready, remember to do the times table check and don’t forget to make a note of your score. Was it better than last time?

After all that hard work, give yourself a pat on the back and reward yourself by playing one or two of the times table games. They are fun and they will really help to get those tricky tables into your head.

Spelling

Have you been practising your spellings?

We hope so. Join us on Zoom for a spelling dictation and test yourself to see if you can get them all right.

When you finish open the power-point below and check to see if you were successful.

You can also see if you got all the other words right too and if you remembered all the right punctuation.

Can’t join us for Zoom? Don’t panic, just ask someone to open the power-point and read out the sentences to you.

Here are this week’s spellings. They are also on Doodle for you to practise. If you look at them once a day then you will definitely get them all right next week.

Group 1, this week’s words are:

Group 2, this week’s words are:

English

If you haven’t managed to finish your Howard Carter Diary yet, please use some time before lunch to finish this.

Art

This afternoon, the children in school will be creating their own masks like the one found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. We would like you to have a go at making or drawing your own too.

Below you will find a tutorial for how to draw Tutankhamun but if you want to, you could make a 3d version using papier mâché or use a photo of yourself and add a headdress and make up or you could BE the artwork and turn yourself into Tutankhamun. As always, we look forward to seeing your finished creations.

How to draw Tutankhamun (Egyptian Pharaoh)

ICT

Coding.

Last week George Green didn’t spend 30 minutes coding… he spent over 2 hours and came up with a cartoon masterpiece. Click on the link below to see what he created.

https://studio.code.org/c/1291495331

Once you have watched this hilarious story, click on the button that says make my own and have a go at making one that is all your own work.

When you finish, copy the link and get someone to email us your creations.

Now have a great weekend, you've earned it.

Miss Smith and Mr Mac

Thursday 28th January 2021

Here’s today’s exciting timetable:

Maths

Starter: can you fill in the grid again today and see if you can do it even faster than yesterday?

And now, for the main part of today’s lesson, we are going to be doing some really tricky problem solving involving multiplication.

In the questions that we have set for today, we’ve given you the answers. You’re welcome. But somehow we’ve missed off part of the question...

Watch Mr Mac explain how he would solve the answers and then have a go for yourself. Can you find the missing digits to get the correct answers?

Reading

Today we are going to be using the text about Howard Carter to answer the following questions:

Writing

This morning, we are going to write a diary entry from the perspective of Howard Carter as he entered Tutankhamun’s tomb for the first time.

Throughout this piece of writing, you will be Howard Carter, so we expect to see lots of personal pronouns like I, we, me and us. We want to see:

• Fronted adverbials
• Prepositions
• Expanded noun phrases
• Pronouns

Here is an example of a diary entry below:

If you wish, you can print out this writing frame to write your diary entry onto. We’d suggest writing a draft onto paper first, and then writing it up in best, so that you can create something merit-worthy that you are really proud of.

Of course, if you don’t have a printer, you don’t need to print it off. You can still write a first draft and then write up in best on lined paper! You could even make it look old and authentic by crumpling the edges and staining the pages.

We look forward to reading about some of your adventures.

PE

Time to get active. Are you feeling jumpy? Well we certainly hope so. Have a look at the presentation below and exercise your whole body by jumping in lots of different ways. Make sure you find some space to do the exercises and remember to smile a lot. See if you can get any of your family to join in too. When you've finished you could have a look at some of the cool down cards to think of ideas to help you stretch off after your work out. 

Happy jumping!

Music

I hope you managed to listen to last week’s song and enjoyed singing along and learning the actions? It has become a bit of an Anthem for me during Lockdown and always makes feel more positive about my day.

So first, let’s warm up our bodies with the Urban Strides Warm-Up Moves. We will have a go at this in school when we are all able to be together so it is a good one to learn.

As for last week, please visit

https://www.youngvoices.co.uk/music-room

The access code is YV2021 (Please make sure you use capitals).

The warm-up is at the bottom of the Dance Moves page and is called Urban Strides Interactive. There is a lot of talking at the beginning but you can just skip through this.

Next, I would like you to practice the dance moves and lyrics from last week using the video ‘Power in Me – Breakdown 1’. When you feel confident with this section, move on to ‘Power in Me – Breakdown 2’ to learn the final section where it splits into 2 parts.

For a further challenge, have a look at this video to remind yourself all about how musical rhythms are written down.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/exploring-4-beats-in-a-bar-cgwk2t

Happy Singing Everyone!

Miss Sanders

Wednesday 27th January 2021

Here’s your timetable for today:

Maths

Starter: x table grid.

This can be printed off, drawn out or you can open the Microsoft Word version below and type directly into the document.

This week, we are learning about multiplying using the formal column method. Well done if you were able to complete the questions from yesterday’s lesson – it's always tricky when learning a new skill.

We have different sets of questions for you today. Please choose the set that is the most appropriate for you, depending on how well you got on yesterday.

Set 1 – 2 digit x 1 digit multiplication

Set 2 – 2 digit x 1 digit multiplication and moving on to 3 digit x 1 digit

Set 3 – 3 digit x 1 digit multiplication

Reading

Now, we’ve learned a little bit about Tutankhamun, but today we are going to shift our focus onto the man that discovered his tomb, Howard Carter. Howard Carter was an archaeologist. That means his job was to visit sites of historical interest and dig to see what he could unearth!

Again, there will be questions on this text tomorrow, so for today we need to you practise reading aloud, building up your fluency. If you come across any words that you do not understand, use your strategies to make sense of them in context or look up their meaning.

Grammar

In grammar today, we are going to learn the difference between personal and possessive pronouns.

Once you’ve been through the lesson with Mr Mac, listened or joined in with the tasks and have a good understanding of the difference between personal and possessive pronouns, please log onto Doodle, collect your daily stars and then complete your Added Extras (if you haven’t already done so).

History

Okay, for history today we’d like you to get out your note sheets about Tutankhamun. We’re going to try and uncover a little more about who he was, so please make some notes as you go through.

First up, watch this video all about Tutankhamun and his burial:

Mr Mac has visited Egypt and has some photos to share with you that were taken when he managed to get to see the pyramids up close and personal...his wife even managed to give The Sphinx a little kiss.

Then, have a look through these pictures that have been sent to us very kindly by Mrs Humphries. Back in 2019, Mrs Humphries was fortunate enough to visit a museum in London that held some of the artefacts that came out of the tomb! She took these photos so that you can have a look at some of them too...

ZOOM

Join us on Zoom at 1.30pm if you can, to share the facts that you have learned about this pharaoh.

Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the Zoom meeting.

We would like you to show us what you have learned about Tutankhamun by creating a factfile, poster, a PowerPoint filled with facts or maybe even some artwork too. We can’t wait to see what you create!

Spanish

Mire el video a continuación y únase a LOUDMENTE con la señorita Cook.

Or in English...

Look at the video below and join in LOUDLY with Miss Cook.

Tuesday 26th January 2021

Here’s a timetable for today:

Maths

Well done for your excellent addition and subtraction yesterday everybody! Today we are going to extend our knowledge of formal written methods to include column multiplication too. Here’s a video to explain how it works:

Reading

In reading yesterday, you read all about Tutankhamun. Refresh your memory by reading through the text and then have a go at answering the questions below.

Grammar

In grammar today, we are continuing our work on pronouns. If you can’t remember what a pronoun is, go back to yesterday’s grammar lesson and try to refresh your memory.

If you can remember what a pronoun is, great job. Here’s a worksheet for you to complete:

Science

Starter:

First up, we’d like you to look at the PDF below and try to order the information that has been given to you into the correct boxes. This does not need to be printed out or cut and stuck, unless you’d like to! It’s good enough to just talk through it, ideally to somebody in your household if possible, so that you can remember and explain how sounds travel and how we are able to hear.

Now for today’s learning. For this lesson, you will need, one drinking glass and some water. Please be careful, as we do not want to be responsible for you making a gigantic flood at home! :D

Today, we are going to be exploring different pitches. Can you remember that word from the first week of learning about sound? What is the difference between a high pitch and a low pitch? Well, we’re going to find out.

Start by watching this short video from BBC Bitesize and having a go at the activities below it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zgffr82/articles/z3j3jty

Then, explore creating different pitches like this

Monday 25th January 2021

Good morning, everybody! We hope you had a wonderful, snowy weekend and maybe even had the chance to play outside.

