Living and Learning
This week, our Living and Learning is I know we’re all the same and we’re all different. We watched Elmer and talked about what is different about Elmer and the other elephants. We thought about how Elmer might feel about being different from the other elephants.
SS – Elmer is different colours and the other elephants are grey.
HM – I think Elmer feels fine because he’s just different.
To end the session, we celebrated the differences which exist between our friends and family.
TH – My Dad doesn’t have any hair and I do.
SB – I wear a bangle.
AS – I was born in Pakistan.
AP – It doesn’t matter if you have different skin colour to everybody else – it’s ok.
HA – Seb and I have brown eyes.
Guided reading
On Friday, guided reading books went home with the children. Each week, a target chapter/page will be given to the children; they will need to read up to this target page by the following Friday. Depending on which book your child has, the target page will be different. Here are the targets for Friday 4th March:
How to train your dragon: up to chapter 3/page 45.
Rooftoppers: up to chapter 5/page 33.
The London Eye Mystery: up to chapter 7/page 53.
Extra Time: up to chapter 10/page 37.
Kensuke’s Kingdom: up to chapter 3/page 25.
Science: A smelly experiment!
To kick off our working scientifically unit in science this half term, we planned and conducted a very smelly experiment! The children talked about the different types of variables: control (things we keep the same); dependent (the thing we test) and independent (the thing we change).
In groups, the children measured the starting components – vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Next, they added them together into a bottle, with a balloon on top, to collect the gas that was created (carbon dioxide). This was an irreversible reaction. Our conclusion was: if we added more vinegar into the reaction, more carbon dioxide would be produced.
The scientific enquiry type was comparative and fair tests.
The children also asked fantastic ‘what would happen if’ questions that helped expand their scientific knowledge. For example: ‘What would happen if we used a different size of bottle?’ and ‘What would happen if we changed both the amount of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda?’.
They loved completing this experiment even if it made our classroom smell like a fish and chip shop!
Spring 2: Week 1
Pancake day
On Tuesday, we learnt all about Shrove Tuesday. We talked about some of the traditions that happen in the United Kingdom. One of the traditions we liked was the pancake racing that happens in Olney, Buckinghamshire. Of course, we had to have a go at doing this ourselves! Click here to watch our races.
One of our chilli challenges this week was to make playdough pancakes and write a list on ingredients.
This week’s poem was Pancakes by Christina Rossetti. On Tuesday, we created a tally of pancake toppings. We also enjoyed eating pancakes and saying the poem. Listen out for our fantastic use of prosody.
Class assembly
Thank you to all the parents/carers who came to watch our class assembly. All the children spoke loud and clear when saying their lines. We’re so proud of all of them. We hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed practising it.
Phonics
This half-term, we’ll continue to review and revisit phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs. We will practise reading words with:
– double letters (h-a-mm-er)
– two or more digraphs (ch-a-tt–er)
– ending in –ing (l-oo-k/i-ng)
– s /z/ in the middle (visit sounds like v-i-z-i-t)
– s /s/ /z/ at the end (c-oo-k-s)
– es at the end (t-or-ch-es)
There’ll be no new tricky words this half-term. We’ll continue to recap all the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
Help at home:
Practise reading and writing all of the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
Reminders
- World Book Day stay & learn session – 9.00am-9.30am
Come and read a book with your child. You’re child is more than welcome to bring in their favourite book. We alternate years when we dress up – this is not a dressing up year. - Don’t forget to write in your child’s reading record every week.
Please!
Our children love to do junk-modelling in our creative area. They love it that much I can’t keep up with them! It would be great if you could bring in a selection of recyclable packaging.
Science: irreversible changes and controlling variables
In today’s science lesson, we explored an irreversible change. We mixed bicarbonate of soda with vinegar to create a chemical reaction which resulted in the formation of carbon dioxide. 
We then discussed how we could increase the amount of carbon dioxide that was formed and the importance of controlling variables.
- control variables (the variables we kept the same): the size of the bottle, the amount of bicarbonate of soda, the type of balloon):
- independent variable (the variable we changed): the amount of vinegar
- dependent variable (the variable we are testing): the amount of carbon dioxide
We found that increasing the amount of vinegar resulted in the creation of more carbon dioxide. However, the 100ml test (green balloon) didn’t support this finding. Possibly there was too much vinegar or maybe the green balloon made a difference! We discussed how repeating this test would make our date more reliable.
SATs information session
Supporting our school charity
St Gemma’s Hospice is our current school charity chosen democratically by the children.
Today, we welcomed Steph and Stewart from St Gemma’s Hospice for an assembly to find out more about the fantastic work they do in our local community.
Here, two of our junior leaders are presenting them with a cheque for £377 for the money we have raised so far.
Steph and Stewart commented on the impressive behaviour of the children and the intelligent questions they asked.
Our junior leaders are planning a visit to the hospice over the next few weeks to continue this partnership.
Living and Learning: I know that people shout treat others respectfully when online
On the 7th of February, Moortown celebrated ‘Safer Internet Day’ along with lots of other schools and organisations in the UK.
We spent some time learning about how we can work out if online information is true or not. ‘Fake news’ has become more of an issue on the internet and therefore, it is important that the children understand what it is and how to identify it.
We learnt some tips which help us in decipher what is ‘fake news’ and what news can be trusted. Some of these include questioning the source of the information, whether the story appears in more than one place and asking ‘if it feels right’.
We also spoke about the importance of speaking to a trusted adult if we see anything online that worries us.
Help at home by asking your child how they might be able to decipher whether a news story is trustworthy or not.
Topic – Geography
Last week, Year 4 finished off their Geography topic by creating a double page spread. Here they could show off their new knowledge about natural disasters and more specifically, about volcanoes.
The class did an incredible job at planning, completing and decorating their double page spreads. They worked so hard and were so independent with their ideas. The only guidance that they had was what they had to include and the rest was up to them to use their books to fill it with information!
- What is a volcano?
- How are volcanoes formed?
- Tectonic Plates
- Positives
- Negatives
- Did you know?
- Extra: Focus on a specific volcano.
Here are just some of the fantastic pieces:
Very well done Year 4! On to computing…
Safer Internet Day 2023
“Happy Safer Internet Day!”
On the 7th of February, Moortown focused their learning around internet safety. This umbrella term covers lots of areas such as; online behaviour, keeping personal data safe, understanding how news can be false and knowing to ask an adult for help.
Firstly, we spent the morning learning about how we can decipher if online information is true or not. ‘Fake news’ has become more of an issue on the internet and therefore, it is important that the children understand what it is and how to work with it.
There were some tips that the children practised and will remember for the future:
- Question the source. Where has the information come from and is it a reliable source?
- Does the story appear on more than one source? If it is on numerous news websites, it could be true!
- Does it feel right? Some times you will have a gut feeling that a news story isn’t right…
- Ask a trusted adult. If you are ever unsure, ask a trusted adult to help you work out if it’s true or not.
This followed onto to our next focus: I know I can ask a trusted adult for help.
This statement is true for any subject, problem or question and it is definitely important when talking about internet safety.
Help at home: Whether it is a trusted adult at home, at school or at a club your child goes to, remind them that they should feel safe asking for help.