Year 4 Class News

Being healthy themed week: staff vs pupils netball

At our final netball after-school club, and as it is our being healthy themed week, we enjoyed a hard fought match between the pupils and staff.
The children have progressed really well with their netball skills this term and we hope the Year 6 netballers continue to enjoy this sport as they move to high school.

Being Healthy themed week 10 July

Our next whole school themed week, based around Being Healthy, will be taking place from Monday 10th July. This is the second of two themed weeks in the year.

Design and Technology

Our topic this half term is Design and Technology.

Design brief:

To design and build a prototype go-kart.

Design criteria: 

• must move freely
• must be able to hold a model figure
• must use an electrical circuit for motor

Challenge: 

To use a steering mechanism.

The children designed their go karts using annotated sketches. These included dimensions and components. This week, they began building and they made a fantastic start.

They each had a role within their team:

• an organiser of the components
• a builder
• a design checker

They worked amazingly in their groups using great listening and teamwork skills.

Living and Learning – RSE

Over the last 3 weeks in Year 4, we have explored relationships and change.

We discussed the fact that we have relationships with lots of people. For example, our family, friends, people we meet through clubs like leaders etc. These relationships should be happy and healthy. We talked about this might look like:

• We trust each other.
• We are kind to each other.
• We listen to each other.
• We try to help each other if we can.

But what happens if this becomes unhappy and unhealthy? If you can’t resolve the problems between you in a respectful way, then you can ask a trusted adult to help!

Sometimes we might need a change and change can seem scary when it’s new. We looked at the different stages of human life and the class discussed how our lives change over time. For example, when we are born, we have no responsibilities and our grown ups look after us constantly. As we grow older, we have more freedom and we realised that with freedom comes more responsibilities like cooking for yourself, having a job and learning to drive.

We decided that change is good because it takes us outside our comfort zone and lets us try new things!

Help at home by discussing a change that is coming up soon. How do you feeling about moving up to Year 5?

Writing – generating ideas!

Today, Year 4 had a fantastic lesson generating ideas for their next spooky narrative! We worked in groups to get as many ideas down as possible so that tomorrow, we are ready to begin planning our individual stories.

The purpose of a narrative is to interest and entertain the reader by telling a story. Our narratives are going to jump straight into the action by beginning with dialogue. We’ve spent a long time perfecting writing direct speech so Year 4 are excited!

The scene will be set in a dark, forbidden forest during the night and either themselves and a friend or fictional characters will be trying to navigate their way through the forest safely… However, there might be some scary plot twists along the way.

Have a look at what we thought of!

New spelling list!

This half-term, instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term. 

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.

However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best. 

Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more. 

Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would. 

We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home. 

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out the Super Spelling Strategies Guide on the school website. 

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

During the week beginning  the 12th of June, Year 4 will be completing their statutory Multiplication Tables Check.

This check:

• tests them on their facts up to 12 x 12.
• gives them 6 seconds to answer each question.
• gives 3 seconds in between each question.
• can only be completed once.

Year 4 have been working their socks off all year learning their facts by using times table grids, TTRS and Maths Frame. Please encourage your child/children to practise all their times table facts this week and onwards to ensure they achieve their best scores. TTRS sound check mimicks the official check so this is a great way to practise!

As a challenge for those who are confident on all the facts, see if you can type the answer, delete it and type it again in the space of 6 seconds to make sure you aren’t rushing!

Help at home by timing yourself when completing the times table grids. Then try to beat your time!

Basketball

City of Leeds Basketball, who provide our after-school basketball clubs, have a range of sessions for children of all ages.

Visit their website to book.

Tom Palmer virtual visit

Tom Palmer is an author who writes children’s books and today, Year 4 had a virtual visit with him! Some of the year 4’s recognised his name and some of his books as we have some of them in the library.

He began by talking about how he got into writing…

As a child, he didn’t enjoy reading, didn’t think he was any good at it and didn’t like it until his mum tricked him into it by using football! He began to read comics and newspapers about football and this helped him practise his reading and he started to love it! His love for reading then inspired him to become an author and his ideas for different books come mainly from football, animals and war. “Write about what you love,” said Tom. This was great to hear as we always encourage Year 4 to use what you love and know to help you write and read.

Question time!

A handful of Year 4s asked Tom a question such as;

How long does it take for you to write a book?

It depends! Some books take 6 weeks to write and some take 6 months… it depends what I’m writing about and how long the book is.

What gave you inspiration for ‘Arctic Star’?

My wife used to work on HMS Belfast so her stories about the ship inspired me to write about a war ship.

Why have you set some of your stories in Leeds?

I set some of my stories in Leeds because I’m from Leeds! Writing about somewhere that I know makes it easier as I can add more detail to it.

Help at home by researching Tom Palmer and some of his books.

Road Safety!

Hello!

Year 4 have been visited by Leeds City Council to receive a master class in road safety! The first session consisted of talking through the different ways that we can travel to school and how we can be safe on each mode of transport. For example, when travelling in a vehicle:

• Sit with a seatbelt on always!
• Don’t distract the driver.
• Be sensible.

The children learnt the Green Cross Code for when walking out and about:

1. THINK
2. STOP
3. LOOK
4. LISTEN

Each group then ventured out into Moortown to put it to good use! Here’s some of them in action…

Help at home by practising the Green Cross Code when you are out walking!