In our learning this week, we are going to continue to focus on pyramids and tombs. But, this week, we’re not just visiting any old tomb. This week is all about a very special Pharoah that you have probably heard of before... his name is Tutankhamun. So, over the course of the week, we want you to collect as many pieces of evidence or facts that tell you something about Tutankhamun as you can. 

Please print off or draw out your own note sheet that looks like this one below: 

Then, fill it out bit-by-bit throughout the week. You might learn something new about this Pharoah in our reading lesson today, or in history on Wednesday. You may even be inspired to do your own research. It’s important that you consider each new piece of evidence and try to piece together a picture of what this boy was like and why he has been remembered throughout history. In history on Wednesday, we will use all of our information collected throughout the week to create a fact file, PowerPoint or poster on this king, so the more information you can gather, the better.

Here's a timetable for today:

Maths 

Today, we are going to be recapping our formal written method for both addition and subtraction. We’d like you to watch the first video on addition and then have a go at completing the questions below. If you're feeling confident, grab a pencil and some scrap paper and join in with the practise examples in the video.

Don't worry if you are struggling with the extension. For this week, it is enough to practise the first 5 subtraction questions set above. Miss Smith and Mr Mac will go over the content covered in the extension video later in the academic year when the children are back in school.

Reading 

In reading today, please read through the text about Tutankhamun. Read aloud, with somebody in your household if possible, using a lollypop stick or a pencil to guide you through every word. Read it again to practise your fluency. 

If you can, join us for a Zoom lesson at 10.30am and we will read it together. We will be sharing the text labelled 2 stars. Remember: you must sign into Zoom with your name. Across school last week, lots of teachers were unable to admit people into Zoom lessons, including our spelling Zoom on Friday. We cannot let you in if we do not recognise the name of your account. To ensure you can join in and we keep each other safe, please use your name when signing into Zoom and joining the meeting.

Once you’ve read the text independently or read along with Mr Mac and Miss Smith on Zoom, you will need to keep the text safe as we will be setting questions tomorrow. Your task today is to fill out some of your information sheet about Tutankhamun. What have you managed to find out about this king? 

Grammar 

In grammar today, we are learning about pronouns! Watch the video and then complete the activities below. 

After watching the video, follow the link to the BBC Bitesize website, where you’ll find another short video (optional), and then two activities and a quiz, which we would like you to complete: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zjsnm39  

We have also added some pronoun Extras onto your Doodle English. 

PE 

In PE today, we want you to be active! This might be going for a walk or playing out in the snow. Can you make a snowman? Or what about a snowdog? If getting outside is difficult, your PE lesson could be joining in with Joe Wicks or another exercise on YouTube. Get up, get active and try and sustain your exercise for at least 30 minutes. You’ll feel much better afterwards! 

PSHE 

Mr Mac and I received some amazing Happiness poems last week. We were so pleased with how many of you had created a really special and personal poem. This week in PSHE, we are going to be learning about the term ‘belonging’. What does it mean to belong? This is especially important at the moment, as we cannot see each other as much as we'd like to, but this does not stop us from being part of something special, together.

Work your way through the PowerPoint below and then create a mind map or use the worksheet to show where you feel that belong and how you show that you belong. For example, in the PowerPoint it talks about how we wear our uniform and attend school to show that we belong. That's not quite true for most of us at the moment, but there will still be lots of different ways in which you show that you are still a big part of our school, like going onto Doodle or Zoom, emailing your hard work work to your teacher or looking through each other's learning on the Hall of Fame. Can you think of any more?

Share your ideas with us at advice@mapledeneschool.com.

Friday 22nd January 2021

We've made it to Friday! Thank you for all the hard work that you have shared with us this week... stay tuned to find out whether your work has made it to this week's Hall of Fame. There will be a celebration assembly today, too, where more of your amazing work will be celebrated!

Here are all of those that have made it into the GREEN zones on Doodle.

In Doodle Maths, our green children are:

Harry, Aidan, Grace, Austin, Duaa, Lujaina, Jacobi, Lexi, Noah, Oliver, Charlie, Elarna, Marshall, Finley, Harley, George G, William, Tyler, Bella, Kai and Tiannah!

In Doodle Tables, our green children are:

Grace, Charlie, Lujaina, Lexi, Noah, Elarna, Oliver, Paris, Amelia, Tyler, Tiannah, Drake, George G and Finley!

In Doodle English, our green children are:

Grace, Lujaina, Charlie, Freddie, Lexi, Oliver, Noah, Elarna, Marshall, Harley, George G, Alex, Drake, Tyler and Tiannah!

In Doodle Spell, our green children are:

Grace, Elarna, Oliver, Charlie, Lujaina, Noah, Aidan, Lexi, Finley, William, Drake, George G, Tyler and Harley!

The following children have got into the green zone on all four Doodle areas this week and will each receive a merit for their excellent Doodling. So many of you were green in 3/4 of the Doodle apps! If you were really close to being green in all four areas this week, push yourself to earn that merit next Friday.

Merit winners this week: Grace, Lujaina, Noah, Oliver, Charlie, Elarna, Lexi, George G and Tyler!

If we have missed anyone or if you made it into the green zone after this list was posted, please tell us at: advice@mapledeneschool.com and we will rectify it as soon as possible!

Onwards with today's learning! Here's the timetable...

Maths

First up, it’s time to have a go at our times table speed test! We would like you to go onto the following website (as we usually do on a Friday morning):

https://www.timestables.co.uk/speed-test/

You can choose which tables to practise with, out of the ones we have learned so far. So, choose as many as you would like to out of the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 times tables. Remember to choose the tables that will stretch you, rather than the ones that you find easy.

Mild challenge: 2, 3, 5 and 10 x tables

Medium challenge: 3, 4, 5 and 8 x tables

Hot challenge: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 x tables

When you have finished, give yourself a reward by playing one of the times table games for 15 minutes.

Note: We are going to be using our multiplication facts a lot next week, so please make sure you are keeping on top of your times tables practise. The national expectation is that children can recall all times tables up to 12 by the end of Y4. We still have plenty of time until that point, and haven't yet taught every table, but, at this point, children should already be confident with their 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10s.

Library/Writing

Last week, we asked you to create a book review to share your learning with some of your friends and classmates. We've received some excellent reviews, and are sharing some of our favourites here. Look below to be inspired to read something new.

After having a browse, settle down to read something of your choice.

Alternatively, if you didn't finish yesterday, you can use this time to continue your own writing. Finish off your descriptive work about the tomb that you visited yesterday. Today, you want to finish the piece of writing by arriving at the entrance to the burial chamber.... But what lies inside? Here you can leave your writing on a cliffhanger. We'll discover more about what was actually found inside the chambers next week.

Spelling

Next up, it's time for spelling. Join in with our Zoom lesson this morning at 10:30am if you can! All you will need is a pencil and paper and be ready to write your dictated sentences. After the dictation lesson, look through the words below and you can mark your work.

If you can't make it onto the Zoom lesson, then do not worry! You can test yourself at home by asking somebody in your family to read out each word, or by doing a simple look-cover-write-check independently.

Group 1.

1. fill
2. hill
3. pill
4. still
5. will
6. bill

Group 2.

1. expansion
2. extension
3. comprehension
4. tension
5. decision
6. vision
7. provision

Our spellings for next Friday are:

Group 1. More spellings to learn this week, and they all contain: -ss and -zz

1. hiss
2. kiss
3. miss
4. pass
5. class
6. glass
7. buzz
8. fuzz
9. fizz
10. jazz
11. pizza

Group 2. Similar words for you this week, but this time it has the suffix: -ssion

1. expression
2. discussion
3. confession
4. confession
5. permission
6. admission
7. progression

Read through and practise your spellings. You can do this by writing them out, breaking them down into syllables or easy-to-remember sections, working through your Added Extras on Doodle Spell, or any other way you wish!

Please make sure you understand the meaning of each word before you start to learn how to spell it - if you are unsure, ask an adult to explain it to you.

Art

This week, we are going to create some artwork based on the pyramids! Woohoo! Please click on the link below and follow the step-by-step instructions to be able to draw a realistic pyramid that looks three-dimensional. When you've finished, colour, paint or collage your masterpiece and don't forget to send it to us!

https://artprojectsforkids.org/how-to-draw-the-pyramids/

ICT

Code.org

We'll end the week by spending 30 minutes on coding. Lots of you are really flying through the course so if you want to, have a go at some of the hour of code ideas.

Have a look through our Hall of Fame below and, most importantly, have a safe and wonderful weekend, everybody! See you (virtually) on Monday!

