The Lower 4 children were most excited to get their hands on our recently acquired set of Fizzbooks this week. These fantastic pieces of equipment can be used as laptops or tablets, offering access to a wide range of educational software.

The children enjoyed the opportunity to work with fractions, angles, coordinates, time and times tables as they explored what the Fizzbooks have to offer.

Since arriving in Lower IV in September, the children have spent their history lessons learning about the Tudor period of British history. To help bring this to life, the children spent a wonderful morning at Shibden Hall. Here are some photographs which show just how fantastic the trip was!

The excited children arrive at the wonderful location.

Is there anybody home?

Master Robert welcomes the children into his home before introducing his wife, Mistress Jane. The table in the main hall cost a penny in Tudor times, but is now worth a cool £250,000!

Mistress Jane shows the children how to create a Tussy Mussy, to ward off the plague and other nasty illnesses.

Failing the tussy mussy, the plague doctor could always be called for!

The children were able to examine all manner of Tudor artefacts, including the most amusing chamber pot…

And after thanking Master Robert and Mistress Jane for their hospitality, the children returned to the 21^st century, full of excitement and knowledge from their morning in Tudor England.

The children have started their money container project in Design Technology.

The first step of the process towards making their own money container was to bring in interesting examples of wallets, purses and money boxes from home. The children then discussed the design pros and cons of each and chose their favourites. Finally the children drew and labelled an example of a money container.

The photographs show the children hard at work examining and evaluating the different designs.

Lower IV went digital last week, when the children undertook a problem solving challenge to teach them about how digital displays are created.

The class examined a variety of digital objects, such as clocks and calculators. They were asked to think about how the digits were constructed.

They were then able to work practically to see if they could create each digit using as few ‘light bars’ as possible.

The Lower IV children are currently studying the Moving and
Growing topic in Science.

During the first lesson, they learned all about the
difference between vertebrates and invertebrates. They even got their hands on
some real bones!

The children then moved on to have a closer look at the
human skeleton. They named many bones and even managed to put them in the right
place in the skeleton jigsaw. Each of the children then made a skeleton of
their own. Great fun was had by all!

You may have noticed in the entrance hall that Mr O’Rourke and Lower IV have now completed their piggy banks. We are sure you will agree that they have done a fantastic job and the finished pigs are truly a sight to behold.  The children have worked with effort and imagination and have had a great time putting their design skills to the test. Special thanks have to go to Mrs Strawson for her artistic direction throughout!

Please click here to view our photos!

Over the last few weeks, the children in Lower IV have been using their skills to create an individual piggy bank. This forms part of their work on the Money Containers topic. They used papier mache around a balloon to create the pigs body and egg boxes to make the trotters. They have now reached the messy but fun stage of painting their pigs. Tails and ears will then be added to finish off their designs in style. As the pictures show, the children are having great fun creating their designs!

The Children in Lower IV have started their new science topic of Friction. We tested the grips of 3 different shoes (this was the only variable that we changed) by pulling them with a Newton metre along 50cm.

We learned that Newton metres are named after Sir Isaac Newton, who refined the theory of gravity, and that these are instruments used for measuring force. Here are some photos of our test.

Mr ORourke and Lower IV undertook a fantastic experiment to investigate which materials make the best insulators. Each group was given a frozen hand (beautifully sculpted by Mr Cannon) and asked to preserve it for as long as possible, using the selection of materials provided. The children had great fun as hands slowly melted and fingers started to drop off! They ensured a fair test by each receiving their equally sized hand at the same time, as well has having equal amounts of their individual material to use (felt, polyester, bubble wrap, newspaper, tin foil and cotton wool). Each group measured the amount of liquid in their tray at the end so they could work out which group and material had slowed the melting progress most effectively. The photographs show just how much fun we all had even Mrs Wilson came along to join in!

In their French lessons, Lower IV children are having fun learning about the four seasons.