Class 4 | St. Mary's C of E Primary School

Welcome to Year 4

Class 4 have been thoroughly enjoying their cornet lessons. In only a few short weeks, they have made fantastic progress and are now able to play along with a tune. We are hoping to record their final performance at the end of term to show you all.

Class 4 really enjoyed learning about Remembrance Day and learning to sew their own poppies.

We explored the significance of the poppy and what it represents. We also learnt that Remembrance Day is not only for remembering those who served our country so bravely in WW1 and WW2, but also in other wars, such as the Falklands war, the Gulf war, the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan in which people are still actively fighting today.

We spent time reflecting on what the soldiers sacrificed so that we could be here today, and it made us all quite emotional. To show our thanks, we carefully sewed our own poppies, which we wore with pride. After enjoying a lovely Remembrance church service, we came back into the classroom and took a picture altogether. It was certainly a day to remember.

Did you know that there were Anglo-Saxon settlements in East Grinstead? Well, we did! We spent our afternoon investigating and finding proof.

We began by looking at a map of the five different Saxon Kingdoms in AD600. These were: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex and Kent. We learnt that within each kingdom, there were many different settlements, each with their own place name.

The names that the Anglo-Saxons gave to their new settlements can still be found in place names we have today. Our challenge was to look at a local area map for towns or villages containing ‘ham’, ‘ing’, ‘den’ or ‘ton’ in their names (e.g. Cottenham, Impington, Chittering). We then worked out what the names could have meant by using the key below.

ton = settlement

ing = meeting place

ham = settlement

den = woodland clearing

ford = river crossing

bury = fortified place

folk = people

stead/sted = place

Today, Class 4 worked really hard on developing their accuracy in P.E. They each took turns at working their way around a circuit, designed to excite and challenge their throwing skills! On the circuit there were:

Netball hoops
Bowling pins
Throwing rings
Bat and ball
Target practice on the wall

It was hard work and fast paced, but they had a lot of fun.

Today we explored how Anglo-Saxon’s made their clothes. We found out that they only used natural dyes, which often meant that they used home grown plants or flowers. Then we had a go ourselves.

For our dye, we used red cabbage, turmeric, spinach and blackberries. We mixed them with boiling water, left them to soak and then strained them. Some of these mixtures were very smelly! We didn't really like the smell of the turmeric or the cabbage. After that, we dipped white wool in the dyes, this was a lot of fun! It took us over half an hour to dye 4/5 strands of wool, which made us think how long it would have taken the Saxons to dye their clothes!

Today Class 4 went on a special journey. We began by watching the ‘Edmund the Drover’ video on YouTube, this gave us a lot of information about drovers. Next, we became Anglo-Saxon drovers and followed a trail of oak trees, just as the drovers would have done when taking there pigs to be fattened. We needed to decide whether or not our local words was a good place to take our pigs. On the way to the woods, we looked out for and identified oak and ash trees, as well as looking for oak galls.

Once we got to the woods, we found a lucky ash tree! We listened to the tale of Saxon superstitions and Norse mythology, before touching the tree for good luck. Then, we started looking around the area for plants that could have been used for medicine and food. After that, we collected natural objects and made our own charms. A lot of us used leaves from the lucky ash tree for luck and some sticks for strength.

When we were deeper in the woods, we found a sunken route way. We learnt how these were created after years of people walking the same route. We wondered whether Saxon drovers had walked on the very route way that we stood on! Next, we were challenged with writing a message to let other drovers know that this was a good woods to take your pigs too. We used the Saxon alphabet and sticks to leave our messages, this was so much fun! Some of us even had a go at using flint and steel to light a fire, just as the Anglo-Saxons would have done.