Miss Smith and Mr Mac

Thursday 21st January 2021

Good morning, Year 4! It was lovely to see lots of you at our Zoom meeting yesterday. We hope that you're all feeling positive today after thinking about all of the things that make you happy. Why not trying one of those things today?

Here's the timetable for today:

Maths

Well done for your hard work this week on converting between seconds, minutes, hours and so on! We've been really impressed with your efforts. We're onto the final bit of our 'time' learning now, and it's another way of converting.

Have you ever wondered why clocks have only twelve hours but there are 24 hours in a day? Although most clocks only show 12 hours, there is something that is called the 24-hour clock. We can use this to show times that are after 12 noon by carrying on all the way up to 24. For example, instead of saying one o’clock in the afternoon, I can express that time as 13:00. 24 hour times are always shown with 4 digits so 7 o’clock in the morning would be written as 07:00. Don’t worry, it is not as confusing as it sounds.

You can learn how to convert between 12- and 24-hour clocks here:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-writing-and-converting-time-between-12-hour-and-24-hour-clocks-6hj66t?step=1&activity=video

And in this video, you can recap all of the learning that you've done so far, and then go on to learn how to understand a little more about converting between 12- and 24-hours.

After watching the videos, have a look at the presentation below and then decide how confident you feel before choosing the worksheet that you feel most comfortable with. You may find that once you get started, it all starts to make sense and then you can move on to the trickier worksheets.

Good luck and happy converting.

Guided Reading

Next up, it's time for our 60-second read. How do we know so much about Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics? Read the text to find out.

As you did last week, time yourself to see if you managed to read it all in 60 seconds. When you are happy that you have really understood the text, answer all of the questions. If you can’t print out the sheet, then answer on paper or type your answers on to the computer.

English

Today, we venture inside the tomb… 

Start by watching the short video and then imagine that you are entering the hidden tomb.

The clip is from a short film directed by Enrique Gato in 2004 and produced by LA FIESTA PC.

Now you can write about the next part of your journey into the pyramid. What did you see? How did you feel? What did you encounter?

As always, think about using powerful fronted adverbials or prepositional phrases as well as expanded noun phrases in every sentence. This writing should make up the next two or three paragraphs of your adventure and will be finished off tomorrow, so don’t race to the finish. Build up the tension and describe everything.

PE

Hopefully you enjoyed getting active on Monday. Today in PE, we would like you to get stretchy. Sitting around at home makes our muscles very tight so watch the video below and join in with the stretches. Make sure you do all of the exercises on both sides and see if you can become really flexible…Mr Mac says he can do the splits easily after joining in with this video but we are not sure whether we believe him... 

Music from Miss Sanders

This week to get you all moving and listening to the beat, I would like you to follow and copy the moves in this warm up video. Andy, the dance instructor, is full of energy and always makes me smile.

To access the videos you will need to click on the links below. The password for the Music Room is YV2021.; Then go to Dance videos and scroll down to Urban Strides Interactive.

https://www.youngvoices.co.uk/music-room/resources/dance-videos/urban-strides-interactive-1

We have a new song to learn today and this time it has a totally different vibe. This song is all about having the power to get through this tricky time and persevering whatever situation you find yourself in. It is great fun. Have a go and I bet you will end up singing it all the time in your head.

First of all, just play the song using the lyrics video and follow the words on screen. Go to ‘Power in me lyric video’.

https://www.youngvoices.co.uk/music-room/resources/lyric-videos/power-in-me

Then I would like you to have a go at learning the actions for the chorus. Watch the videos using the attached link and have fun! If the link doesn’t take you directly to the correct clip then go onto dance videos and click on ‘Power in me breakdown 1’

https://www.youngvoices.co.uk/music-room/resources/dance-videos/power-in-me-breakdown-1

If anyone would like to challenge themselves further, you can also click on the link below to follow a lesson that continues our learning about rhythm and how to write down (notate) different rhythm patterns.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/understanding-pulse-and-rhythm-c8up2t

Well done everybody!

Mr Mac and Miss Smith

Wednesday 20th January 2021

Good morning, everybody! We're already halfway through the week and we've got some new learning for you to do today. First up, here's a new challenge for you all: Wally is lost in ancient Egypt! Can you find him?

Once you've spotted him (or anything else that you think is cool and want to share), can you give some hints to somebody else in your family so that they can find it too? This will really test your use of prepositions... is Wally under a ladder? Next to a pyramid? Beside a palm tree?

Here is the timetable for the rest of the day:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

First up, it's Maths. Remember the units of time sheet or poster that you created on Monday? You will need that again today. We are going to continue to convert between units of time, particularly seconds, minutes and hours. This can get a little tricky, so make sure you watch the videos from the Oak Academy first to help you get your head around it. Then, have a go at completing the worksheets below. You do not need to print these off; writing your answers down onto paper is fine. Remember to pick the level that is right for you on both PDFs.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/converting-between-hours-minutes-and-seconds-6djket?step=2&activity=video

 If you're sailed through the work above, why not have a go at our super challenge?

Did you know?

Miss Smith is over 1,500 weeks old! 

That's about the same as being 10 and a half thousand days! Wow, that's a LOT of days.

And Mr Mac is only about 583 months old!

Can you work out how old you are in days, weeks or months? How about down to the nearest minute? What about someone else in your house? How old are they today?

Could you work out how long it is till your next birthday in months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or even seconds?

Have fun!

Reading

Today, we're reading about survival in Ancient Egypt. Times were tough in Ancient Egypt. You couldn’t pop to the shops to pick up what you wanted (come to think of it, it is a bit like that now...) so, as we learned last week, Egyptians had to rely on natural resources like the River Nile for all of their needs. Read the text below to find out how they survived and then answer the questions below.

Choose the text with the right amount of stars for you. We want it to be a bit of a challenge, but not too hard. Answers are at the bottom of the PDF so you can check your work when you finish.

Grammar

Today is the day to put all of the grammar work from the last few weeks into practise.

Take a look at the picture below. As you can see, archaeologists have arrived at the entrance to the tomb of an ancient Pharoah. The tomb has been hidden away for many thousands of years and finally, its secret location has been discovered.

As you (a young archaeologist, a bit like Indiana Jones) arrive at the site, you are amazed by everything you can see, hear and smell. Write a paragraph about the outside of this tomb as you look around and think about the adventure that lies ahead. We would like you to include:

- ​​​​​​​fronted adverbials (to give more information about time, place, how... and don't forget a comma!)

- noun phrases (e.g. the dry, desert sands with sets of footprints)

- prepositions (e.g. the heavy clouds in the sky)

Make your paragraph as descriptive as possible but don’t describe the inside of the tomb YET! We will not be going inside... until tomorrow.

​​​​​​​

PHSE

If you can, join our Zoom lesson today at 1:30pm! If you can't make it, please don't panic. You can watch the video below and Mr Mac will explain everything that you need to know.

For today's task, we'd like you to think about what makes you happy and write a poem either on paper or print out the template above. When you have finished, decorate or illustrate it with things that make you happy. We would love to read some of your happy poems and see some of the lovely ways you have chosen to decorate them, so don’t forget to send them to us when you are finished.

Spanish

Today we are going to recap our learning about colours in Spanish. Can you remember how to say the different colours from last week? 

Watch the video below to recap some of the colours. Remember to listen carefully to hear the pronunciation as the way you say some of the words is different to how it looks.

Once you have listened to the song and feel more confident, try joining in.  

Then, there is a sheet below with the different colours on to help you too! Now you have practised saying them, complete the sheet below, matching the colours to the correct objects.

As always, please send all of your hard work to advice@mapledeneschool.com!

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Tuesday 19th January 2021

Good morning, everybody, and a very happy Tuesday to you all. We got off to a great start yesterday, so let's get ready for a brand new day of learning!

Here's the timetable for today:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

Starter:

Practise your 6x table by clicking on the following link and choosing 'Tables'.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Following that, we would like you to find the units of time sheet or poster that you created yesterday. Got it? Good, you will need that today. In today’s lesson, we are going to try converting between units of time. This is not as easy as it sounds because we have to add in groups of 7 or 12 or 60! If you know your times tables, you'll find this much easier.

First of all, please have a go at the activity below, to get you thinking about the length of different units of time. Answers are included.

