Author: Miss Newman

Today was World Book Day and we had a fantastic day celebrating all things reading!

We started the day by swapping teachers! Each class got the chance to listen to a different teacher read and Year 4 were very happy to have Miss Wilson from Year 6. They absolutely loved listening to Miss Wilson read The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.

After that, we did a class swap with Year 1. Your children each paired up with a child from Year 1 to share their love of reading. It was lovely to watch them read together and share their favourite books with each other. It was also a great opportunity for Year 4 to demonstrate their oracy (speaking and listening) skills as they made sure they were reading with prosody and clarity. We were also all wowed by Year 1’s incredible reading!

We then joined the BBC World Book Day live lesson where we learnt a little bit more about fiction and non-fiction books and how to choose what to read next.

There was also time for your children to discuss their favourite books with their peers and share with the class what they love about their choice.

Overall, we had a fantastic day in Year 4 and look forward to the book fair coming 19th-24th March to spend our £1 book tokens!

Help at home: read daily with your children to continue developing their love of reading as well as their fluency.

On Thursday (5th March 2025), it is World Book Day! We have a very exciting day planned filled with lots of brilliant activities all about reading.

As part of our day, we’ll  be exploring and discussing our favourite books so it would be great if your children could bring in their favourite book on Thursday to discuss with their peers. They’ll be sharing what they love about their book in hope to inspire others to read it too. Your children will also have the chance to read some in front of the class.

I’m looking forward to hearing all about your children’s favourite books and authors!

This half term is group reading and Year 4 have been given their group reading books which they must read at home.

During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities. All reading record activities should relate to the book your children have been given. It allows your children to delve deeper into their book and have meaningful discussions with their peers about this in our sessions.

During Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the following session on the next Friday. This will be marked with a post-it note.

What to remember:

• Your child has a book that they need to read by Friday every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it note).
• The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
• A grown up must sign and comment in their reading record.
• Group reading books and reading records must be brought into school every Friday.

Help at home: listen to your child read their new book daily and ask them questions about the book. This will help them in their book club sessions.

Today, Year 4 took part in the 2025 Skipping Festival and won! This means we’re through to the finals in June and we can’t wait.

They did a brilliant job and worked so well as a team – all their practising definitely paid off! It was amazing to watch them all showcase their incredible skipping skills. They also showed great support for each other and the other teams. I was so impressed by their determination, teamwork and respect.

In between the skills, the children had the chance to skip, dance and sing along to the music which they loved. They even got the chance to learn some new skipping skills like the butterfly.

Both the individual skills and the group skips were fantastic. Your children won lots of awards – including seven gold medals! We were all so happy to win and be through to the finals in June.

Well done Year 4 for trying your best and representing Moortown so well – we’re so proud of you! Let’s do it all again in June!

We are dancers!

In PE this half term, we have been doing dance. We’ve been exploring different elements of dance and how we can use them when creating a final group routine.

• Space – pathways
• Tempo – time
• Dynamics 

We started the half term by exploring different pathways – curved, angular and freeform. We imagined we were in snow and had to imagine the trail we would be leaving as we moved through the space.

Next we looked at tempo. This is the speed at which a dancer moves: fast, slow, acceleration, deceleration or free flowing. We spoke about the rhythmic use of the body to music, sound, no sound or voice.

Finally, we thought about different dynamics in dance. These are the movements we make and the quality of these movements. The three we looked at were:

• swinging
• suspending
• vibrating

To end this unit, your children got into groups and created a routine to Roar by Katy Perry. They had to think about all the elements we’ve covered this half term in their final piece. I was amazed by all of their dances – they were fantastic! All of your children were confident dancers and demonstrated all three elements brilliantly.

Help at home: put on your favourite song and ask your child to dance to it while thinking about the three elements of dance.

Today was Safer Internet Day! This was a day designated to all things online safety.

