Herd Farm adventures
One of the reasons we take the children on a residential visit is to find out more about the children outside of school as well as the obvious opportunity to experience the adventurous activities. This year was no different – we see a whole different side of the children and even found out that some move around in the splits!
It was an amazing visit and the children were fabulous. There were hesitations and nerves about some activities but nobody refused to do anything and a lot of them surprised themselves. This is what they got up to..
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A huge thank you to Miss Newman and Mrs Charlesworth for giving up their time (and sleep!).
Until next year!
Writing: Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen
Year 4 are currently writing a narrative inspired by Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen.
A narrative is a story and its purpose is interest and entertain.
We’ve watched Michael Rosen perform this poem and your children love it! Give it a watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrOeNKvtHI&t=46s
Our narrative is going to be about sneaking into the teacher’s staffroom and stealing a delicious treat. To help inspire this, your children got to take a sneaky trip into the staffroom to see what it’s really like.
We’ve been practising direct speech lots this week as we want to include that in our narratives. I’ve been really impressed with how well your children have grasped this as it can be tricky!
Help at home: have a brief conversation with your children and ask them to write it down using direct speech. Make sure they use all our R2s above!
Summer term after-school clubs
Maths: adding and subtracting fractions
We are coming to the end of our fractions topic in Year 4. I’ve been so impressed with your children’s maths this unit – they’ve wowed me!
This week, we’ve been looking at adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator.
When the denominators are the same, to add the fractions we must add the numerator.
When the denominators are the same, to subtract the fractions we must subtract the numerator.
We’d previously learnt about converting between improper fractions (fractions where the numerator is greater than the denominator) and mixed numbers (a whole number with a proper fraction). Your children deepened this knowledge by applying it into their addition and subtractions.
Help at home: ask your children to complete these addition and subtractions:
PE: netball
This half-term in PE, we’re doing netball!
Netball is a fantastic sport for your children to practise a variety of different skills (e.g., passing, catching, shooting, defending etc.).
This week, we began exploring some different ways we can pass the ball in netball – chest pass and bounce pass. We recapped our ‘pass and point‘ technique which we used in rugby. When you release a ball during a pass, your fingers should end pointing towards where you are aiming. This is a great technique to ensure an accurate pass.
Help at home: if you have a ball at home (any ball will do) practise some chest and bounce passes with your child. Remember, you must not move with the ball!
Year 3 and 4 footballers
Today, ten of our year 3 and 4 footballers took part in the Leeds Well School Partnership Year 3/4 football competition at Goals.
We had a great day of back to back matches and all the children were determined, resilient, focussed and worked together as a team supporting each other.
The team fought to secure second place in their first round league and put in some brilliant performances across the day.
A special mention to our goalkeeper who made some amazing saves throughout the day.
Well done to all the children for representing our school so well.
Living and Learning: allergies
As part of our health and prevention focus in L&L, today Year 4 learnt all about allergies.
We began by answering the question: What is an allergy?
An allergic reaction happens when a person comes in contact with something that their body thinks will be harmful to them (called an allergen).
We discussed how all our bodies are different and something that may not harm us could make somebody else very poorly.
There are 14 main food allergens:
It’s important to remember that even though we might not see an allergen in our food, doesn’t mean it isn’t in there. To make sure we’re being careful and only eating foods which are safe for us, we must always look at the packaging. The main allergens are always in bold so it’s clear for us to see.
Your children then had the challenge of reading through some recipes and highlighting any allergens that appear.
Then, we discussed some signs of allergic reactions and what we should do if we suspect somebody is having an allergic reaction.
Mild/moderate signs:
- itchy skin rash
- tummy ache or being sick
- puffy eyes or lips
- itchy/tingling mouth
Serious signs:
- difficulty breathing or noisy breathing
- difficulty swallowing
- feeling dizzy, floppy or sleepy
Help at home: watch this video (until 3.22) and discuss these questions with your child. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFAbgaHg26U
- What happened?
- How did Max feel?
- What was the hospital worried about?
- Why did Max’s body react this way?
Leeds Rhinos Easter activities
On Friday 18 April, Leeds Rhinos are hosting their annual family day, where all child tickets (seating and standing) are just £5. As well as the Rhinos match against Huddersfield Giants, there are a host of activities that the whole family can enjoy – all included in the price of entry.
There is also a free open training session and meet the players event at AMT Headingley Stadium, during the Easter Holidays, on Tuesday 15 April. Children and families will have the opportunity to watch the Rhinos train, meet Ronnie the Rhino and get autographs/pictures with the players at the end of the session.
Performance Poetry
This week, we’ve been reading the poem ‘Walking with my Iguana’ by Brian Moses.
We began the week by exploring the poem and discussing vocabulary we were unsure of. We then watched the poet performing his poem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqCyDyc5Rc). While watching, your children noted down what made Brian’s performance so good.
He had a good rhythm.
He got the audience involved.
He had good voice projection and was really clear.
He used some actions.
He had good prosody.
Alongside our oracy (speaking) targets, we used these to come up with our own R2s (Remember Tos) for our performances.
In groups, your children rehearsed the poem before performing it in front of the class. It was great to see how confident and creative your children were and there were some fantastic performances – well done Year 4!
Help at home: read the poem (or choose a different one) and ask your children to perform it to you while thinking about their oracy (speaking) skills.
Reading Record Stars
Every Friday, your children bring their reading records with a completed activity to our Book Club sessions. This week, the children were asked to do a fact file all about a character from their book or the author.
I love getting the chance to see and hear about all the brilliant reading your children have done over the week.
A reminder of the reading record key info:
- Each week, the activity your child must complete is given on the homework sheet. More information on these activities are inside the record. If you are ever unsure which activity it is, please ask or choose a random one!
- The children need to bring their reading record in every Friday for Book Club where we discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- The children’s grown-ups also need to sign and write a short comment about the lovely reading their child has been doing at home!
Any questions, please ask!
Help at home: continue to read daily with your child and sign their reading record to share this.