We're the Grizzly Bears!

Welcome to our class

We’re proud and independent, sensitive and strong.

We work hard, try our best and have lots of fun!

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Class Story:

Our new class story is 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' by Jeff Kinney.

PE Timetable

Please note that our PE lessons will take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this term. 

Our topics this term

• Science: Light
• Geography: Mountains, Rivers and Coasts
• RE: Why is Jesus inspring to some people?
• PE: Real PE
• Computing: We Are Software Developers
• Music: Music Express

Home-Learning

I have been so impressed with how hard the children have been working at home in recent weeks and they've been producing some brilliant English, Maths and Science work on Microsoft Teams. It's also been lovely to see the other activities that they've been getting up to at home with their families - we appear to have some budding bakers in the Grizzly Bears class, not to mention talented musicians and a definite Maths-teacher-in-the-making! Here's a peek at what we've all been doing!

Sami's Piano Success

Our very talented pianist, Sami, took part in the Harrogate International Music Festival last month and did an absolutely fantastic job! He was crowned the winner in the Year 7 and under piano solo competition and was awarded a very impressive trophy for his efforts. Miss Barrett was lucky enough to see him perform and was so impressed with his confidence and musical prowess. He even got to play a piano that was worth a whopping £125,000! 

World Book Day - West End Schools Workshop

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, we took part in a dance workshop with Natalie from West End Schools. Natalie helped us choreograph a class dance to re-tell the story of 'Where the Wild Things Are', the book that we are studying for World Book Day. We had a great time - we were alarmingly good at being 'wild things' and staging a very 'wild rumpus'!

Active Play Workshops

This week we took part in some active play workshops with the lovely team from Kings Camp. They taught us games like Chaos Tig, Giants, Goblins and Wizards and Mingle Mingle. We thoroughly enjoyed it, especially watching Miss Houseman do the forfeit duck-dance!

Science

As part of our Science topic, 'Animals including Humans', we've been learning about the human body. Following lessons learning about the different functions of our bones and the role of muscles and tendons in helping us move, the children created stop-motion videos of a skeleton being put together. They presented their videos to the class, complete with an explanation of each of the composition of the human skeleton and the roles of each bone and the different joints and muscles. 

Racquets Club - Badminton

This half term, we have been lucky enough to have weekly Badminton sessions at Harrogate Racquets Club. The children have absolutely loved honing their badminton skills, learning about the forehand and backhand grip, challenging each other (and their coaches!) in ralleys and practising different kinds of shots. A huge thank you to our fantastic coaches, Vanessa and Will, for having us!

Computing

The Grizzly Bears have been really enjoying our new computing topic this term as we’re the first year to test out the school’s brand new Crumbles. Crumbles are programmable controllers that can be connected to different output devices such as motors, buzzers and LED lights. So far, we’ve programmed them to create traffic lights and to mimic the flash pattern of police cars. We’re looking forward to getting our hands on some motors and programming the Crumbles to move around an obstacle course!

Year 4 Christmas Party

This week, we had our Year 4 Christmas Party. We had a fantastic time dancing to Christmas music, playing Christmas games and, most importantly, feasting on treats. Although our favourite part of the afternoon was probably when Mrs McNerney came to join in - she's certainly got some interesting moves!

Image Theatre

To top off a very busy week, we had a visit from Image Theatre, who came in to perform Robin Hood. Some of the children were lucky enough to have parts in the play, while the rest made up the chorus, joining in with songs and doing actions to go alongside them. It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday morning!

Jorvik Viking Centre

The Year 4s took a trip to York to visit the Jorvik Viking Centre and Dig Experience. The children got to be archaeologists, digging for artefacts and then examining bones, antlers and even poo from the past to find out about
the life of the Vikings! They also took part in a battle tactics workshop and found out about the different weapons used by the Vikings and discovered that women warriors were often even more fierce than the men. Finally, they had a tour of Jorvik, finding out what York would have looked like in the Viking times. We had a fantastic day out and can’t wait to find out more about the Vikings during our History lessons this term!

Anti-Bullying Week

To mark anti-bullying week this year, we had a virtual reality anti-bullying workshop. We used VR headsets to watch a scenario and dig deeper into the effects of bullying and why people might be tempted to bully someone. 

Children in Need

We loved donning our pjs for Pudsey to raise money for Children in Need. In fact, we’d like to wear onesies and slippers to school every Friday!

Class Assembly

Last week, the Grizzly Bears had their first class assembly of the year. Our theme was ‘Remembrance’ and the children thoroughly enjoyed finding out about the meaning of Remembrance Day, the different coloured poppies people choose to wear and, for some, researching friends and family members who were in the armed forces. A brilliant assembly Grizzly Bears - very well done!

The Iron Man Film Trailers

To conclude our topic on The Iron Man, we created film trailers to summarise the story and showcase the ‘best bits’:

The Iron Man

During the Autumn term, we've done lots of work around Ted Hughes' book, 'The Iron Man'. The children have done performance readings, written free-verse poems, newspaper articles and, much to their excitement, created movie trailer-style summaries of the story. Here's just a snapshot of some of the things that we've been doing in our Reading and Writing lessons this term.

E-Safety

We’ve been busy in Computing this term showcasing our key skills while creating a PowerPoint presentation about how we keep ourselves safe online. This week, we shared all of our favourite things about the internet, suggesting what the risks of different games, apps and sites are and brainstorming how we can overcome them. 

Open Time

This week, to coincide with our Macmillan Coffee Morning, we held our first Open Hour of the year. We loved welcoming our families into the classroom to work with us. In celebration of the UCI Championships coming to Harrogate, we designed our own bicycles and made persuasive posters to advertise them. We had some weird and wonderful ideas and even some very impressive celebrity endorsements! 

Pupil Voice Groups

During our first week in class, we had the very important task of deciding who we wanted to represent our class in the various Pupil Voice Groups that we have at Oatlands Junior School. In keeping with our British Values, we staged a democratic vote in the classroom. The elected children for each group are as follows: