Another fantastic week in 4A!

In our Reading sessions, we began our class novel ‘The Firework-maker’s Daughter’ by Phillip Pullman. The children have really enjoyed reading the story and they are itching to hear what happens next. During Writing, we learnt our new model text by acting it out. It is always so impressive to see the children internalise the stories with such ease. Below is a picture of our class story map it would be great if you could try and practice it at home. Next week, we will be starting our shared planning and writing to create our very own warning tales. 

We have had a fantastic first week in 4A!

I have really enjoyed getting to know everyone and getting ourselves back into our daily routines. 

The children have been working incredibly hard in many different subject areas. In our English sessions, we have been learning ‘The Book’ by Michael Rosen. I have been blow away by the children’s enthusiasm and ability to learn the poem so quickly. Within our Maths learning we have been looking at place value by using base ten to create 3-digit numbers.  

P.E. will take place on Tuesdays so the children will be able to come into school wearing their P.E. kits

In Maths, we have been learning about lots of different types of angles such as acute, obtuse and right angles. We used a piece of artwork by Kandisky to help identify them in a real life context. 

On Wednesday, we took part in our Sports Day at Leeds Beckett Headingley Campus. Despite the warm weather, we still had a fantastic day. Staff were so proud of the children’s sportsmanship, teamwork and resilience throughout the different activities.

On Wednesday, we had a fantastic trip to Harrogate Showground to take part in Countryside Days. The children took part in a plethora of activities from ferret training to sheep shearing. We all had a great day learning about lots of different aspects of agriculture.

On Friday afternoon, we looked at creating pointillism drawings using our creature designs from last week. We looked at simplifying our initial designs and adding spots in the style of the pointillist movement. 

On Thursday, we were joined by amazing author called Tom Vaughan. He spoke to us about his book series all about Greek myths but specifically Hercules. He explained that the series was a modern take on these myths with the 12 labours of Hercules receiving a modern twist. Some of us got to get dress up as Greek gods and take part in a quiz. Tom was so impressed with Year 4’s knowledge about this topic considering we haven’t studied it yet!

A fantastic final week in 4A!

This week, we started our new writing topic which is a piece of non-fiction all about an underwater creature. We have been learning lots of interesting vocabulary like bioluminescent and protruding. We used this to start building different sentence types. We learnt our model text and then created our own story maps of flipchart paper. Next half term, we will be imagining our own underwater creature and creating a fact file all about it.

In Maths, we have been working extremely hard on our fractions topic. We learnt this week how to subtract and add fractions from whole and mixed numbers. I have been impressed with the children’s fractions knowledge and how they have persevered when things have got more complex.

During our R.E. learning, we finished off our Easter topic by creating some fantastic pieces of art to do with the Easter story. We talked about the use of specific colours for different parts of the story. We discussed that bright colours would be more suitable for Palm Sunday as it was an uplifting part of the story were as darker colours would be better for representing Good Friday.

This week, we undertook our termly assessments. The children took on all aspects with great resilience and perseverance. I have been really impressed with the progress the children have been making.

In Reading, we looked at a variety of non-fiction texts and answered a series of retrieval questions that allowed us to skim the text to find the answers. Once, we had finished our reading lessons we magpied any great vocabulary that we can then use in our own writing.

During our Geography learning, we started by looking at different biomes. We focussed more closely on the ocean biome. We looked at the different layers the ocean is split into. We watched short Blue Planet clips and tried to guess which section the action was taking place.

On Thursday, we made their night lights using the glass jars the children brought in. We had great fun bringing our designs to life and pushing our creativity. We were all really impressed with our night lights and we all can’t wait to test them out at home.

Another great week in 4A!

In Writing, we planned and wrote our hot writes all about a character who gets transported to the depths of the ocean. The children have once again proven themselves to be amazingly imaginative writers.

In Science, we have been looking at dichotomous keys – which help scientists group animals. We started by creating them using liquorice all sorts. We had to think of questions that would help us separate them. We used this knowledge to create keys about different animals.

Our class novel this half term has been ‘The Boy who met the Whale,’ by Nizrana Farook. We loved hearing all about the adventures of Riza, Shifa and Zheng as they attempt to find the treasure whilst avoiding the villainous Marco.