The penultimate week of the first year 4 term has been another great one! Christmas twists on activities have started to creep in as well as the main filming for our Roman v Celts battle.

Our mathematical focus has switched to geometry this week, looking closely at what area is and how to measure it. The students have been been comparing the areas of shapes and creating their own Christmas themed shapes with specific areas! In writing, we have carried on our topic of instruction writing. We have written a set of instructions for making tortilla pizzas, linking to the practical roman cooking session we had last week. It has been great to break down the structures of writing instructions, including a gripping opening question to engage the reader, the importance of imperative verbs and adverbs, and how to add important and specific detail.

The time finally came for the Roman v Celt battle! Over the course of the week, the children filmed many different scenes linking to the Roman invasion of Britannia. The Romans showed great organisation in their legions and fought well and tactically against the barbaric, unorganised Celts. Next week, the children will be putting together their own film that captures the story of the Roman invasion, using the clips that we filmed this week. With the filming over, make sure you make space for your new Roman shields that will be coming home.

As we enter December and the advent calendars start appearing, 4DA haven’t taken their feet off the pedal. The students have had a big mix of activities this week including tests in maths and reading, pizza making and a visit from the sound expert, Sam.

It has been that time in the year again where students take part in tests, focusing on maths and reading. The students have done themselves proud and put in a a huge amount of concentration and effort during these tests. On a more exciting note, we had a visit from the sound expert, Sam, who came in on Monday to teach the children all about sound and how it works. Sam talked the children through the main scientific concepts and brought many experiments to practically demonstrate the key theories. He also discussed many different homemade musical instruments that can be made out of household objects – apologies if the house becomes a bit noisier over the next few weeks! Other than Sam the soundman, the children have been looking at what changed in Britannia in the years preceding the Roman invasion. Things like straight roads, sanitation, Latin, new towns and cities, and writing were all introduced by the Romans, shaping the the way we live today.

Well done to all the children this week and I hope everyone has a well earned rest!

What a fun-filled week we have had in year 4 this week with the obvious highlight of heading to the Yorkshire Playhouse to watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Our writing topic reached it’s finale this week as the children planned and wrote their very own creepy, snowy story openings. They have worked very hard on this topic and produced some brilliant work throughout! Maths has seen us recap the column methods for addition and subtraction – keeping a very close eye on the exchanges. We also rehearsed another time-tables check which threw lots of positive results out. It’s great to see the improvements in the times-tables!

As I have already mentioned, we have had our visit to the Yorkshire Playhouse this week to watch the production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Everyone who went had a tremendous time and thoroughly enjoyed the show. The children themselves were a brilliant audience and showed a huge amount of joy and respect throughout the trip!

It has been a superb week in 4DA this week, with some superb writing on show and a lot of new knowledge absorbed in other subject areas!

English has seen us dive thoroughly into our writing unit as we have started creating our own creepy and tensioned-filled story openings. Our openings focus on a character wandering lonely through a snowy setting, where they spot an object that isn’t quite normal. The unbelievable snowy descriptive vocab and the sentence structures in the work work so far has made this unit such a positive one! In maths, we have been focussing on our times-tables some more. We have been closely looking at the 11 and 12 times-tables and how you would multiply 3 numbers together.

Our history lessons have led us back to the British shores as we have focused on the Roman invasion of Britannia. We have started to look at why the Romans wanted to invade our country and how they they failed twice on the way to conquering our land. Our art topic has also continued to take us on an ancient Roman journey as we have transferred our small, gestural drawings onto big flip chart paper in order to create a tapestry like design of a battle.

That’s all for this week – I hope everyone has a slightly warmer weekend!

Hello again from 4DA – it’s been another successful and hard-working week!

Maths has seen us continue to look at our times-table facts, focussing on the 3, 6, 9 and 7 times-tables. We have been taking a closer look at multiplication and division facts and how they intertwine. In writing, we have started work on our spooky story openings. We have picked apart our model text and discussed what makes a strong story opening, which included fronted adverbials of time, place and manner, interesting setting description and vocab, and even small doses of speech to move the story along.

We had our introduction to our science topic this week, looking at how sound works. We discussed how everything that makes noise will vibrate. These vibrations then travel through the air to the ear as sound waves. Talking about sound, there was a lot of noise coming from the 4DA classroom as we competed in our rap-off! Every KS2 class in the school has competed in an anti-bullying rap-off as part of anti-bullying week, bringing their own flare and spin to proceedings. 4DA have once again taken the crown for lower KS2 and will face the winner from upper KS2 next week!

