It has been another tremendous week in Year 4!

During our Writing sessions, we constructed our shared writing plans and began the initial writing of our warning story. The children had some amazing ideas and all the teachers are really looking forward to reading their work. In Maths, we continued to explore place value by using a variety of manipulatives from place value counters to base ten. The children all worked really hard and showed great resilience when flexibly partitioning numbers.

In our Science learning in class we began an experiment looking at the effect different drinks have on our teeth. We put a boiled egg in a glass of milk, water, Diet Coke and coke to mimic the effect they have on our teeth. We made some observations about their colour on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The plan is to observe them after the weekend, hopefully our classrooms don’t smell too bad!

In History, we started our new topic ‘The Roman Empire,’ which will take us all the way through till Christmas. We began the topic by splitting ourselves into different countries that were each given a selection of resources. We then set up a trading forum where we were able to barter in order to get different resources for our country. Once trading finished Mr Ash took on the role of the Roman Empire and told countries that they needed to give away resources to different countries and then to him. Although we all thought this was really unfair, it did demonstrate the power that big empires had over other countries. 

Our TTrockstar of the week is Zak and our Lexia legend is Mollie. Book club this week was hosted by Nyla and Arvin. They chose ‘Varjak Paw’ by S.F. Said and ‘A Collection of Ancient Myths’ by Geraldine McCaughrean.

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. Next week, we will be starting our shared planning and writing to create our very own warning tales. 

In Maths, we have continued to develop our place value understanding by using manipulatives to make the learning really hands-on. We ended the week by recapping our Spanish about the four seasons. We then played a game that allowed us to practise our pronunciation of each season. 

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.  

A couple of key things for next week: P.E. will take place on Tuesdays so the children will be able to come into school wearing their P.E. kits. Reading scheme books were given out this week and we will be expecting the children to read at least three times every week. 

Another great week in Year 4!

During our writing sessions, we have been creating amazing setting descriptions all about a volcano. The children have been paired writing – which has seen them working with a partner to create some incredible pieces of writing. I have been really impressed with their collaborative skills supporting one another to push their vocabulary as well as checking in on each other’s sentence structures and use of punctuation.

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. 

Our TTrockstar of the week is Phoebe and our Lexia legend is Emelia. It is really important that we continue to keep up our Lexia usage as well as completing our TTrockstar sessions.

This week was Refugee Week and we took part in different activities to gain an understanding on the topic. We welcomed Year 5 on Wednesday – who spoke to us about all their amazing learning on Refugees and they informed us that they were selling wristbands in order to support Refugee charities. On Friday, we created short films using Imovie to display facts about Refugees and urge people to support different charities.

On Tuesday, we worked on our Viking purses – which needed lots of resilience as many of us found the stitching difficult. However, by the end of our DT sessions everybody felt much more confident in sewing and threading needles.

This week was certainly action packed! 

On Tuesday, we visited Harrogate Showground to take part in Countryside Days. We started the day by learning all about sheep and were even treated to an impromptu dance routine. We then took part in a variety of different activities such as learning about dinosaurs in Yorkshire to watching a sheep dog show. 

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

On Friday, we had an amazing Viking workshop. The session started by explaining the Viking’s invasion of Britain. We learnt that they invaded an area of Northumberland called Lindisifarne and that they attacked monasteries killing and enslaving many monks. Following this initial discussion, we looked at different Viking weaponry and we talked about how each one would have been used in battle. We then looked at the different pieces of armour that Vikings used to protect themselves such as helmets and chain mail.

4A finished the half term with an excellent week of learning.

During Music, we ended our Garageband topic by creating pieces to soundtrack the opening of ‘Doctor Who.’ We created our pieces and then used an app called Imovie to twin the video with the music. I was simply blown away by the quality of the children’s work. 

We ended the week by having some fun in our PE lesson. We didn’t let Wednesday’s wash out spoil our enjoyment. We played an assortment of games but particularly enjoyed our game of chicken run. 

This week we have been LOVING getting stuck into our ‘evil villain’ character description writing unit. We acted out the model text and, as you can see, everyone gave it the full dramatic effect. We discussed how, although we are looking at character description, the setting description is equally important to create the atmosphere. We also explored how being vague with certain parts of writing like the dialogue used and why guests might be invited to a mysterious dinner party leaves the reader wanting more and makes them have to infer more.

On Friday, we took on a group challenge. Mr Ash challenged us to build a 30 cm structure using newspaper to support an orange without holding it. We started by creating some designs but we struggled to think how the structure would be strong enough. Mr Ash then showed us how we could strengthen the newspaper by rolling it using a piece of dowel but again we were unsure about the structures ability to hold the orange. We then talked about making the base more solid using a triangular base. We then were able to complete the challenge. Well done to all the groups who collaborated incredibly well and showed excellent resilience.

Our TTrockstar of the week is Phoebe and our Lexia legend is Amelia. Book club this week was hosted by Elsie and Emelia. They chose 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith and Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan.

Even though this week has only been four days, we have managed to cram in so much great learning. 

This week, we have been learning all about things we can do to support our own mental health. On Wednesday, we took part in the Big Sing – which involved us singing as part of a school wide choir on the playground. We then came to school dressed in green to show our support for mental health week. We undertook a trail which led us to us watching the amazing ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse’ by Charlie Macksey. The film, which is adapted from an amazing book, provides the reader/watcher with many important pieces of advice. 

On Thursday, we did lots of collaborative learning. Firstly, we undertook a retrieval relay (a class favourite) in Reading. Then we recapped some of our decimal work around part whole models using big sheets to support us. The children worked really well and have really improved their collaboration skills. 

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.