As part of their work on the Tudors in history, the Lower IV children went on a fantastic trip to Shibden Hall. On arrival, the children were greeted by the master of the house, Robert, in full Tudor character and costume. Once Robert decided the children were ‘goodly’ enough to enter his home, the children went on to experience a wonderful morning filled with all things Tudor. They examined a range of Tudor artefacts, received a guided tour of the wonderful building and finally got to make a tussy mussy of their own to ward off the dreaded black death!

The children arrive at Shibden Hall and are greeted by Robert, the master of the house.

Master Robert explains the rules of the house.

The children examine a variety of Tudor artefacts.

The design of a Tudor mouse trap is carefully investigated.

The children examine a Tudor puzzle jug.

The herbs are laid out for the children to make a tussy mussy.

Lady Joan tells the children about life during Tudor times.

The children wearing Tudor ruffs around their necks.

The children make their tussy mussy.

Master Robert and Lady Joan address their audience on the subject of marriage!

The lady and master discuss the suitability of potential husbands for the girls!

To begin their work on the topic of habitats, Lower IV conducted an experiment to find out the preferred living conditions of woodlice.

Mr Cannons outdoor skills again came to the fore, as he was specially sent out to round up a selection of test subjects. The willing participants were then set loose in a special designed woodlouse environment. They were then carefully monitored for a week by the children to find out which habitat they chose to live in.

The children had great fun setting up and monitoring the experiment as it unfolded. The woodlice were then safely returned to the playground and thanked for their participation!

The children in Lower IV have been learning about earthworms as part of their work on Moving and Growing. In order to understand the differences between vertebrates such as humans and invertebrates such as the humble earthworm, each group was able to study and handle a live example of the species!  The children quickly worked out that the worm has a liquid skeleton which enables it to move. Needless to say that the worms were returned safely to the wild shortly after the activity! Mr Cannon is still thanking Mr O’Rourke for making him spend a drizzly lunchtime digging holes around the edge of the playground!

Please click here to see our photos!

Lower IV began their work on Moving and Growing by getting close to a weird and wonderful selection of creatures. Their task was to work together to work out ways to sort a variety of reptiles, mammals, insects and all sorts of other living things into different groups. The aim of the lesson was to introduce the concept of vertebrates and invertebrates and children had great fun trying to work out which creatures had backbones and which did not. The children then got to study some stunning visuals of animal skeletons to check they had made the correct decisions!

On Thursday 20th May Lower IV visited Crossley Heath Grammar School as part of their ongoing learning this term about library and thinking skills. 24 children and 3 members of staff had a very pleasant walk in the sunshine to and from Crossley Heath to visit their Learning Resource Centre (LRC).

The LRC at Crossley Heath is an area which combines a library, multi-media, magazines and newspapers, as well as linking their VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), which is a system that pupils can use to complete some of their homework on line and send it direct to their teachers. It even lets children do their photocopying and printing as well as allowing them to buy their pencils, rubbers, rulers when they might have mislaid them at home!

Mrs Taylor, who is responsible for looking after the LRC, very kindly took us through the school and told us some of its very interesting history, as well as explaining how the LRC works. On the way to the LRC, the children enjoyed looking at some fantastic art exhibitions throughout the school, which had been displayed at last week’s art show . The children were provided with tasks to complete, by finding books and magazines in a very big LRC, and asked some very interesting questions.

Charlie and Edward managed to hunt out a copy of the Rugby magazine from the LRC, which particularly made their day. James, Carmen and Hannah had fun  trying on some of the old school hats that were part of the uniform many years ago. Dylan and Angus swiftly sorted out the computer catalogue system, whilst you will see many of the other children enjoying reading books and magazines. Mrs Taylor showed Freya and Ruby a fabulous scrap book which contains cuttings and notes from many years ago when the boarders and orphans wrote about their trips and visits to local places.

 All of us had a wonderful time and were only disappointed to learn that we couldn’t spend more time at the school.

As the children enjoy playing with the skipping ropes so much, Mrs. Choy decided to introduce them to group skipping.

Queuing patiently!

It is proving very popular, especially with LIV who after initially struggling, now seem to have mastered it.

Who knows? We might try Dutch and French skipping after Easter.

In science, Lower 4 are currently working on the ‘Keeping Warm’ topic. The children learn all about conductors, insulators and measuring temperature. They recently undertook an investigation to test how good different materials are at slowing down the melting process. They were given a variety of materials such as tin foil, felt, bubble wrap and foam and challenged to keep their frozen hand intact for as long as possible. As the pictures show, some of the groups were more successful than others!

Measuring the temperature of the frozen hand.

Ouch! Broken fingers!

How can I stop this from melting?

Mmmmmm maybe these will help?

Trying out different materials.

 Maybe the bubble wrap will do the trick?

The big melt begins!

Maybe you could try this?

The children in Lower IV were extremely fortunate to spend a recent science lesson in the company of some very special visitors.  Thanks to one of our pupils, who is a big fan of all things creepy and crawly, the children were able to learn all about stick insects as part of their work on habitats.  As the pictures show, these friendly little creatures made quite an impression and got very close to some of the braver children.

This brave young man prepares to introduce the visitors to the class.

One of our visitors has stage fright!

This one seems to like our uniform!

Our guest teacher for the afternoon!

This is what a stick insect egg looks like.

Another of the friendly creature meets the class!

They really do like the uniform!

The tie is not bad either!

They really aren’t too attractive!

We have been on a trip to Shibden Hall as part of our history topic on the Tudors. At the hall we met Mistress Jane and Lady Agnes who told us lots of interesting things and showed us around the hall. We completed inventories for ‘strange’ household objects and made pomanders and herb bags called ‘tussy mussies’.  We had a fantastic time and none of us wanted to leave!

Recently the children in Lower 4 have been spending time using their skills to solve all sorts of interesting mathematical problems. The photographs show the children attempting to make numbers as they would appear in a digital display, using a maximum of only 7 headless matches. They found that by working together and applying logic to the problem, it was possible to make every digit.