Monday 30 November 2015

Anglo-Saxon racing game

In computing today Mars were taught how to change costumes,  how to increase and decrease the speed of our character ( a horse) and how to change back to its original costume when it goes through an obstacle.

Emilie working on her Anglo-Saxon horse racing game
Rhys working out how to survive the obstacles







Jia working hard to stay on track


"I think my project is a great game to play if you are learning about the Anglo-Saxons. When making the game, I had some problems such as when my horse went through the river it turned into bubbles but I found out that if I added an instruction to switch to costume 1 it stayed as a horse."  
By Alex




"During computing, we have made an Anglo-Saxon race with horses .We had to make two horses , make an obstacle course and race with them .Avoiding the obstacles was  really hard especially on a small track. I went to help some people with their obstacles." 
by Emilie

Saturday 28 November 2015





Apple Store Visit
20 children from Year 4 found themselves in a fortunate position, when they were selected to attend a workshop at the Apple Store in Bluewater, after their names were pulled from a hat. 

On Thursday 25th November  we set off for Bluewater and felt like special visitors as we were met outside the store and given fantastic  T-shirts with the Apple Logo on them.  



After putting them on, we went inside the store and spent the morning learning about a new app which can be used on the ipads to support our bookmaking skills - both the writing and the illustrations. We worked as pairs and all wrote a version of Beowulf (as this is the text we are currently reading). 




 After writing and illustrating our stories they were published and shown in the store. We were all given a memory stick to keep, with our work stored on it.       Fffn



















  

wwwww

Friday 27 November 2015

Bollywood at Venus assembly

  Class Assembly
 BOLLYWOOD

In our class assembly Olivia, Ava, Sophie,Tia and Ameena have been doing a Bollywood dance from India and we really enjoyed it.

When we performed it to the whole school everyone was watching us it was hard but it was exciting. When we were performing we were wearing dresses, bind-e and bangles. We were dancing to a song called Jai Ho which means the shout of victory. We all had a good time from the minute are foot touched the hall floor.


Are assembly was about topic, ICT and PE. Sophie and Lola made a Prezi about Bollywood and it had lots of description and information about the dance and where it came from.

Haka dance during Venus assembly



  
The Haka dance is a dance that is danced by the Maori tribe in New Zealand; they did it before a fight and in Rugby.

The Haka has been altered through the ages, it is a very easy dance and we learned it. Our role in the assembly was to do a Prezi about the Haka because we wanted to take the chance to stand in front of everybody and show our learning in advance. We learned that speaking in front of everybody is not as easy as it looks,
And you must be careful, but the assembly on the whole was very good because it was something that had never happened in school and was a nice surprise to have an assembly done entirely by class Venus.

Theo: "My role was doing the Haka for our part.We did it for are assembly."

Finley: "My part was doing the Haka in our assembly. I was in the front."

Philip: "I liked the face paint and   the dance."

 George: "I liked it when we performed in front of nearly the whole school I felt really proud."

Philip: "I want to improve is the bit at the end of the dance."


George: "I really liked the assembly because we shared all of our learning to the school. "



Man I feel like a ..... Cowboy

                         The cowboy line dance!


Today we did our class assembly


We did the cowboy line dance from North America. Are roles were first Tyler’s role was to say the prize and dance. Tyler said what we learn. Tyler said we are learning the cowboy linen dance. Next Joanita did the rest of the prize. Then Jamie did dancing with some cowboy line dancers.

We did it because it would be fun and because we would look good doing a dance assembly. No one has ever done a dance assembly before.

We learned how to do a Prezi on a laptop with the help of Miss Goulet and some other people. And then they learned how to do the Bollywood dance, Cowboy line dance and Hakka dance.
We liked it because we had a lot of excise and it was epic. we all liked it. so did the parents and the and the whole school.

What did we like the best?

Molly likes: "I liked it when I threw my hat up in the air at the end of the dance, when everybody was clapping."

