A slightly cooler week this time round but another brilliant one in 4DA! 

Our writing unit has seen us dive head-first into our writing our own information texts about our very own aquatic creatures. I have genunily been amazed at how well the students have managed to mix their scientific, geographic and writing ideas together during this week. If you haven’t already, ask them about their newly found species! Maths has seen us continue to look at decimals, including place values when dealing hundredths, and how to divide single digit numbers by 10 and 100. Their decimal and fraction knowledge has also been very impressive! 

It was the last week of Leeds Rhinos training on Thursday. We have been very lucky to have had a Leeds Rhinos coach lead 3 sessions with us since returning from the Easter Holidays. There is a further taster session next Tuesday at 6 o’clock which is free to attend (information can be found on the flyer sent home last week or on the Parentmail). 

Have a sun-filled weekend! 

It has been great to get back into the swing of things this week with a full 5-day week – 5 hot days, may we add.

We were lucky enough to make it 2 from 2 weeks when it came to author visits. Tom Vaughan, author of the Hercules series, came into talk to us about his new book that has just hit the shelves (Hercules 3, Hero to Zero). It was a very entertaining hour, which included dressing up, an exclusive reading, Greek mythology stories and a Greek Gods quiz. He was very impressed with year 4’s knowledge of the Greek gods, despite not having learnt about it yet.

On Thursday, we were incredibly lucky to have a coach come from Leeds Rhinos once again. We started to learn a few different rules about rugby as well as playing some really fun games. Flyers were sent home with information about another Leeds Rhinos taster session on the 13th of May (an outside of school opportunity).

In Writing, we continued our information text topic. We created our own underwater creatures using Blue Planet and different non-fiction books to inspire us. After inventing our own marine creatures in last week’s lessons, we have planned and started writing our own information texts about them!

It has been great to have everyone back in the classroom after a sun-filled Easter Break! 

The first week has been one to remember, as the very first day back saw 4DA head to the local church for our Easter service and the very exciting visit of TV presenter turned author, Dermot O’Leary! Dermot came to talk to the children about his new book, Spy Fox and Agent Feathers’, and involved the students in a draw along! 

In the classroom, we have continued our writing topic that we started before the break. We are currently building towards creating our own information text about a newly discovered sea creature. We have spent our writing lessons looking at what writing techniques go into making a successful and informative non-fiction report and spent time creating our own new species to write about next week! Maths has seen us start our topic on decimals. We spent out lessons understanding how tenths can be represented as a decimal. 

We had an active geography lesson this week as we took a closer look at our globe. The children did some work exploring the equator and used atlases to find out if a number of selected countries where in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere (Papua New Guinea being a country of interest during the hunt). 

Have a great weekend everyone! 

I genuinely can’t believe that we are 2 terms down now in Year 4! We have had such a positive term in 4DA this term and we have finished it off with a great week! 

We finished off our fractions topic in Maths this week, by looking at how to subtract fractions. We have looked at how to subtract fractions from whole numbers, mixed numbers and improper fractions. We have also dived into our new non-fiction writing topic this week, The students will be using their research skills to produce information texts about creatures of the ocean (linking back to our blue planet topic). The children have done a great job at learning the model text this week and had chance to create their own matching story maps in small groups. We look forward to carrying the topic on in the new term! 

With a splash of light! Thursday and Friday saw 4DA head into the Easter Holidays by creating their very own, animal inspired, night-light! The spent plenty of time bringing their designs to life to brighten up their bedrooms. Finally, 4DA finally caught up on their swimming lessons when they ventured to Moorlands school. They learnt/practiced some basic swimming techniques and looked at some basic lifeguard training – so you should be in safe hands if anyone is going for a family paddle over the holidays! 

Have a great Easter!

As we reach the penultimate week of the spring term, the students of 4DA have been partaking in their spring tests! The children have shown a tremendously positive attitude towards their papers and really impressed with their desire to be the best they can be!

Away from the tests, we have also brought our Geography topic to a close by looking more closely at the water cycle. The children explored how the water cycle works and have set up a classroom experiment which will showcase this (but on a much smaller scale). We also rounded off our science topic by using our knowledge of dichotomous keys to identify invertebrates.

