As we near the end of year 4, 4DA are still diving into new learning and projects! 

Monday saw us jump up to year 5 as the class spent the day with their new teacher, Mr James. It was great to see the children jump up as they prepare for their big move to upper key stage 2. We also look forward to another morning in year 5 on Monday! 

Our big class project this week has been a historical one. We have taken a look back at how the Anglo Saxon and Viking era came to an end in 1066. We explored the year of the 3 kings and the wrestle for power between the Anglo Saxons, vikings and the eventual successors, the Normans. We created our own version of the Bayeux tapestry which depicts the events of the battle of Hastings and how William the conqueror took charge of England

What a scorcher of a week in 4DA! From routes and roots to melting in the classroom, it still been a fun filled week. 

We started the week by completing our writing unit. We wrote our evil character description based on a clip from a Disney classic. I was so impressed with the resourcefulness of the class! Our maths topic has focused on coordinated on a grid and we’ve worked on translating these coordinated to different places – we even got a bit of map work in! 

Our history topic has continued to look at the Viking invasion of Britain. We explored the life of King Alfred the Great and how he defending the Anglo-Saxon kingdom from the vikings. We also took a look at what life looked at for the Viking settlers across England! 

Fingers crossed for some less melty weather next week. 

What a week! From sports day to descriptive writing, it has been great viewing. 

Our writing topic is in full flow now as we have planned our shared write on our evil character, Medusa. I have been so impressed with the level of resourcefulness by the children and I am sure it will result in some fine pieces of work. Our maths topic has continued to focus on shape as we have explored quadrilaterals and lines of symmetry. We had some very good talking points around a line of symmetry being reflective and not just the same on both sides. 

Sports day was a brilliant day out. The students from 4DA flocked to Leeds Beckett to compete in our annual sports day. Starting with our track events in the morning, followed by the field events in the afternoon, I was so impressed with everyone’s effort, resilience and skill during the day! 

It has been a great first week back in 4DA as we have entered our final half term of the year! 

We have started our exciting new writing topic which will see the children produce a creepy character description based on an evil character from a book or story. We have been learning the model text and created many classroom resources to help us with our spooky and creepy writing. Our maths topic has shifted to shape! We have spent the week looking at different types of angles, comparing these angles and going into greater detail about triangles. Another exciting start has been our history topic. Following on from the Romans, we are taking a closer look at who controlled Britain after the Romans left 16 hundred years ago. We explored where the Anglo-Saxons came from and why Britain seemed like a brilliant place to settle. 

Finally, Friday saw a very fun and scientific afternoon take place. Plenty of members of 4DA headed to the science fair. We also had plenty of students bring in their experiments to share in the classroom as well. From solar systems to crystal making to exploding volcanoes.. we have had a very informative time! 

It has been a super last week to the half term as we have been on plenty of adventures in 4DA! 

On Tuesday, year 4 went on their countryside day school trip to the Yorkshire showgrounds in Harrogate. This is an excellently organised day where the children had the opportunity to visit and take part in different activities to do with wildlife. We were lucky enough to create Japanese-style pictures from flowers and leaves, learn more about how Border Collies are trained to herd sheep, took a dive into the history of ferrets and even got to see dancing sheep. Overall, it was a brilliant day, and the children learnt lots from the different stations they visited! 

Our Geography lessons also took an adventurous spin as the students of 4DA took part in an orienteering course around the school. We took a look at how to use a compass to ensure the map stays facing north and used the points on the map to work out the best routes in order to complete the course. 

I hope everyone has a tremendous time in the sun next week

Another brilliant week has come to an end in 4DA and it has been a very productive one! 

The children have been working hard on creating their plans for their hot write based on a newly-discovered sea creature. The children have been tasked with inventing their own sea creature including facts about their appearance, their habitats and what is in their diets. There are certainly many creatures that I would not like to meet when going for a dip in the ocean on my summer holidays! Our maths topic has focused on decimals this week and I have genuinely been really impressed with how well they have worked with decimals places. We have been partitioning and rounding decimals, linking our knowledge back to our fractions topic. Friday afternoon has also seen us complete a number of our mosaics. A lot of time, patience and hard work has gone into making these pieces of art, that I must say, the Romans would have been proud of!

Have a good weekend, everyone.

A shorter week in year 4 but still a great one filled with plenty of learning and fun! 

Our writing topic has steamed ahead into our shared write, where we have been creating our own information texts based on some peculiar looking sea creatures. It has been fun linking our previous geography and science topics to this piece of work by using our knowledge of vertebrates and climate change. Our maths topic has continued to look and work in decimals. We have been creating whole numbers from tenths and hundredths and using this knowledge to partition whole numbers in decimals. 

Our science topic has seen us explore food chains and webs in greater detail. We have taken a look at what happens to food chains and webs when affected humans and natural occurrences. We also linked this back to our previous geography topic and discovered that climate change is having quite a drastic affect on food chains and webs all over the world. In art, the children started creating their mosaics. We sketched our design onto card and began to use smaller pieces of coloured paper to create our mosaics.

Reminder – Please sign up for the countryside day trip in a couple of weeks if you haven’t. 

Have a good weekend!

The sun has shone again in year 4 this week as the children continue to impress with their work in the summer term! 

Our shared write has kick started this week as we have been writing informatiination texts about mysterious new discoveries under the ocean’s surface. We have introduced our strange creatures and planned ahead to how we could we could describe their appearances. We have continued go look at decimals in maths. In particular, we have been looking at hundredths and using this knowledge to divide by 10 and 100. 

Our geography lesson on Friday morning took us on an adventure. We learnt all about 4 figure grid references and how they are used in maps to locate different points and places. We will be putting these skills into practice in future lessons as we go on an orienteering-type hunt around the school. In science we explored what a food web is, building on from our work on food chains last week. We took a closer look at over-fishing within an ocean biome and how this could effect ecosystems in different ways. 

Enjoy the bank holiday, everyone! 

It has been great to have been welcomed back to the summer term with some weather that matches the name! 

Our new writing topic has kicked off this week as we have been looking at the model text all about a mysterious, arctic creature that has recently been discovered. This will lead us onto writing our very own information texts based on different animals. Watch out David Attenborough. Our maths topic has continued to look at decimals. In particular, we have been dividing by 10 with the answer leaving decimals and started to look at hundredths. 

Away from writing and maths, we have started our new topic of living things and their habitats in science. We looked at food chains and discussed how energy is transferred through a food chain within an ecosystem. We talked about how every living organism obtain their energy from sunlight, but not directly in a lot of cases. Our RE topic has started to look at the Pentecost as we look back at the start of the Christian church and how the holy spirt entered the apostles in Jerusalem. 

Finally, some mathematicians from year 4 competed in an online maths challenge this week! Small groups competed against other schools at a year 4 maths challenge which was being played all over the UK. If they did well enough, they will enter the grand final in a few weeks time – fingers crossed! They worked superbly together as a team and really impressed with their mathematical and problem solving skills. 

Have a good weekend, everybody!

And just like that, 2/3 of year 4 are complete! 

The last shortened week of the spring term has been a very creative one. We have been building community based houses in our routes and roots sessions, drawn sea creatures using our new pointillism skills and evaluated our night lights which will be coming home today! We also finished off our term by visiting the church for our Easter service. It was great to join the other children from key stage two to celebrate the new beginnings with Reverend Sharon. 

Have a great holiday, everyone!