In Year 4, we focused on some key elements of online safety:

• Fake news
• Phishing
• Sharing personal information
• Scams

We began by discussing fake news and how we can spot it. Not everything we read online is true and we must make sure we don’t trust everything we read. Questions we can ask when deciding if an information source is trustworthy:

• Who has written it?
• Do they have a good reputation?
• Why has it been written?
• Is it opinion or fact?
• Is it high quality?

We then explored some different sources of information all about Roblox and had to rank them from most trustworthy to least trustworthy – using our questions to help us.

It’s really important to always speak to a trusted adult if you’re unsure about something you read online.

We joined a great BBC live lesson for Safer Internet Day all about scamming and phishing.

Phishing involves tricking someone into giving out personal information online by pretending to be someone else.

We learnt how to spot a phishing scam using a helpful acronym.

Whenever we suspect a phishing scam, we should always tell a trusted adult and then block and report the scammer.

Finally, we discussed how to create a safe password. Our recipe for a strong and secure password:

Ingredients:

• 3 random words
• at least 1 number
• at least 1 symbol
• some capital letters

Method:

• Combine ingredients and mix up the order.

Help at home: ask your children how they can spot a scam online and what they should do if they find one.

We’re geographers!

In Year 4, our geography topic this half-term has been volcanoes. As you would’ve seen in our class assembly, your children have been loving it and have become volcano experts!

We began exploring a case study of Mount Vesuvius and its devastating eruption that destroyed the town of Pompeii. Despite this tragic eruption, roughly 3,000,000 people still leave near Mount Vesuvius so we wanted to find out why.

Your children began by analysing some data of the major eruptions of Mount Vesuvius and the human death toll. They discussed how over time, the number of deaths from each eruption have declined.

So, we wanted to discover why this was. To do this, we learnt all about the different techniques that can help us predict eruptions and therefore protect people from them.

• Seismometer – used to measure vibrations in the Earth which could show when an eruption is coming.

• Tiltmeters and GPS satellites – used to monitor changes in the landscape as volcanoes tend to swell near an explosion.

• Spiders – robots called spiders are used to measure the gases escaping from a volcano.

• Thermometers – used to measure the temperature of the ground as volcanoes get hotter when magma starts to rise through the main vent.

• Pattern spotting -looking back at previous eruptions means scientists can start to spot patterns.

Help at home: ask your child what they think the most effective technique for predicting eruptions would be and why?

Today, Year 4 were lucky to have a workshop from D:Side all about staying safe online – particularly when playing online games.

Not everything we see online is trustworthy and your children were great at identifying that! We discussed how not everyone online is who they say they are so we must always speak to a trusted adult if we are unsure or feel unsafe online.

Although the internet is great for many things, we must make sure we are using it safely. For example, your children love playing lots of online games (which can be great fun) but sometimes they also introduce some risks. That is why they have age restrictions based on what content is included in the games.

In Year 4, we should only be playing games that are rated ages 3 or 7. This is because they have content that is appropriate for our age.

We were all really impressed with your children’s knowledge of how to stay safe online. It was great to hear all their contributions for how we can also make sure we’re being safe and responsible online.

Help at home: check the age ratings of your child’s favourite games to play online. Are they appropriate for them to play?

Today, we were lucky enough to visit Magna on our second school trip of the year! Magna is a science adventure centre but this trip also linked brilliantly to our current geography topic: volcanoes.

This week is our second week on being safe in L&L. Today, your children learnt all about speaking out to stay safe with NSPCC.

We discussed children’s rights and the importance of the NSPCCs message of ‘speak out, stay safe’.

As part of this lesson, your children identified their trusted adults (over 18) that they could confidently ask anything. We discussed the importance of having these trusted adults and why we should always speak out rather than bottling things up.

Alongside this, we spoke about how our trusted adults make us feel. Your children were really confident and comfortable speaking to their trusted adults about any worries or concerns.

Our Living and Learning box, in the classroom, is another way the children can speak out and write down any worries.

Help at home: visit the Childline website with your children (https://www.childline.org.uk/kids). Explore the games, interactive tools and age-appropriate advice.