Then, watch the following lesson from the Oak Academy. This explains how to convert between different units of time, like days and weeks and months. Then, when you're ready, have a go at the units of time work on the PDF below. Use your posters from yesterday to help you with the first page of questions. Then, if you're feeling confident, have a go at the tricky challenge.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/converting-between-units-of-time-6gvkjt?step=2&activity=video

Reading

For reading today, we'd like you to read through the information sheet below about the pyramids. Remember to use a lollypop stick, finger or pencil to point out every word and make sure you don't miss a word out! When you have read the text, write 3 facts that you have learnt and 3 questions that you would like to ask about pyramids.

Grammar

You all did an excellent job learning about prepositions yesterday. Can you spot the prepositions in the sentences below?

Mr Mac enjoys teaching on Zoom.

The home learners are sat at a table.

 Miss Smith is in front of her laptop.

Well done if you spotted them!

Today we would like you to think about nouns and how we can make them more interesting. If we are going to be writing about the inside of a dark and mysterious tomb later this week, we at least need to make it sound spooky! Watch the video below and then click on the worksheet to try expanding some simple noun phrases. It will be good practise for when we describe our tombs!

Science

Last up for today, it's Science. We are continuing with our sound topic, so hopefully you have remembered all of your key vocabulary, like sound waves, pitch and vibration. This week, we would like you to think about how we hear. Click on the link below to learn about how we hear things. You should have watched the first part of the video last week, so either watch again to refresh your memory, or skip straight to 4:42 to learn about our ears.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/music--science-ks2-what-is-sound/zbnmhbk

Find out more about our hearing on the following video:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/how-do-we-hear-6dgkae

Now, have a look at the presentation about the ear and then open the worksheet and see if you can label all of the parts. If you can’t print out the sheet, then you could answer the questions on a separate piece of paper, edit the Word Document version, or you could verbally tell someone your answers instead. As always, you can choose between 1, 2 or 3 stars. The more stars, the trickier it is.

That's all for today! We'll be checking to see who has managed to keep themselves in the green zone on Doodle this week too. Remember, you can earn a merit for getting there!

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Monday 18th January 2021

Here is the timetable for today:

We hope you had a restful weekend and are ready for the challenges that lie ahead.

Maths

This week, we are going to deepen our understanding of units of time. There are lots of different units involved in time. Do you know them all? Have a look on the internet or ask a member of your family to help you think of all the different units of time that there are from seconds, right up to a millenium.

Then, organise them from smallest to largest and then create a poster or a factsheet which is clear and colourful, which shows how all of the units fit together.

For example:

60 seconds = 1 minute

See the picture and an example PDF document attached below to give you an idea of how this might look. When you finish your poster, put this somewhere safe. You will need it for the rest of our work this week.

Reading

On Friday, during library time, we asked you to read a fabulous book that you really enjoy. Today, we would like you to tell us just why your book is so fabulous. Last term, we wrote some book reviews about the Demon Dentist by David Walliams.

Try to think about what we wrote in our book reviews last term and then create a short review of your book.

You should try to include:

• Background information - Who wrote it? Are they well-known? Have they written many other books? Is this a brand new, recently published book or is it an old classic? Who is the illustrator?
• A description of the book/plot summary - Who or what is the book about? Is it fiction or non-fiction? What happens? Remember to grab somebody's attention but not to give away any spoilers!
• What you thought of the book - Was it surprising? Did you laugh all the way through? Did it start a little slow but then suddenly blow you away? Tell us what you thought!
• Who you would recommend the book to and why - Is this book aimed at anybody in particular? Which ages is it suitable? Is it a good book for people that love adventure, or comedy, or fun facts?

Then get someone to email your review to us. We will upload some of them to our class page on Friday during Library time, so that we can recommend books for each other to read during this period of being stuck indoors.

Grammar

In grammar today, we are going to have a look at prepositions Prepositions tell us where things are. They are really useful when describing scenes in our writing. If you can, join the Zoom lesson at 10:30 am, otherwise have a look at the presentation below and find out all about prepositions.

Now look at the picture above and find at least five things to describe and write a sentence about each. Use prepositions to say where they are. For example: The coconuts are growing in the trees.

To extend yourself, try to put the prepositional phrase at the start of the sentence to create a fronted adverbial. For example: In the tall trees, the tasty coconuts are growing.

History

This week, we are going to be thinking about the inside of the pyramids. What would they have been like when they were first built? What might you have found inside? What would it be like if you found an undiscovered tomb today? Would you dare to go inside?

To begin with, we would like you to look at the following information.

https://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-egyptian-tombs.html

Then we would like you to draw the inside of an Egyptian tomb and then label it to show the places you would visit and the items you might find. There is a picture of the inside of a tomb to help you below.

PE

In PE, we would really like you to take the opportunity to do something energetic. If you can get outside and kick a football, ride a bike or go for a walk. Try to find the time to do 45 minutes of something active…trust us, you will feel better after you have done it.

We hope you are feeling energised and fit now after your workout. Remember to rehydrate with a cool glass of water and eat a healthy snack to replace the calories you have burnt.

Now get some rest so that you are fighting fit for your work tomorrow.

Mr Mac and Miss Smith

Some Of The Great Work We Have Received This Week

Zoom date for your diary

Great to see so many of you on our zoom lesson yesterday. 
On Monday at 10:30 am, we will be having our next zoom lesson about prepositions. We are looking forward to seeing lots of you there. 
If you haven’t already registered and would like to join in, get an adult to click on this link and fill out the form. 
https://forms.gle/8ex6GfXdKYXs3ZxX7

Friday 15th January 2021

Happy Friday!

Great work again this week everybody. Thank you for all the hard work and thanks for sharing so much of your work with us. We will show you some of the work we have received this week in a Hall of Fame later on today.

Talking of Hall of Fame, remember to start the day by watching the Celebration Assembly which can be found on YouTube, Learn it with Mapledene’s page.

We would also like to start today by again celebrating the achievements of the children that have been working incredibly hard at home. It hasn't gone unnoticed! Here are all of those that have made it into the GREEN ZONES! Lots more names this week, well done everybody.

In Doodle Maths, our green children are:

Logan, Harry, Marshall, Thomas, Elarna, Lujaina, Aidan, Grace, Dominique, Charlie, Lexi, Conner, Noah, Jake, George G, Harley, Bella, William, Finley, Kai, Drake and Tiannah.

In Doodle Tables, our green children are:

Grace, Oliver, Charlie, Logan, Lexi, Aidan, Conner, Elarna, Noah, Paris, Tyler, Drake, Bella, George G, Finley, Alex, Fynley and Harley.

In Doodle English, our green children are:

Logan, Marshall, Grace, Elarna, Austin, Conner, Lacey, Lujaina, Charlie, Lexi, Dominique, Oliver, George G, Harley, Drake, William, Finley, Bella and Tyler.

In Doodle Spell, our green children are:

Logan, Elarna, Grace, Lexi, Charlie, Freddie, Noah, Dominique, Lujaina, William, Finley, Bella, George G, Drake, Harley and Tyler.

The following children have got into the green zone on all four Doodle areas this week and will each receive a merit for their excellent Doodling. If you were really close to being green in all four areas this week, push yourself to earn that merit next Friday.

Merit winners this week: Logan, Elarna, Lexi, Grace, Charlie, George G, Harley, Bella, Drake.

If we have missed anyone please tell us at: advice@mapledeneschool.com and we will rectify it as soon as possible!

And now, for today's learning!

Assembly

After you have watched today’s assembly, take the chance to go on to Doodle English, complete your extras and make sure you finish the week in the Green Zone.

Times tables

Now it’s time to have a go at our times table speed test! We would like you to go onto the following website (as we usually do on a Friday morning):

https://www.timestables.co.uk/speed-test/

You can choose which tables to practise with, out of the ones we have learned so far. So, choose as many as you would like to out of the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 times tables. Remember to choose the tables that will stretch you, rather than the ones that you find easy. Equally, if you haven’t quite mastered the 2s, 5s and 10s yet, then please continue to practise them! Now is an excellent time to make sure you really nail them.

Mild challenge: 1, 2, 5 and 10 x tables

Medium challenge: 3, 4, 5 and 8 x tables

Hot challenge: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 x tables

We’d like you to have a go at the Times Table Check, remember to increase the time limit to 10 seconds. Make a note of your score and see if you can beat it next time. When you have finished, give yourself a reward by playing one of the times table games for 15 minutes.

Spelling

Write the dictated sentences on to a piece of paper and then look at the spellings to see if you got them all right.

Group 1 –

1.            off

2.            huff

3.            puff

4.            stiff

5.            cliff

6.            sniff

Group 2 –

1.            invention

2.            injection

3.            action

4.            hesitation

5.            completion

6.            solution

7.            correction

Now look at this week’s spellings.

