Year 4 Class News

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!

Living and Learning – I know the importance of having my ‘five a day’.

Our living and learning statement this week is ‘I know the importance of having my ‘five a day’.

As a school, we promote a happy and healthy lifestyle. In class, we have been discussing how, as individuals, we can maintain this lifestyle ourselves. This includes making sensible choices with our eating and drinking plus keeping an active body and mind. We realised that if we didn’t do these things, we might start to feel a bit low in our body and especially, in our mind.

Eating and drinking healthily doesn’t necessarily mean we can ONLY eating fruit, broccoli and peas but it means having a balanced diet. This means we can choose to eat lots of healthy things and then sometimes, we can have a treat! Aiming to have at least five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day means that our body is getting the important nutrients and vitamins that it needs. We also discussed that we should be drinking 2 litres of water a day to stay hydrated, especially as the weather is getting warmer.

In our lesson today, we discussed how our eating and drinking habits can be influenced by lots of different things such as;

• environmental issues,
• likes and dislikes,
• family and friends,
• adverts.

For example, wanting to have a cookie just because all your friends are having one doesn’t mean it’s the sensible thing to do if you’ve already had two!

The more healthy choices we make, the more our bodies will thank us for it later!

Help at home: Challenge your child and see how many different fruit and vegetables they can name!

Herd Farm 2023

Hello all!

Year 4’s residential to Herd Farm was absolutely fantastic! For some of the children, it was their first time staying away from home but they all were incredibly mature and were having too much fun to worry about much else. After we arrived, we made our beds, had dinner and went for a moon walk. The children found some geocaches, which are hidden, by GPS.

They all completed three different activities; the giant swing, the zip-wire and bushcraft. The most nerve-wracking activity was the giant swing but nearly everyone overcame their fears and had a go, even if that meant just sitting on it. Some went to the very top!

The zip-wire was great fun because they could go down in pairs. They could share the nerves and the excitement. Who could get to the bottom first?! The trickiest part was having to run back up the hill to pass the rope back!

Finally, bushcraft consisted of three activities; foraging, den-building and fire making. We foraged for different plants that we could eat such as nettles, wild garlic and ‘Jack By The Bush’. We learnt that if we can’t identify it, we can’t eat it! The children then made dens in the woods with anything they could find and finally, we used flint to build a fire and roasted marshmallows. Look who also found an antler!

All of the staff were impressed at how enthusiastic and brave our class were. At each meal time, the children helped to set the tables. They sat and ate their amazing food and some helped to tidy and clear up too!

I hope the children managed to get a good nights sleep on Friday night – I know we did!

Miss Birch, Mrs Charlesworth, Miss Gilliland and Ms Canning

What haven’t they done?

Your two days of peace and quiet may be coming to an end but rest assured that your mini humans have had an amazing day and there is more to come tomorrow.

There have been surprising daredevils (sometimes the quietest ones are the bravest!) and some amazing discoveries! Lighting fires and a bit of foraging means they can survive anywhere – well maybe not but they have certainly learnt new skills.

There has been a flurry of photos sent tonight so I can’t post them all but here are a few and I hope that you can see why we go on residential.

A massive thank you to Miss Birch, Mrs Charlesworth and Miss Gilliland for giving up their time and  making this happen – I feel the long weekend might be very welcome after the last couple of days.

Living and Learning – I know the importance of sleep

This week in Living and Learning, Year 4 have been recapping and learning more about sleep. Sleep is really important for us for so many reasons. For example:

• It helps our minds to feel ready and positive for a new day.
• It helps our body to grow and repair.
• It helps our body to feel energised.

Without enough sleep, we won’t be as able to concentrate and learn as well as we might if we did have enough sleep.

Children need 10-11 hours sleep a night on average. This sounded like a long time to Year 4 but we agreed that our bodies need it as we are growing constantly!

We also discussed the important of a sleep/night time routine. This includes all of the small things that we might do that help us to get a better sleep. Here’s what we came up with together:

• Brush your teeth,
• get into your pyjamas,
• have a glass of milk,
• read a story or book,
• have a calm conversation with someone at home,
• close the curtains/blinds
• get cosy in bed,
• listen to calm music or an audio book,
• focus on one thought rather than lots of thoughts,
• hug family and pets goodnight
• go to the toilet so you won’t need to get up in the night!

All these things, that we probably do without even thinking, are important in getting our bodies and minds ready for sleep.

Help at home: Write down your night time routine. Is there anything you could change to help you sleep better? Is there anything you could do more of to help?