Living & Learning: solving problems
This week in L&L, our statement was…
I can find solutions to different problems.
Before we try to solve a problem, we must recognise what emotions that situation is making us feel. Often, these emotions make things difficult for us because our brains are not very good at problem solving when our emotions are very high. Therefore, the first step of problem solving is trying to regulate our emotions.
Some of your children’s suggestions for regulating our emotions:
Take deep and slow breaths.
Listen to some relaxing music.
Do some colouring.
Go for a walk outside for some fresh air.
Talk to a trusted adult.
Write your feelings down.
Once our emotions are regulated, our mind is a little bit clearer and we are able to think of more appropriate and effective solutions to our problems.
Year 4 then became Agony Aunts. They were given two problems and had to work together to come up with suitable solutions to these.
I was really impressed by your children’s mature and responsible solutions to these problems. It was brilliant to see that they all knew the importance of speaking to a trusted adult whenever there’s a problem.
Help at home: practise some emotion regulation techniques with your children. Read through these problems and ask your children to come up with some solutions:
- Jalisha and her best friend Ella, both wanted the part of Cinderella in the play but Ella got the part.
- Daniel’s family are moving to Australia but he is really sad because he is going to miss his friends.
- Tom’s friend did better than him in the spelling test and keeps talking about it at break time.
Old Leos women’s and girls cricket opportunity
Local cricket club, Old Leos, have opportunities for womens and girls cricket. Please contact them for more information.
Computing: What is a sprite?
This half-term, Year 4 are computer programmers!
A computer programmer is someone who writes instructions, called code, that tell a computer what to do.
Your children have been using Scratch on the iPads to demonstrate their programming skills. On Scratch, you can program sprites to do a variety of things like move, change costumes and make sounds.
A sprite is a 2d character in a computer game.
Your children worked with a partner to program three different sprites to move in three different ways. We had some really creative ideas like an astronaut floating through space or a fish swimming underwater. It was great to see your children thinking like computer programmers and building some really effective programs.
I’m looking forward to seeing how their programs develop over the next few weeks!
Help at home: visit the Scratch website (https://scratch.mit.edu/) and practise programming. Can you get your sprite to talk? Walk? Change costume?
Group reading week 3
Here are the target pages for this week’s group reading. These need to be read by Friday 21st March. Your child’s reading record activity needs to be completed based on the pages they’ve read.
65-storey Treehouse: up to page 83
The Accidental Secret Agent: up to page 43.
Chatty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again: up to page 43.
Chatty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon: up to page 53.
The Twins at St Clare’s: up to page 23.
An Elephant in the Garden: up to page 56.
Help at home: read these pages with your child and sign their reading record activity.
Food Technology: Bruschetta
This morning, Year 4 have been making Bruschetta in food technology. We were very impressed with their knowledge and skills at each stage of the recipe and the final products were fantastic!
The main skill we were practising in this recipe was cutting safely with a knife. Your children used two different cutting techniques: bridge and the claw. They used these confidently and safely.
- We used the bridge to safely and securely cut the tomatoes into smaller chunks.
- We used the claw to cut the basil leaves up into small pieces.
Then, we peeled the garlic and used a garlic crusher to squeeze it into our tomato and basil mixture and give it a good stir. It’s safe to say the room (and your children) smelt very strong!
Once all the ingredients were combined in a bowl, the final challenge was to spoon the Bruschetta mixture onto the sliced and toasted baguette without making a mess.
Finally, your children got to dig in to their Bruschetta and enjoy all of their hard work! Almost all of them loved it. We had some very happy chefs, rating it a 10/10!
Help at home: remake the recipe at home with your child. Could you add something new: onion, avocado, ham or cheese?
West Yorkshire cross country final
We were very proud of our five Key Stage 2 children who took part in the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam today in the glorious sunshine.
In tough, competitive conditions, with the best runners from across West Yorkshire, they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing at this level. We even had a top 10 finisher out of 146 runners and our Year 3 girls team came 6th place our of 21 schools. What an amazing team effort!
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
World Book Day 2025!
Today was World Book Day and we had a fantastic day celebrating all things reading!
We started the day by swapping teachers! Each class got the chance to listen to a different teacher read and Year 4 were very happy to have Miss Wilson from Year 6. They absolutely loved listening to Miss Wilson read The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.
After that, we did a class swap with Year 1. Your children each paired up with a child from Year 1 to share their love of reading. It was lovely to watch them read together and share their favourite books with each other. It was also a great opportunity for Year 4 to demonstrate their oracy (speaking and listening) skills as they made sure they were reading with prosody and clarity. We were also all wowed by Year 1’s incredible reading!
We then joined the BBC World Book Day live lesson where we learnt a little bit more about fiction and non-fiction books and how to choose what to read next.
There was also time for your children to discuss their favourite books with their peers and share with the class what they love about their choice.
Overall, we had a fantastic day in Year 4 and look forward to the book fair coming 19th-24th March to spend our £1 book tokens!
Help at home: read daily with your children to continue developing their love of reading as well as their fluency.
Bring in your favourite book!
On Thursday (5th March 2025), it is World Book Day! We have a very exciting day planned filled with lots of brilliant activities all about reading.
As part of our day, we’ll be exploring and discussing our favourite books so it would be great if your children could bring in their favourite book on Thursday to discuss with their peers. They’ll be sharing what they love about their book in hope to inspire others to read it too. Your children will also have the chance to read some in front of the class.
I’m looking forward to hearing all about your children’s favourite books and authors!
Leeds Rhinos healthy lifestyle assembly and ticket offer
This week, we welcomed Luke from Leeds Rhinos to deliver a healthy lifestyle assembly.
We thought about different aspects of keeping a healthy lifestyle including food and nutrition, sleep, exercise, hydration and hygiene.
Luke also spoke about the ticket offer available for families for one of the upcoming Leeds Rhinos home games.
As part of our partnership, and as a reward for all the great work that the children have been doing this year, Leeds Rhinos would like to offer children and their families an amazing opportunity to attend a match at AMT Headingley Stadium (LS6 3BR) at a special discounted schools rate.
Date – Saturday 22nd March 2025
Kick off – 5:30pm
Opposition – Wigan Warriors
Standing tickets can be booked now through the school via School Gateway. Please note that tickets will be on sale until 10am on Tuesday 18th March.
Group Reading
This half term is group reading and Year 4 have been given their group reading books which they must read at home.
During our Book Club sessions each Friday, each group will discuss what they have read so far and share their reading record activities. All reading record activities should relate to the book your children have been given. It allows your children to delve deeper into their book and have meaningful discussions with their peers about this in our sessions.
During Book Club, each group will be given a new page to read to for the following session on the next Friday. This will be marked with a post-it note.
What to remember:
- Your child has a book that they need to read by Friday every week (up to a chosen point marked with a post-it note).
- The reading record activity needs to be completed using their new book.
- A grown up must sign and comment in their reading record.
- Group reading books and reading records must be brought into school every Friday.
Help at home: listen to your child read their new book daily and ask them questions about the book. This will help them in their book club sessions.