Practise them by writing them once a day. You could even write some sentences of your own using all of the words, then go on to Doodle Spell and do the exercises (if you haven’t already).

Group 1.  

1. fill
2. hill
3. pill
4. still
5. will
6. bill

What do they all have in common? Can you think of any other words with the same rule? See if you can write ten.

Group 2.

1. expansion
2. extension
3. comprehension
4. tension
5. decision
6. vision
7. provision

What do they all have in common? Can you think of any other words with the same rule? See if you can write ten.

Art

We have been very impressed with your maps from last week. Keeping with the Egyptian theme, this week we would like you to make a cartouche… ‘What is a cartouche?’ we hear you ask. Well, a cartouche is an Egyptian artefact usually carved with hieroglyphics, which had the name of a person, place or object written inside a beautifully decorated border.

The hieroglyphics were written down the tablet from top to bottom.

Using the hieroglyphic alphabet below; some paper or cardboard; some colouring pens, pencils or paints and lots of creativity and smiles, we would like you to make a cartouche showing your name.

For extra points (imaginary points, not real points) see if you can convince some other members of your family to make a cartouche of their name…or you could make one for them.

Remember, cartouches were beautifully decorated so you will probably need to practise your designs first before you create a final version. You could even draw the hieroglyphs on paper and cut them out and stick them onto the cartouche, it really is up to you.

Have fun!

Coding.

Code.org

Whilst you wait for your paint/ glue/ parents to dry off after all of that art, go to our coding page and spend 30 minutes coding. Lots of you are really flying through the course so if you want to, have a go at some of the hour of code ideas. There are Minecraft activities, Frozen activities, Gumball activities and they are all a lot of fun and a brilliant challenge.

Library

Finally today after a busy week, it is time to get out a book and have some quiet time to read. Find a peaceful space and enjoy a good book, on your own or with a grown-up.

Take the time to relax for half an hour and get stuck into a book. Next week, we will be asking you to write a short book review to share with the other children to give some recommendations for lockdown reading.

Miss Smith and Mr Mac look forward to seeing all your successes and we will see you again next week.

Thursday 14^th January 2021

Here is the timetable for today:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

More Time

Converting between analogue and digital time.

Watch the video and let Mr Mac explain how it is done… then click on the work below and choose your level from one star up to 3 stars. Good luck, we hope you have a good TIME.

ZOOM!

If you are able to, we would love you to join us for our first Zoom Live Lesson at 10:30. If you have filled out the form from yesterday, then you will have received a link to the meeting. If you are not able to join us this time, then we hope you will be able to join us next time.

Guided Reading

Get Ready With Cleopatra

It is 60 second reading time again. Look at the text below and read it at a speed that allows you to get everything read but still allows you to understand the whole text. Time yourself if you can and see if you managed to read it all in 60 seconds. When you have finished, make sure you check that you understand all of the words. Any tricky words, you can ask an adult or look them up on the computer (or ask Alexa, Google or Siri what they mean). When you are happy that you have really understood the text, answer all of the questions. If you can’t print out the sheet, then answer on paper or type your answers on to the computer.

English

After all of your brilliant fronted adverbial work this week, the time has come to put them to good use. Using LOTS and LOTS of amazing fronted adverbials as well as WOW words and similes and… well the most brilliant sentences that you can think of, write a description of this picture of the river Nile.

Remember to use your fronted adverbials to start every sentence!

PE

In PE, we are going to start our gymnastics lessons. You can practise building up your strength at home, if you have a safe space to do so.

Look through the flashcards on the PDF below and try to recreate the shapes using your body.

Music

I hope you managed to get the chance to sing along with the lyric video to our song last week? This week l would like you to look at the signed version of the song and teach yourself some words to sign when you are singing. You don’t need to learn all the signs. Just start with the chorus and pick out a few of the easier words. Then add more each time you sing.

Wednesday 13^th January 2021

Good morning, everybody  We hope you and your families are doing well and keeping safe. We are so pleased to announce that both 4S and 4M have more children on track and reaching their green zones in Doodle this week, so we are really chuffed with how hard you are all working at home! If you keep it up, we might even receive a certificate in this week's assembly!

We're loving the work that you're emailing over to us too, so please keep on sending it in. You will be able to see some of your ocean artwork in the assembly on Friday.

On Thursday at 10:30 am we will be having our first Zoom lesson which will be an introduction to Zoom and also a chance to see lots of smiley year 4 faces. If you would like to join in, get an adult to click on this link and fill out the form. 
https://forms.gle/8ex6GfXdKYXs3ZxX7

Here is the timetable for today:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

As a starter/warm-up, please practise your 6 x table. You must ensure that you have completed the Extras that we have set on Doodle Maths for you too. Once you've done both, crack on.

Then, have a go at one of the PDFs below. You do not have to print these out and can write all of your answers onto a piece of paper, with numbers going down the margin. Answers are included.

If you are struggling with learning to tell the time, go back to the previous lessons and continue to practise at home.

Reading

Earlier on this week, you should have read through two sets of information about the Nile. Today, we are going to be using this to retrieve and record information from these non-fiction texts. We would like you to combine the information that you have learned to create a mindmap or a set of bullet points that answer the following question:

Why was the Nile so important to the ancient Egyptians?

Please go back and re-read any of the information from Monday or Tuesday's lessons if you are unsure or cannot remember.

You can draw your own mindmap or write out bullet points onto a piece of paper. Alternatively, there is a mindmap for you to download and print off if you prefer. We are looking for you to give thorough and detailed reasons.

Grammar

Log onto Doodle English and complete your Added Extra for today. This one is all about fronted adverbials.

If you finish your extras, spend some time earning those Doodle stars and see if you can get into or stay in the green zone.
If you can’t remember what a fronted adverbial is, refresh your memory with the video from Monday:

Geography

For this lesson, you will either need to use an atlas that you have at home, an app like Google Maps, or you can download the PDF of the maps below.

Then, using your atlas or map, please answer the questions on the PDF below:

Spanish

In Spanish, we are going to practise saying the days of the week and the months of the year.

Tuesday 12^th January 2021

Good morning, Year 4. Lots of you got off to a cracking start yesterday - we loved receiving all of your awesome ocean artwork, as well as some very impressive pieces of maths and English work too. 

Here is the timetable for today:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

Today your task is to independently show a specific time using a clock face. You might want to get an adult to go through them with you afterwards, just to check how accurate you are.

To do this, you could use:

• a real clock or a watch from your house
• a print out of the clock face (PDF below)
• an online clock face (https://www.visnos.com/demos/clock)
• drawing a circle and the hands of the clock for each answer

For your task today, you must complete at least one set of questions, so please pick the set that is at your level (Level 1 is the easiest, Level 3 is the most challenging). If you are able to complete a set easily, move onto the next level to stretch yourself - we will be really impressed if you have made that progress and moved onto the next stage. And if you are struggling, please revisit the work from yesterday, watch the lessons from the Oak Academy and practise again. You might need an adult to help you get the hang of it.

Once you have completed the work above, your next task is to keep a record for the next day (24 hours) of the activities you have completed at each time. You can watch the following video (up to about 2 minutes 10 seconds) to get an idea of what we mean by this. It is aimed at slightly younger children than you, but it will help you to get some idea of what we're looking for.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08cvsbj/bitesize-57-year-olds-week-5-7-teacher-talks-time

e.g. 7:15am – I woke up

7:30am – I ate breakfast etc.

We have also set some time-related Extras on Doodle Maths for you to complete this week, if you haven't done so already.

Reading

In English, we are continuing to focus on the River Nile. Please read the PDF below, which will give you more information about the importance of the river. Read aloud or with a partner, remembering to use your finger or a pen or pencil to make sure you don’t miss any words out. If there are any words you are unfamiliar with, think about our lesson yesterday. Use the skills that you practised in yesterday's reading lesson to find a definition and make sense of the word in context.

Grammar

We are continuing to focus on fronted adverbials this week. Here is Mr Mac with more instructions. 
when you have watched the first part of the video, look at the picture below, of the River Nile, and then take a look at the tasks for today's lesson (PDF below).

Quick tip: if you are struggling to think of your own fronted adverbials for Task 2, ask yourself:

1. Can I add a fronted adverbial to give detail about when this happened? e.g. In the past,

2. Could I add extra detail about where this happened? e.g. On the banks of the river,

3. How about adding detail about how it happened? e.g. Slowly,

If you still can't think of a suitable fronted adverbial, then look back at the ones you wrote down yesterday and see whether something on one of the lists would be appropriate. 