Sticking to science, the most exciting time of the week certainly came right at the end. The class were invited to attend the school Science Fair – held in the main hall. There were plenty of interactive experiments for the students to get involved in, including rockets firing into the sky and erupting volcanoes!

Just a reminder – we have the first of our class swimming sessions next Friday – please ensure that you have given permission for your child to go!

As another busy week comes to an end, it’s once again time to reflect on what 4DA have been up to this week!

We have continued to look closely at fractions in maths. We have been exploring what an improper fraction is and exploring their mixed number equivalents. Our writing topic has also come to an end with the class producing some brilliant independent portal stories, where their main character gets thrown into danger in the depths of the ocean. Some of the ocean specific vocab and description has been exceptional! We also took advantage of the sun on Thursday afternoon and had a great afternoon playing dodgeball. The teamwork and effort put into the lesson is something that I always admire during PE lessons – and Thursday afternoon was no different.

Finally, the pupils from 4DA spread hope and kindness, linked to our lent values. We all took part in a class activity where we wrote words of praise and encouragement to our fellow classmates. Everyone at the end of the lesson felt a great sense of happiness and belonging – a great way to spread the kindness and hope to everyone!

It has been another busy week in 4DA! Our maths topic has continued to focus on the perimeter of shapes, in particular, rectilinear shapes and regular polygons. The children have also investigated how to work out the perimeter when there are missing lengths on these shapes! Our writing topic has continued to focus on story telling, as we have dived into the writing techniques we may find and sue during story writing!

World book day was on Thursday and there was so many interesting and inventive costumes worn on the day. We spent the day taking part in variety of book related activities, including taking part in CBBC’s live lesson and producing our own class book of mixed-up fairy tales – told from the point of view of the bad guys. Lent also stared this week as the children took to the MUGA for a big pancake race!

It’s been good to have 4DA back in the classroom this week as we start our journey towards Easter!

Our fresh writing unit has seen 4DA learn the model text “Shark Tale”. It tells a portal story based on an annual school trip to an aquarium. Year 6 student, Tom, finds himself swimming with one of the most deadly sea creatures in their tank after being transported in midway through their school visit. (Don’t worry, no harm comes to him). Our maths topic has seen us focus on perimeters. The students have been looking at ways to work out the perimeters of shapes, mainly focussing on rectangles. If you need anyone to refence your garden this weekend, the children can work out how much fencing you will need!

We have also started to build on last half-term’s topic of climate change, to focus more closely on the Blue Planet. In particular, the class have explored the damage done by plastic pollution to our oceans and the animals that live there. They now have a good understanding on what materials are biodegradable and that plastics may take hundreds of years to decompose – leaving microplastics in the water.

Finally, the class had a very special workshop on Friday morning. Graphic design students from Leeds Becket University came in to teach the class all about graphic design. They ran a workshop where the children designed their very own mascot for Room 17, which will be used moving forward!

In the final week in the classroom for the half-term, 4DA completed their very own persuasive speeches. They had the task of convincing their Roman legions to invade Britannia and risk their lives for the benefit of expanding the Roman empire. In maths, we have continued to focus on long multiplication and division. The students have been practicing the bus stop method in order to solve longer division problems. Our science topic also came to an end this week as the students once again turned into electricians. They had the task of exploring what materials would conduct electricity and what materials would be insulators, they created their own circuits, including switches, to test their materials. We even managed to create a whole class human circuit, using our energy stick, to test some materials!

Have a great half-term everyone and see you very soon.

Back to normal this week after a tremendous Arts Fortnight and we have been continuing to look at speech writing. They have been writing speeches as a class, from the point of view of Boudicca. They have been convincing and motivating their armies to go and fight the Romans and halt the Roman invasion on Britannia! In maths, we have been focusing on longer multiplication and division problems. We have had a strong arithmetic focus on solving these problems using column methods.

We have been continuing to look at climate change in Geography and focussed on reducing our carbon footprints. The students made pledges to make changes to help reduce their carbon footprints! Finally, we the students have been turning into electricians in science. We have been exploring how electrical circuits work and exploring what materials conduct electricity