Spring 1: Week 3
This week in our literacy lessons, we enjoyed reading Penguin Huddle by Ross Montgomery. In the story, the penguins huddled together during an icy storm, but it was so cold that they got stuck together and couldn’t break free!
Our word of the week was huddle. To help us understand the word, we made our own huddle in class. Ask your child if they can explain what huddle means and use it in a sentence.
We also talked about how Antarctica is different from the United Kingdom. We looked at photographs of Antarctica and compared them with images of the UK, identifying similarities and differences.
Maths – Composition
This week, the children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5 using the familiar rhyme 5 Little Speckled Frogs. By singing the rhyme and moving the frogs during each verse, the children explored part–part–whole relationships. For example, they discovered that 5 can be made up of 3 and 2.
We talked through examples together:
There are 5 frogs on the log and 1 frog in the pool. 5 is made up of 4 and 1.
There are 3 frogs on the log and 2 frogs in the pool. 5 is made up of 3 and 2.
We also used our fingers to represent this, holding up 5 fingers and then putting one down each time. Fingers pointing up represented the frogs on the log, and fingers pointing down represented the frogs in the pool.
Phonics
In Spring 1, Week 3, we focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi and the trigraph ear. We also learned the tricky words my, by, all. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Help at home: Play Tricky Word Splat
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper or sticky notes
- Place them on the floor or table
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat
- You could jump on the words, splat them with a masher, or create your own fun ideas!
Here’s a snapshot of some of the learning that’s taken place across the areas this week.
Assembly stars
Well done to all the children for their Year 2 class assembly yesterday.
We are very proud of how the children learnt their lines, using their oracy skills to project their voice and worked together to support each other during our practices.
We hope you enjoyed seeing some of the learning from Year 2.
History: I’m a Roman emperor!
During our history learning, we’ve learnt about the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was huge and spread across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. Emperor Claudius was leading the Romans when they successfully invaded Britain (then Britannia).
We read a speech that Claudius may have given to the people of Rome (then Roma) while he was emperor. The children then had the opportunity to write their own speeches as Claudius themselves!
They stood in front of the colosseum and shared how they can successfully invaded Britain.
Here’s some photos:
Help at home by asking your child what benefits there were for the Romans to invade Britain.
Some clues:
Resources like cattle, tin, i_ _ _ and g _ _ _.
The Romans wanted land and p_w_r.
History: debates
Today, Year 4 held a debate over whether the Iron Age Britons should’ve made peace with the Romans or resisted their invasion. If the Celts made peace, the Romans would’ve allowed them to continue living and farming as they were. However, they would have to pay the Romans tax.
We discussed some arguments both for and against making peace…
For:
- The Romans had a stronger, more powerful army so if the Celts resisted they would be likely to die.
- The Celts could still live on their land and continue farming like before.
- The powerful Roman armies would protect the Celts from other tribes invading.
- The Celts could live fear free lives knowing they were protected by the Romans.
Against:
- How could the Celts know whether they could trust the Romans would stick to their word and protect them?
- They would have less food for their families as they had to pay tax on their crops.
- They had less crops to trade because of the tax so they would lose money.
- Without enough food or money, the Celts would live miserable lives.
We learnt some top tips for debating:
- Have confident body language.
- Prepare arguments to counter your side’s weaknesses.
- Use key debating vocabulary (e.g. “You make a good point. However…”).
- Listen carefully to the other side so you can respond appropriately.
- Project your voice.
Help at home: practise the top tips for debating at home. Should children have to go to school on weekends? Should video games be allowed in school?
Reading: Retrieval
In today’s lesson, Year 6 became reading detectives! We re-read our text of the week ‘The Watertower’ by Gary Crew and then created retrieval questions on Kahoot. We will test our peers on these later this week.
We have also predicted and summarised the text so far. The children have REALLY enjoyed this book and have got ‘stuck in’ with their theories and predications. It really shows that when you enjoy a text, you understand it better!
Help at home: Can you child summarise the story? What is their theory about what has happened to Bubba!?
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?