Science

In Science this half term, we are going to learn about sound. Where does sound come from? How do we hear it? How does it travel? How is it made? All of our learning will culminate in making our own Egyptian instruments in music (using odd items and bits of recycling from around the house) and creating sounds. More on that in a couple of weeks!

For now... start your lesson today by going on a ‘sound hunt’ around your house or on a walk. Make a list of all of the sounds that you can hear. Where have those sounds come from? What has made them?

For example, in Miss Smith’s house right now, she can hear…

• kettle bubbling
• computer whirring
• emails pinging
• clock ticking

What can you hear in yours?

Once you’ve thought about all of the sounds around you right now, watch this video to understand a little more about how sounds are made.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z3hhvcw/articles/z3wf34j

So, let’s recap. Sounds are made when objects vibrate. When it vibrates, it makes a sound and when it’s not vibrating, it makes no sound at all! Every time an object vibrates, it sends invisible sound waves through the air to our ears, which changes those waves into little messages to our brain. Can you test this out by flicking a ruler against a table or clapping your hands?

Now watch the following video (only up until 4:42. Do not go any further just yet, as we will look at the second part of the video in another lesson).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/music--science-ks2-what-is-sound/zbnmhbk

Next, we’d like you to experiment with making sounds using just your own bodies and voices. Can you make a high-pitched sound? What about a low-pitched sound? Can you (carefully) hold your hand around your neck and feel the vibrations in your vocal chords when you are talking?

Your final task is to find a way to remember the key vocabulary for this topic. You could create a poster or a set of definitions, similar to our work in English yesterday. You might want to be tested using flashcards. This part is up to you.

Key vocabulary to learn:

• vibrations
• sound wave
• high-pitch
• low-pitch
• molecules
• medium

Watch the videos again if you can’t remember what some of the words above mean.

We're missing you lots in school, but look forward to seeing lots of your hard work on the advice@mapledeneschool.com email! Have fun and stay safe.

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Monday 11^th January 2021

Please send us photos of you wearing your blue or ocean-themed clothes, because today we are celebrating…

Blue Monday!

with YOUR help!

Good morning everybody and welcome to a brand new week of learning! Congratulations for all of your hard work and efforts last week. We had so many children reaching the green zones in Doodle, and I bet we can get even more on track this week. Let’s keep this up and carry on trying to achieve our very best.

Below is a document outlining our weekly timetable which we will be (generally) following from Monday 11th January, which parents might find useful. As you can see, maths and English work will continue to take place in the morning and, in the afternoon, we will be looking at other areas of the curriculum. The afternoons may look a little different to our normal Y4 timetable but this is the timetable that the Key Worker/Vulnerable children in school are following too.

We may deviate from the timetable from time to time if there is a special day or a particular event taking place. For example, today our learning will focus on the oceans to celebrate Blue Monday and the premiere of the Year 4 Blue Planet episode!

And here is the timetable for today:

All instructions and resources can be found below.

Assembly

Kick off this Blue Monday by getting into your blue clothes and settling down to watch our episode of Blue Planet with your household. This film is the culmination of all of our learning about the oceans during the Autumn term, and we finally get to share the importance of the oceans with the rest of the school and the wider community. After the video, teach your family about the importance of the oceans and the creatures that live there. We will also spend some time this afternoon creating some amazing artwork to try and spread the message about keeping our oceans clean and safe, and hopefully inspire others to help to protect our planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bikpfe-1ZM&feature=emb_logo 

Maths

Next up, it’s maths. Today we are going to begin a brand new mathematical topic of telling the time.

In Year 4, children should be able to tell any given time. But, as we missed some of our learning in Year 3, we are going to begin today by looking just at analogue clocks and understanding how to tell and write the time from the clock face. We’d like you to use vocabulary such as o’clock, a.m./p.m., morning, afternoon, noon and midnight.

There are a number of ways that you can begin this topic. The best way to learn the time is to sit with an adult (if possible) with a clock in front of you.

You could use:

• a real clock or a watch from your house
• a print out of the clock face (PDF below with a clock face that you can print off and assemble. The petals that go around the clock to help label each time and you will find that the blue/red is helpful for understanding the difference between 'past' and 'to'. There are also clock hands that you can cut out and move around the clock face using a split pin or blu-tac, to show different times and discuss the big hand/small hand).
• an online clock face (https://www.visnos.com/demos/clock)

Spend some time discussing what each of the hands on the clock represent and how they are connected to each other. Then, you can follow an online lesson from the Oak Academy, at your own level. Follow the instructions on the section below that has the most appropriate learning for you:

If you cannot tell the time using a clock face yet:

You can learn and practise identifying 'quarter past' and 'quarter to' using the following resources from the Oak Academy. This is a skill that KS2 children should be able to complete independently, so it is very important that you learn this, to enable you to access all of our future learning.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/identifying-quarter-past-on-an-analogue-clock-68rp8e 

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/identifying-quarter-to-on-an-analogue-clock-74wkee

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/identifying-quarter-past-and-quarter-to-on-an-analogue-clock-ctk6ad

Please read the document below, which contains helpful tips, videos and suggestions for further activities.

If you can already tell the time using o'clock, quarter past, half past and quarter to:

Today, you will be learning to tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes. Please start by learning from the Oak Academy:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-the-time-on-the-clock-to-the-nearest-five-minutes-part-1-71jp4c

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-the-time-on-the-clock-to-the-nearest-five-minutes-part-2-6thk2d

The document below contains useful tips, ideas and suggestions for further practise.

If you can already tell the time to the nearest five minutes using a clock face:

You should recap your understanding of telling the time to the nearest five minutes using the following resources from the Oak Academy:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-the-time-on-the-clock-to-the-nearest-five-minutes-part-1-71jp4c

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-the-time-on-the-clock-to-the-nearest-five-minutes-part-2-6thk2d

Then, practise telling the time to the nearest minute:

https://classroom.thenational.academy/lessons/reading-analogue-time-to-the-nearest-minute-cdgkjd

Please look at the document below for tips and suggestions to practise this key skill.

Reading

In English today, we’d like you to work your way through the PowerPoint, which is all about the River Nile. If you cannot open the PowerPoint on your device, then do not worry, we have also added the same information but as a PDF file, so open whichever is easiest for you.

Once you have read through the information, please complete the vocabulary sheets below, by opening either the PDF or the Word Documents. You could edit the Word Document and send it back to us, print it off, or as always, write it down onto your own paper.

Grammar

In grammar today, we are going to have a look at fronted adverbials. You will probably remember your teacher talking about these before. Here is Mr Mac to explain today’s work.

If you need any more information, watch this short video. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF95vgjyp0c&safe=true

Then, we’d like you to organise the following adverbials into three columns. You can draw these out by hand. Organise the adverbials to explain which ones show us the time that something happened? Which ones describe where it happened? And, finally, which ones describe how it happened?

if you finish, choose two from each group and write a full sentence about Ancient Egypt. 

Oceans

We would like you to produce something arty this afternoon that will help spread the message about keeping our oceans clean and safe, and hopefully inspire others to help to protect our planet. You might like to make a drawing, poster, information leaflet or a 3D model. Have a look at some of the ideas below for some inspiration:

Share your work with us at advice@mapledeneschool.com

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Friday 8th January 2021

Hello Year 4! 

Happy Friday everybody! We’ve made it to the end of a very different and slightly unsettling week. You should be incredibly proud of yourselves, and all of the adults at home that have been supporting you.

We'll start today by celebrating the achievements of the children that have been working incredibly hard at home. It hasn't gone unnoticed! Here are all of those that have made it into the GREEN ZONES!

In Doodle Maths, our green children are:

Jake, Aidan, Logan, Harry, Thomas, Lujaina, Austin, Jacobi, Oliver, Noah, Elarna, Charlie, Grace, Freddie, Kai, Tyler, Drake, Cohen, Finley, George, William and Harley!

In Doodle Tables, our green children are:

Oliver, Grace, Harry, Charlie, Elarna, Jacobi, Noah, Lujaina, Austin, Finley, Tyler and George!

In Doodle English, our green children are:

Logan, Noah, Harry, Elarna, Grace, Lujaina, Charlie, Freddie, Oliver, Austin, Jake, George, Drake, Cohen, Finley, Bella and Harley!

