The mind-map below shows the main knowledge your child will be learning in geography this half term. 

Dear Parent,
 
We hope you are having a restful half term. Here’s a quick run down of the exciting half term to come.
 
Geography
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In the second half of the autumn term we will be studying the Amazon River.
 
In our Mantle of the Expert drama, tribal leaders leaving on the banks of the Amazon river have contacted National Geographic , many of the tribal elders are distressed about the changes that have happened to the river and rainforest . They want the world to know about the importance of this river and the terrible effect that deforestation and farming is causing to the rainforest environment. The team have been approached to make a journey along the river, document their journey and then write an article for National Geographic which will highlight the critical global issues to the world- before it is to late…
 
DT
Our DT project a food project about adapting recipes.  WE will be taking our inspiration from Chinese food, following up last term’s Ancient China project.
 
 
HOMEWORK :
 
Please keep up the regular reading at home and TT Rocks homework.  
Year 4, they should begin to play the SOUNDCHECK game as this replicates the government TimesTables test that all Year 4’s sit in May.  Playing the SOUNDCHECK game at home will mean that the children won’t be too daunted when faced with it in the summer term.  Mrs O’Grady would love the children to challenge her on the ROCKSLAM game too. 
 
Mrs Chapman O’Grady will check each week that your child have read to an adult at home and been online to play the games.  Children who have not completed homework tasks will attend homework club to catch up during Wednesday lunch times.   
 
PE
. Please ensure that your child has a full PE kit in school (shorts, t-shirt, trainers, jogging bottoms) every week. PE kits should be brought in on Mondays and taken home for washing on Fridays.
 
 

We talked about healthy food choices and studied the Eat Well Plate. We talked about healthier bread options and why whole grain is good for our diet. Everyone selected healthy ingredients and made a healthy harvest sandwich which we then shared with parents at our harvest tea. ​

This lesson focused on making the people around us happy. We watched a video about the effect a small domino could have knocking down a larger and larger domino each time. We then watched another video which illustrated how a small act of kindness could lead to another and another and another...
We though about what we could do for  someone else could do to make them happy and how acts of kindness  can be passed on being passed on.
Here are some photographs of us illustrating small acts of kindness we could do for someone else.

In PSHE this week we thought about healthy friendships and began to think about; the physical and emotional boundaries in friendships;  that physical boundaries are different for different people and to understand we have the right to decide what happens to our body.

We played some games which explored the comfortable space between each other, respect and consent. 

 Outside our drama we had a live teams meeting with one of the historians from the Ashmolean Museum Oxford. We learned how to think like an archaeologist, looking at objects very carefully at the details of objects from the Shang period and finding evidence about their function, the materials they were made from and what they tell us about the Shang Dynasty. Can you work out what these objects from the Shang Dynasty display are , what they were made of and how they would be used ? 

We learned how to paint Chinese characters for the word China and heard a Chinese myth telling how the 4 great rivers of China were created. 

In our History Mantle of the Expert Drama we travelled to China in 1899 and met Professor Wang an eminent historian who was suffering from malaria. We saw how he visited a Chinese pharmacy, which was very different to our own pharmacies and chemists today. Professor Wang was prescribed 'Dragon Bones' to grind down and drink in hot water.  We found out that these bones were actually Ox bones and turtle shells - not dragon bones...but when he looked carefully he found there was some thing truly amazing on the bones .... ancient Chinese writing ...
Professor Wang realised that these bones were from the area which stories told of a the first great Chinese Dynasty by the Yellow River near the modern city of Anyang. The professor commissioned a team to begin an excavation in the area. He  contacted our team of British archaeologists from the Ashmolean Museum Oxford to help him. We travelled to China to help with the archaeological dig. The team discovered many ancient Shang Artifacts which proved the existence of the Shang Dynasty.   We studied artifacts which has been found and used our archaeological skills to try to find out what these object were. 

The Roses Class thought about what makes good manners and why showing good manners is important in the way we live our lives in school and at home. Here are some of our thoughts about actions which are polite and impolite.