Science: What is a fossil?
Hello,
Our current science topic is fossils!
Last week, we learnt about what a fossil is and how they are formed.
A fossil is the remains or trace of a living thing that lived a very long time ago. They can be fossils of animals, plants or even animal poo!
We decided that fossils are important because they tell us a lot about the past. For example, we know a lot about dinosaurs, what they looked like and even what they ate because of fossils that we have found.
We used this video to help us understand the process of fossilisation…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z2ym2p3
Mary Anning is our key scientist as she is known as one of the greatest fossil hunters to have ever lived. We’ve read about her as part of our reading fluency sessions. She found fossils in Lyme-Regis and she made amazing discoveries just from observing and studying them.
Help at home: When you are travelling somewhere, quiz each other on whether an object is living or not living and whether it could be made into a fossil! Is this pen living? No! Is this rock living? No! Is this apple living?
Authorfy!
Authorfy is a website that we use in school to help develop children’s passion for reading. In Year 4, we often use it in our Friday Book Club sessions to explore new authors, find out more about our class novel or complete fun activities based on some brilliant books. We particularly enjoy the 10 minute challenges set by an author.
This year, Authorfy is free for everybody to access to celebrate the National Year of Reading 2026! Therefore, you can explore the website at home and help enrich your child’s reading.
Help at home: visit the Authorfy website by clicking on the hyperlink and explore what it has to offer.
- Can you and your child complete a 10 minute challenge together?
- Can you find an author masterclass from one of your favourite authors?
- Can you find a book that you want to read next?
Spring 1: Week 2
Maths
This week, we continued to develop our counting skills. Our main focus was the stable order principle—understanding that numbers always stay in the same order. To explore this, we used cubes, marbles, bottle tops and counters to build staircase patterns. We also had to use our super fine motor skills, especially when working with the marbles!
When creating our staircase patterns, we discovered that each number has a value that is one more than the previous number.
Help at home: Try making a staircase pattern at home. What could you use?
Literacy
This week, we continued reading Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. For our writing activities, we created missing posters and drew pictures of items we would pack if we went on a journey to the South Pole. We also enjoyed watching the live penguin cam at Edinburgh Zoo.
On Wednesday, some of the children went on a walk around the school to take photos of signs of winter. We shared the photos with the class and discussed how we know it is winter.
Encouraging love of reading at home
Thank you for your continued support with reading at home. Sharing books regularly helps to build your child’s language, imagination and confidence, and most importantly, helps them develop a love of reading.
Even a few minutes each day makes a big difference. Letting children choose books they enjoy and talking about stories together helps reading feel fun and meaningful.
We would love it if you could share a photo of you and your child enjoying a story together so we can display it in our reading corner. Please send your photos to moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
History: Roman Empire
We’re Emperor Claudius!
Today, Year 4 put themselves in the shoes of Emperor Claudius after he successfully invaded Britain. We wrote speeches, as Claudius, telling the Roman citizens that Britain had been successfully invaded and what this meant for Rome.
When presenting our speeches, we made sure to think about our oracy (speaking and listening) skills:
- voice projection
- expression
- clarity
- pace
- volume
- body language
We heard some brilliant speeches (and some very convincing Claudius’!). I was really impressed with your children’s historical knowledge, writing and oracy skills.
Help at home: ask your child about Emperor Claudius and why the Romans wanted to invade Britain.
We are Physicists.
In Science, we are physicists for this half term. Physicists study forces and energy. We are currently learning about light. In our recent experiment, we looked at what creates shadow, how the shape of a shadow is created and what can affect the length of a shadow.
At the start of the lesson, the children enjoyed some time to explore shadows both inside and outside.
We then when on to investigate how what will happen to our shadow at different times during the day. Now due to it not being a very sunny day, we recreated this experiment and substituted the sun for a torch and our bodies for glue sticks.
Independent variable: the length of the shadow
Dependent variable: the time of day that we are looking at the shadow.
Control variable: the person whose shadow is being measure.
The children noticed when the position of the Sun in the sky changes, the angle of the light rays changes. Therefore, the length of the shadow increases.
Help at home: Can your child explain what is going on is the picture below? Can they also describe how a solar eclipse happens?
Living and Learning: British values.
In Living and Learning, we have been discussing the different British values: democracy, individual liberty, rule of law and respect and tolerance. This week, we have focussed on individual liberty and respect and tolerance.
Year 6 answered these questions:
We are all free to do what we want but this has to be within the law.
What would happen if everyone just did their own thing?
What do we have the right to?
We have the responsibility to…
Whilst we have individual liberty as one of our British values, we need to ensure we are showing respect and tolerance of others.
Why is this important?
What would our country be like if people didn’t show this?
Help at home: Discuss how respect and tolerance link to the protected characteristics. How would you answer the questions above?
Skipping School
On Monday, Year 2 welcomed Jodi from skipping school to Moortown to show us lots of new skills.
The children were fantastic. Every child was resilient and determined. They gave the skipping 100% effort and some made amazing progress in one morning.
We’ll be practising in school regularly ready for our festival in June.
Watch Us While We Work
This morning, parents and carers joined us for our watch us while we work session. Today we focussed on Feelings First and Reading. Our Feelings First feeling was uncomfortable. The children gave some great scenarios of when they might feel this feeling:
- when you think someone is waving and they are actually waving to someone else behind you
- when you are talking loudly and everyone else goes quiet
- when you tell a joke and no one else laughs
- when you are talking in front of a large group of people
- when you are in public and start speaking to who you think are your parents but it is actually strangers
- when your parents are stood at the back of your classroom watching you work
We discussed how we could regulate this emotion:
- take yourself out of a situation
- speak to a trusted adult or friend
- calm yourself using a technique that works for you (colouring, playing a game etc.)
In our Reading session, we looked at the website Authorfy. Authorfy is free this year to all users due to it being the Year of Reading. In our session, we looked at a 10-minute challenge by Abi Elphinstone (the author of Sky Song). In the challenge, the children were tasked with creating an object which turns into a portal to take their characters into a new world. They needed to draw and write about this moment in their story.
Help at home: Explore Authorfy and watch a 10-minute challenge video.
Maths- A shape hunt. (And a big thank you.)
Our Year 1s are having another lovely week in school showing off their maths skills. This week we took the children outside to go on a shape hunt. They went around the green finding different 2D shapes, then they noted down the shape, firstly by drawing it, then the name of the shape, by writing it, and the quantity of that shape, by counting each one. They did really well in this activity and followed our school rules of being, respectful, ready and safe.
As well as welcoming our Year 1s back over the last 2 weeks we have had our wonderful Mrs Boyle return too. She was unable to receive and thank you all for her lovely cards and presents before we broke up so she has asked to add this in: “I am blown away with all of your generosity. Thank you very much and I hope you all had a lovely (and restful) break.”
Reading: It’s so important!
We hope that you’re enjoying reading your child’s library book with them. We call this a ‘love of reading’ book – to do just that, encourage a love of reading for your child! Reading to and with your child can have a huge positive impact on your child’s education.
This research is a powerful message of the impact you can have when reading to/with your child:
At school, your child reads a physical book four times a week – with a focus on teaching phonics skills. This is then sent home as an eBook. The purpose of the eBook at home is to celebrate your child’s success (in phonics skills). Your child should be able to read most of this book confidently and really feel like a reader.
We’ve chosen to use eBooks at home for many benefits. Allocating eBooks frees up about two hours of teacher or TA time changing books – now spent teaching reading!
Here’s some information on how to access eBooks but if you’re having any problems please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Happy reading!