In Doodle Spell, our green children are:

Logan, Elarna, Grace, Charlie, Jacobi, Freddie, Lujaina, Oliver, Aidan, Drake, George, William and Tyler!

If you just made it into the Green Zone after this list was posted, or you believe that your name should be up there and has been missed off, please send an email to advice@mapledeneschool.com and we will rectify it as soon as possible!

And now, for today's learning!

Once again, instructions and resources can be found below.

Fit Friday

Miss Ellgood has put together a special Fit Friday assembly for this week. We hope you enjoyed creating your very own fitness circuits yesterday and hope that you are eager to join in with some more exercising today! The assembly will be uploaded to the usual places, on the school website or the YouTube channel.

Alongside watching the assembly, please take a look at the Active Learning and PE page, which can be found underneath the ‘Parents’ tab on the school website, or by following this link:

https://www.mapledene.bham.sch.uk/pe-and-fitness-1/

There are lots of active maths activities, to encourage you to practise key skills while keeping your body healthy.

Times tables

Now it’s time to have a go at our times table speed test! We’ve revised the 3 x table this week and started to learn the 6 x table, so this will be a test of how well you can remember them! We would like you to go onto the following website (as we usually do on a Friday morning):

https://www.timestables.co.uk/speed-test/

You can choose which tables to practise with, out of the ones we have learned so far. So, choose as many as you would like to out of the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 times tables. Remember to choose the tables that will stretch you, rather than the ones that you find easy. Equally, if you haven’t quite mastered the 2s, 5s and 10s yet, then please continue to practise them! Now is an excellent time to make sure you really nail them.

Mild challenge: 1, 2, 5 and 10 x tables

Medium challenge: 3, 4, 5 and 8 x tables

Hot challenge: 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 x tables

We’d like you to have a go at a speed test at least three times this morning. Try to beat your score each time, and if you get a perfect score, then you can aim to cut down your time.

Spelling

Group 1 – Practise the -ff spellings. If you haven’t been on Doodle Spell already, there are some activities assigned to help you learn them. If you have already completed this Doodle Extra, you can test yourself to check how well you have remembered them.

1.            off

2.            huff

3.            puff

4.            stiff

5.            cliff

6.            sniff

Group 2 – Practise the -tion spellings. If you haven’t been on Doodle Spell already, there are some activities assigned to help you learn them. If you have already completed this Doodle Extra, you can test yourself to check how well you have remembered them.

1.            invention

2.            injection

3.            action

4.            hesitation

5.            completion

6.            solution

7.            correction

Extra challenge: If you feel that you know your spellings for this week, we challenge you to use them in a sentence. The more words you can fit into a sentence, the better!

e.g. Group 1: I had a huff and a puff and felt a bit stiff when I walked up the cliff.

e.g. Group 2: Without hesitation, I realised the solution was an invention of an injection.

Art

We have got something incredibly exciting planned for art today! You are going to be making an ancient map of Egypt. Or is it a map of Ancient Egypt? Either way, it’s a map, and it’s going to look old!

Below is a PDF with an example for you to copy from. We’d love for you to draw out your own version of this map, including all of the key places and landmarks along the River Nile. Lots of these landmarks are going to form a big part of our learning this term, for example we will look at the marvellous but mysterious pyramids that are found at the north of the map. In a couple of weeks, we’ll also be looking into who Tutankhamun was and why his tomb is so important.

We’d suggest starting with the shape of the country and the river first, and then add the extra details and information afterwards. Once it’s finished, use a tea bag or some coffee powder to stain the page and then leave it to dry, so that it looks like it has been drawn hundreds (or thousands) of years ago and only recently uncovered.

We have also included a blank copy of the map on the same PDF below, so if you are really struggling and you have access to a printer, you could draw the key landmarks and places onto that.

Library

This is the final part of our working week, and the time that we usually spend looking at books in the library and choosing something new to take home with us for the weekend ahead. Please find something to read with somebody in your household. This can be anything you like, from a book to a short story, to a page or website online, to a magazine or newspaper article. Share it together and enjoy your reading.

Mr Mac reveals the secrets of the tomb!

A final note for parents:

From Mr Mac and myself, we’d like to say a great, big thank you to all of the adults at home that have been working with their children. You are doing a brilliant job. We’ve loved seeing some of their work come through via email and have been keeping track of those that have been busy on Doodle. The children’s work does not go unnoticed and we appreciate all that you are doing.

Below are some of the pieces of work that have really made us smile this week.

Have a lovely weekend and we will be back on Monday morning for a new week of learning.

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Thursday 7th January 2021

Hello Year 4! Hope you are all doing well this morning and feeling ready for a new day of learning. 4S, you will be delighted to know that our class currently has the most children on track in Doodle Maths, Doodle Tables AND Doodle Spell! Wow... That's amazing! But it could all change in the next two days, so please keep up all of your hard work. 4M, you've still got time to reach the 'green' zone this week, so we're expecting to see lots of you collecting stars today too! You can do it!

Tomorrow, we will be congratulating all of the Y4 children that have made it into the ‘green’ zones for each of the four Doodle areas, so do your very best today to make sure your name is up there!

Here’s the overview for today:

As always, all of the instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

We are going to be practising our 6 x table again today, so that when we are all back together in school, you will be able to whizz through the new set of flashcards. Start by clapping, chanting or singing your 6 x table. Maybe you could organise a head-to-head with somebody in your family. If you can already remember some of the number facts out of sequence (e.g. 4 x 6 = __, 2 x 6 = __, 7 x 6 = __ and so on), then even better!

Then, once you’ve warmed up, have a go at the challenges on the next PDF. Remember, you can use any of the resources that you created yesterday to help you (number lines, 100 squares, arrays etc.). If you haven't yet completed yesterday's maths work, we strongly recommend that you scroll down and complete that work first before moving on to this lesson.

Mild challenge (optional): Write out the 6 x table.

Medium challenge (jump straight to here if you are a bit more confident): Look at the number grid and find sets of 3 numbers from the 6 x table number sentences. E.g. 4, 6 and 24 (4 x 6 = 24). You don’t need to print this off and colour it in unless you’d like to. Finding the number sentences on the grid and writing them out is enough.

Hot challenge: The Insect Investigation. Read through the clues and try to find as many answers as possible. We suggest drawing out the insects to help you if you are finding it tricky, or using colour-coded circles to represent each species.

When you have finished the work, log onto Doodle Tables and practise your 6 x table.

All answers are included in the PDF.

Guided Reading

For Guided Reading today, read through the PDF below, which is all about how important cats were to the Ancient Egyptians. This is intended to be a short, quick, 60-second read. The aim of these 60-second reads is to build up the children’s fluency in reading. If your child is finding it difficult to read this fluently within the time, don’t panic! Practise reading it together a couple of times and take as long as you need. The more your child reads, or listens to you reading, the more confident they will become and the more fluent they will be.

Once you have read the text together, your child can independently answer the four questions, either onto the sheet or onto a separate piece of paper.

Answers are included in the PDF.

Grammar

Please log onto Doodle English and complete your daily stars and, if you haven't already completed them, any remaining Added Extras.

ICT

For ICT, we are going to be continuing with our work on coding for the next couple of weeks. Mr Mac has assigned some new challenges for you to complete step-by-step on code.org. You can log on via the following link and clicking on your secret picture.

https://studio.code.org/join/XKGMGK

You do not need to send us a picture or confirmation of you completing this work, as we will be able to log onto the website ourselves and check how well you have been doing. There is no limit to how much or how little you complete, but you should aim to work for about 45 minutes independently (this is how long we would usually have in the ICT suite). Make your way through each stage at your own pace, and don’t forget to use the hints if you need to! Next Thursday, we will ask you to pick up where you left off. If you whizz through all of the coding levels, we will assign more work to you for next week.

PE

As always, the first week back after a break is a special fitness week. In PE this week, children across the school will be completing a fitness circuit. We’re setting you the challenge of Fitness Bingo! Take a look at the PDF below and create your own workout using a range of the different activities. Aim to do each activity consistently for at least 20-30 seconds. Tick them off once you’ve done them and make sure you complete at least one full line (this can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal). Can you complete a full house? Can you challenge anybody else in your household to have a go too?

Please share any of your work with us, keep trying your very best and, most importantly, stay safe.

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Wednesday 6th January 2021

Good morning, everybody. Miss Smith here! Welcome to another day of home-schooling. I’ll be setting work for you for the remainder of this week. Then, next week, Mr Mac will be taking over the online learning and I will be back in school teaching children.