Lola likes: "I liked it when me and Sophie were presenting the Bollywood dance
And when my dad recorded me dancing."

Katie likes: "I liked it when I got up in front of everyone and I danced to the cowboy song man I feel like a woman and I really enjoyed it .I am quite proud because I thought that I would be really scared and I wasn’t , it was better than great."

Lewis: "I liked our assembly, because we got to dress up like cowboys, and, we got to listen to music and sing them in the end."


Harrison: "I really liked our assembly because we learned really fun stuff and I really enjoyed our assembly. In our assembly, I was a cowboy I really liked the song, man I feel like a women."

                                 






By          Molly, Katie and Lola, Lewis and Harrison

  

Thursday 19 November 2015

Avoid Grendel

Today we are doing Scratch as part of a special activity.

It was difficult to do it because you had to draw the sprite but it was fun.
It was easy because you could go to the one with the book on it and click on it and it will show you some  pictures.

During this period, I tried my game in order to see if it was working. In my game Grendel with try to catch Beowulf, use the arrows to escape from Grendel.

I am really proud of this game and I hope you like it too.

Maisie, class Mars


Tuesday 17 November 2015


We have enjoyed reading Varjak Paw by SF Said and have learnt a lot about the behaviour and needs of a cat, especially one living on the streets . To further our understanding, we invited an educational representative from Cats Protection into class Mars and Venus to learn more about how difficult life can be, being a street cat. As souvenirs of Louisa Beyer's visit, we were given cat masks to decorate and a quiz booklet all themed around cats.


All around the world with class Mars

During our topic lessons we have been working collaboratively to research a country using the internet. We have presented this information,using power point. To increase its effectiveness and appeal to our intended target audience, we have learned how to add in hyperlinks, animations and transitions, as well as change font colour,size and style.
Here are a few for you to enjoy.

This one was created by James and Esther in class Mars.




.......and this one was created by Emilie and Grace who take us on a tour of Germany






......and finally Luca and Zuby's journey around Greece.




Discovering the world one Prezi at a time.

Class Venus have made Prezis which enabled them to explore new media to extend what they could achieve when presenting information.

During our topic period as our All around the World research we searched the World Wide Web to find information about a specific country.

We learned how to insert photos and videos as well as use for the first time the online software Prezi.com


1. Egypt by Jamie and Molly
2. Russia by Katie and Theo
3. Portugal by Lewis and Tilly

Monday 9 November 2015

We have been learning how to program a game using the software Scratch. We used a variety of tools to create a program. 

Every Monday during the afternoon, we go to the ICT suite and work on our game. 

There are two links for you to enjoy two different games. 

From class Mars, the first one is a Baseball game created by Emilie. 

From class Venus, the second link is a game on a beach created by Lola. 

The two ladies tried their game first in order to make sure it works. 


Hope you like them :) 

Friday 11 September 2015

Mars and Venus - class of 2015-16

We have all settled well into our new classrooms and have worked hard to learn and remember our new routines as we get to grips with life as a year 4 pupil at Upland.

Our topic for this half term is "All around the world " which will help us to learn about the different continents, countries, capital cities as well as hopefully, inspiring us to want to visit and explore some of these places in the future like these two intrepid back packers. 

Watch their trip to visit 60 countries over a 3 year period:
  


To help celebrate the start of the rugby world cup which "kicks off" next week, we learned to perform the Haka in our PE lesson- traditionally a Maori ceremonial war dance involving chanting. An imitation of this is performed by the New Zealand rugby teams before a match to try and intimidate their opponents. We even got to stick our tongues out!!!

If you want to practise the moves again, watch this clip.

Tuesday 30 June 2015

All in for Capture the Flag

The year 4s warming up before their team game of Capture the flag!

This week year 4 decided they wanted to play as mixed teams. 



Classes were able to share strategies they had used in previous sessions with their new team players. 