That is it for this week and I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

It’s been great to have everyone back in the classroom for the start of Autumn 2 this week! 

The English topic has propelled us towards story openings as we began to look at what’s makes a story gripping from the very start. We have focused on our model text, Alma, which sees a young girl find something very peculiar in an abandoned shop window..! Our maths topic has switched to a times-table focus (something that 4DA are very good at after our successful half-term TT Rockstars campaign). We’ve focused on the 6s and 9s this week, looking at fact families and division facts that link to those times-tables. 

An introduction to the Celts has also been made, ready to explore what Roman Britannia looked like 2000 years ago. This starts our build up to our Roman v Celtic battle, along with learning how the Romans have shaped the world that we live in today. Thursday also saw another tremendous PE team game, called Aliens. I was once again incredibly impressed with the teamwork and strategies on show from the class – it was truly 4DA teamwork at its best! 

Enjoy the class photo celebrating the victorious class TT Rockstars campaign.. and a sneak peek into our anti-bullying rap for week!

And just like that, the first half-term of year 4 has come and gone! We’ve had a fun filled week in 4DA this week, from writing letters, to Roman workshops and even turning into digestive systems… let me tell you all about it!

It has been hot write in writing this week where the children have been writing letters home after spending a day in the Roman army – battles were fought, 30km marches were trudged and towns were conquered. We have continued to focus on column subtraction in maths, with a specific focus on word problems and working out what information is important in a word problem.

We had a very interesting visitor on Tuesday morning in 4DA! A Roman general came to share some tails about life as a Roman. The children dressed up in their tunics for the morning and discussed any different parts of Roman life, including: the daily life for patricians, plebeians and slaves; the history of the roman gods; and what it was like to fight in the colosseum! It wasn’t the only time the children took a different shape this week – in science they explored the digestive system further by recreating their own in the classroom. The children mushed up bread and banana with their teeth and saliva (fork and water) and passed it down to the stomach, where it met the stomach muscles and acid to break it down further (bag and vinegar).

Overall, it has been a superb start to life in year 4 and I hope everyone has a tremendous half-term!

P.S. Lets get on TTRockstars to win the class championship!

It has been a very arty week in year 4 this week, starting with a visit from from a published illustrator and ending with shield decoration!

In maths, the children started to look at subtracting 4 digit numbers using column addition. The children did brilliantly tackling exchanges during some tough questions! Our writing lessons have taken us back up a volcano, writing letters to our friends after a stressful day searching for ingredients to become and firework-maker.

Chris Mould, a published illustrator, came into to talk to all of year 4 and 5 about his life as a artist and talked the children through the steps to drawing ” The Iron Man”. The children (and teachers) learnt lots of interesting techniques for making tough drawings seam easy. The art continued when the children painted their roman shields, ready for their battle with the celts after half-term!

Overall, the teamwork in 4DA this week has been fantastic and I’m so pleased to see everyone working extremely collaboratively together!

What a week we have had in 4DA! From parents evening to roman shield creating, it really has been an action packed week.

We have moved onto our addition and subtraction lock of work in Maths with the primary focus this week being column addition. The children have done very well in the lessons and have worked nailed the exchanges when using column addition. In English, we have a new focus of letter writing and what a recount consists of. We have started to look in closer detail at fronted adverbials and emotive words to up-level our work.

We had a very special guest visit us this week in the shape of Reverend Dave. The reverend came in to talk to the children about different parts of the church and his job. The class also prepared lots of very interesting questions for the reverend which gave them a greater understanding of a day in the life of a reverend. Away from the church, production of the roman shields got under way, ready for our battle with the celts after half term..

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Another superb week comes to a close in 4DA, with the children producing some more outstanding work!

Everyone has continued to work hard on their story making and have finalised their very own warning tales.. there has been some very spooky tension being built in many explosive stories! The children have finished their place value section in maths this week by looking at rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. In the afternoons, we have continued to dive into Roman society, specifically looking at what life was like in the Roman Army.. I’m not sure too many found the idea of being a Roman soldier too appealing (especially with the 25 year service of walking 30km daily!). This has also linked to our first art project of the year.. more of that to come in the following weeks.

Have a great weekend everyone!