I want to start, by saying a huge well done to the children that have already been busy at home, working from the website and collecting their Doodle stars. We are thrilled to see some of you have already reached the ‘green’ zones!

We hope that you enjoyed becoming an artefact detective yesterday. Today we are going to learn a little bit more about Ancient Egypt. You may discover some more information about some of the photographs you looked at yesterday.

Today will run a little bit more like a normal school day. Here’s the overview for today:

All of the instructions and resources can be found below.

Maths

As a starter for today’s lesson, we’d like you to practise your 3 x table. You might like to say it aloud, or write it down, or ask somebody in your house to ask you some random, quickfire questions to test how speedy and accurate you are! You can practise along to this song, if you’d like to!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV0ZL2h8IRg&safe=true

And now, for our new learning, we will be looking at the 6 x table! Here’s a quick tip: If you know your 3s well, you will find the 6s much easier.

Can you spot the pattern already, just by looking at the numbers?

To illustrate this further, we’d like you to get creative today and try and show us how the 3 x and the 6 x tables are linked.

You could show them by colouring both tables in different colours on a hundred square (see PDF below). Can you spot a pattern?

Or, you could draw arrays for both the 3 and the 6 x tables, like below. This might help you to visually see the relationship between the two tables.

You could mark them both on a number line. Again, you can find a 0-100 numberline PDF attached below.

Are there any other ways you can think of?

As always, you do not have to print anything off. You can draw out anything that you need to. Some representations will be easier to do this with than others, so you can stick to them.

Bonus points if you can show how the 3 and the 6 x tables follow a similar pattern using more than one way. Don’t forget, we will still be offering house points, merits and Shooting Star certificates for fantastic learning.

Once you have completed this, practise your 6 x table on Doodle Tables.

Guided Reading

For Guided Reading today, we have a non-fiction text all about life in Ancient Egypt. There are 3 levels of difficulty, so we’d like you to choose the text that you feel is best suited to your reading ability. If reading is something you find tricky, stick to the pages that have 1 star at the bottom. For those of you that are very confident, scroll down to the pages that have 3 stars. Try the ones with 2 stars if you feel that you are somewhere in-between. An adult may be available to help you choose.

When you’re ready, we’d like you to read just like you would in class. Instead of using a lollypop stick, you could point to each word with a finger or a pen or pencil. You might even be lucky enough to have an adult or sibling pointing to the words for you as you read aloud. Read through the whole text as many times as you need to, so that you have a good understanding of what you have read and can remember the key information in each section. Bonus points for reading with good expression.

Once you have done that, have a go at answering some of the questions (make sure they have the same number of stars as the text had). These do not need to be printed off, and you can write a number in the margin and answer directly onto a sheet of paper.

The answers are included in the PDF, so once you are finished, you can mark your work and see how well you have done. Remember, if you have got something wrong, that’s okay! You can learn from it by looking at the text again and then try to work out where you made a mistake.

Grammar

Please log onto Doodle English and complete your daily stars and the Added Extras for today.

History

First, we would like you to create a mindmap that shows all of the information that you already know about Ancient Egypt. Do you know where Egypt is? Or maybe you know when the Ancient Egyptians were around. Perhaps you know about some of the things that the Egyptians built.

Then, we’d like you to get more of an overview about what life was like during this period of time. We’d like you to watch the following video on YouTube and read through the timeline and information sheets. This will help you to understand the key vocabulary and the important parts of Egyptian life – from pharaohs to Gods to hieroglyphs. We will be learning about all of these in more detail over the coming weeks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZOPWSXMvzI&safe=true

Once you have done that, we would like you to come up with a list of questions that you would like to find out the answer to (we’re setting a minimum of 5 questions, but no maximum). You can then choose to either research these yourselves, or wait until we have done some more learning over the next couple of weeks, keep your questions safe and then later go back and answer them.

This is also a good opportunity for you to go back and add anything that you’ve just found out to the artefact sheets from yesterday. Answers will be revealed in the coming days.

Music

Check out the work below from Miss Sanders, who has planned all of your music lessons for this half term!

Hello! It’s Miss Sanders here. I am going to really miss teaching you over the next few weeks and I know that when I can’t sing it sometimes makes me feel a little bit low, especially at the moment when things are so strange around us. So, for this week’s music activity I would like you to click on the link below and listen to the song ‘It’s OK! Please just say!”

Listen really carefully to the words and think about some of the things that make you happy. Talk to people at home to see if you can find time to try some of them at home over the next few weeks. Then learn some of the lyrics to sing along at home. Start with the chorus and then the rap towards the end.

Remember, that if you are not feeling OK, find someone to talk to. It may just make you feel better. 

As always Year 4, we are missing you and hoping to see you back in school soon. Please send in any pictures of your work to advice@mapledeneschool.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Take care everybody,

Miss Smith & Mr Mac

Tuesday 5th January 2021
 

Good morning, Year 4! We hope that you have all had a good rest over the Christmas break and enjoyed spending time with your families. We are very much looking forward to hearing what you have been up to. As you know, we cannot be together in school at the moment. This isn’t the start to the new term that any of us were hoping for, but Mr Mac and I will be here to support you and your learning throughout the next couple of weeks, and are keeping our fingers crossed that schools will be able to open safely again soon. We are only ever a telephone call or an email away, so please send any of your hard work to advice@mapledeneschool.com.
 

Every morning, we would like you to look at this class page and complete the activities that we have set. You should also log onto Doodle, to complete your daily stars and any extras. These will be updated regularly too. All of the work will be in line with what we would have been doing if we had been in school. We will share files in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats where possible, so that you can open the file that suits your device. Worksheets and information can be printed off if you have access to a printer at home, but all of the work can also be completed directly onto the documents or written down onto paper. Where needed, we will provide you with answers too, so that you can mark your work at home. 

That means that you will still get to learn and practise lots of maths, English, science, art, PE... and especially history! As you know, our topic this term is all about the awesome Ancient Egyptians. Speaking of which, Mrs Hubball received a very strange package just yesterday...

Your first task for this morning will be to become... an artefact detective!

An artefact is an object or tool that has been made by a person at some point during history. Artefacts can help us to better understand the past and answer questions about what life might have been like for people that were on our planet thousands of years ago.

We need you to look through the photos of the artefacts that have been sent to us. These artefacts were all uncovered recently inside an ancient Egyptian tomb. When looking through the images, ask yourself:

What is this object?

How could you describe it?

What does it tell us about the Egyptians?

What might they have used it for? 

The final picture contains a secret message, spelt out using hieroglyphics. Instead of telling us what this is, we challenge you to crack the code and find out where these artefacts were uncovered. There is a word mat below to help you.

Each artefact may seem like a mystery at first, but it has an important story to tell. Don't worry too much if you are really unsure on some of the artefacts, it's okay to have a guess. We'd love to hear all of your ideas.

Please complete one of the artefact detective sheets below, or make notes of your own on paper.

More will be revealed soon.

Helpful websites and resources:

Welcome to Year 4!

What a great start from all of ‘Team 4’. Miss Smith and Mr Mac have been really delighted to see such enthusiastic, smart and happy children coming in to school every morning. Lots of you have settled into school and are already earning lots of Merits and house points.

We will be updating our Class Page with regular updates for you all. Here are a few details we need to let you know.

PE Days

This year, for 4S, your PE days will be Wednesday and Thursday. For 4M, Wednesday will be Forest School day with PE on a Thursday.

Children should come to school dressed in their Forest School clothes or PE kits on the appropriate days. Children will remain in this kit all day so it will need to be warm and comfortable. We also ask that, wherever possible, children's PE clothing consists of a white t-shirt and black/blue shorts. In colder months, the children are allowed to wear a tracksuit, joggers or leggings to keep them warm. They do not need to bring their school uniform to school on these days, but they should bring another pair of shoes to change into if their trainers/pumps get wet or dirty.

Reading Scheme

Children will no longer be given comprehensions to complete after reading their book.  All children have been given a reading record that should be signed and dated by an adult at home with a brief comment about how the children have enjoyed the book.

If you have any questions, please send in a message and we will try to respond as quickly as possible.

Many thanks

Miss Smith and Mr Mac

Exploring the Oceans

As you may be able to see from the pictures above, we have been exploring the oceans. From the beautiful Sunlight Zone, to the deepest depths of the Abyss, and even in to the deepest reaches of the ocean's trenches. Ask your children what they have learnt so far about the oceans and which layer is their favourite and why.