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!

A testing week in year 4 this week. That’s right. Test week has been among us as the children of 4DA have taken part in their spring tests in reading and maths. They have all put in a super amount of effort and done a fantastic job! 

The afternoons have been arty and buildy this week. We have all built our own night lights in DT! From Spider-Man to Axolotls, the children of 4DA have created some superb pieces of decoration that will soon be coming home to light up their rooms! We have also learnt about the water cycle in geography, exploring how water ends up in the sky, falling down onto our heads, floating down rivers and ends up back in the ocean. 

Have a good weekend, everyone! 

Another fantastic week has come to an end as the sun’s warmth has finally filtered down to North Leeds! 

Our writing topic has finally come to an end as the children have planned and created their own portal story. There were many interesting and creative ideas which saw main characters transported from cinemas, art galleries, museums and beaches into the middle of the ocean. Our maths topic has also come to an end as we have been practicing subtracting fractions. We have subtracted fractions from fractions, whole numbers and mixed numbers by changing changing them into improper fractions. 

We had a very creative morning on Friday. The class produced some fantastic pieces of art work linked to the Easter story. We used this time to practice our chafing skills which we learnt in our arts fortnight and the end results were tremendous. I also want to wish everyone happy festivities to all those who are celebrating this weekend! 

It has been another fantastic week in 4DA with plenty of things going on! 

Our writing unit is racing towards its finale next week as the children have continued to produce their portal stories. There has been some superb writing, describing the dangers of an underwater adventure and facing the wrath of an unhappy teacher upon their arrival back through the portal.. Our maths unit has continued to focus on fractions. We have been exploring equalising fractions, changing improper fractions to mixed numbers and started to look at adding 2 fractions together. 

Our science topic taught us a new skill this week as the children practiced their categorising skills. We used dichotomous keys to sort different sweets and will look to use this skill to categorise animals in future lessons. We have also taken a look at the ocean biome in detail during our geography lessons. We have explored the different layers of the ocean and watched some blue planet videos to traps the full scale of strange creature that lurk thousands of metres below sea level. Finally, during our routes and roots session, the children practiced their snapping. We of course mean taking pictures. 4DA used high-tech, waterproof cameras to practice some photography skills, which included close up photos, using different lighting, using different perspectives and ensuring that the picture is focused. 

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Another interesting week comes to an end in year 4 and it has been another cracker! 

The students of 4DA have dived in (literally) to another week of writing by producing some fantastic portal story shared writes. The class have been telling a tail of a young classmate who is transported into the ocean during a trip to the library. I have been incredibly impressed with the resourcefulness shown by all as they have produced some great work. In maths, we have continued to work on fractions. In particular, we have been learning how to convert fractions from mixed numbers to improper fractions and the visa versa. 

Our blue planet topic has continued to encapture the imaginations of the class as they have been exploring the different biomes of the world. We have also taken a greater look into what animals occupy these biomes and looked at ways to classify different vertebrate species. Finally, the children enjoyed comfy day on Thursday. World booked provided bed-time like experience for the day as we all wore pyjamas and shared our favourite bedtime books with one another. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!