Teachers were impressed at how well the children worked in their new teams and how far the children have come in working together to achieve a goal.  

But mostly we had FUN!! 


Monday 29 June 2015

Scratch continued



Pupils have been working on Scratch to create games which involve some element of response to an action: this could be a sprite disappearing 

or speech after responding to a question. 





Monday 22 June 2015

Logging in to google.

This computing lesson we have been taking on the task so that we can login to our google accounts. This will let us add comments to our class blog. 



We now understand that when we set up an email account we have to have a password that we need to remember or record in a safe place, to allow us to login to our account again. 


Friday 12 June 2015

Up the wall!

Mars have been challenging themselves by attempting to climb up the rock-climbing wall that has been on the school grounds all week. 




Miss Henderson even had a little go - with a lot of encouragement from Iona as we went up together. (Iona obviously got to the top quicker!!!!!) :)

  

Capture the flag!

This week we have played 'Capture the Flag' which involves using team work and discussing strategies. 




A team member hides a flag and the opposing team tries to get it. If you enter the oppositions side you can be tagged and have to go to jail. You are only freed by your team member crossing over, putting themselves at risk to being caught, to free you - where you get a free pass to return to your own team's side. 


"This game is fun, but challenging."

Thursday 11 June 2015

Class activities


9.06.2015
In class Mars have been getting creative and messy, designing Viking shields, putting together Viking ships and making short bread biscuits - yum! 
Designing our Viking shield.

Kennedy, first to finish the tricky ship making! We'll done! 



Getting messy making biscuits! 

We had lots of fun today. 

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Outdoor week Adventures!

Monday - we had our first go at the rock climbing wall, with great success! Showing perseverance and bravery everyone tried their hardest to reach the top. Well done all! We also set goals for ourselves and started our outdoor week journals where we will document all of our adventures and successes!!! 

Monday 8 June 2015

Vikings and scratch!

We had a lot of fun connecting our knowledge of programming to our learning of the Vikings. We recreated the battle of Lindisfarne, using sprites that we designed ourselves and incorporating motion, speech and speech. We also used our creativity to make Lindisfarne backgrounds!


Friday 5 June 2015

Our next stage in scratch

Today we have been using our knowledge and skills gained in Scratch programming. 
 


The Sprite has very discretely changed colour and then played hide and seek by disappearing. 

Here two boys have been working on the same maze project, by logging in and having their work on 2 different computers at the same time. What clever lads in sharing the work! 



Friday 22 May 2015

MBSW graphic novel

Today in class we have finished our book, Mouse,Bird,Snake,Wolf. Wonderfully written by David Almond and beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean.





This week, Year4 have been busy writing additional parts to the original graphic novel, and improving upon them,  In addition, Year 4  have produced some sturnning artwork to complement our writing.






We have used our amazing imaginations to recreate the graphic novel in different ways, such as water colours, pastels, feltpens and colour pencils.






Friday 15 May 2015

Canadian Pen Pals!

Venus received their first pen pal letters from Canada this week!

'I was so excited to open my letter from my pen pal Devin, I couldn't wait to read what he likes and what he does back in Canada!' Scarlet

'It was so cool to learn that my pen pal Samantha likes the same things as me! She likes the same colours as me and she comes from a BIG family just like I do!' Nana :)

'I was so excited to open my letter. My pen pal is SOO funny!' Will

We are looking forward to getting as many letters back and forth before the end of the year!

We have been learning how to use Microsoft Publisher to create word art - we used our names and personality traits to make our own unique posters. Look at how they turned out!

 We hope you can stop by our class
and see our posters displayed proudly!

 - Class Venus Post :)
We extended our skills to link to our topic learning about the Anglo Saxons and Vikings!!!

Friday 8 May 2015

Publisher skills

After using a publisher document to develop our skills in changing fonts; colour, size, 3d effects, style and a number of other presentation features, for our own names....

 

We are now using these to link to our topic on Vikings.