Living and Learning: rights and responsibilities
This week, our L&L statement was: I know that rights come with responsibilities.
We had a brilliant discussion about how we all have rights, however these come with certain responsibilities. As a class we came up with some rights we have within school and the responsibilities that come with these:
- We have a right to playtime but a responsibility to play safely and respectfully.
- We have a right to learn but a responsibility to be great learners.
- We have a right to eat lunch but a responsibility to be respectful and polite to the lunchtime staff.
- We have a right to use the classroom equipment but a responsibility to look after it.
- We have a right to share our opinions in circle time but a responsibility to do so respectfully.
After, we looked into some children’s rights in the UK:
Help at home: Watch this video: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zqgm7yc#zmghp4j and ask your child what rights and responsibilities they have at home (eg. they have the right to play with their toys but a responsibility to do this safely).
Science: We are biologists!
This half-term in Science, Year 4 are biologists and will be learning all about living things and their habitats.
Biology is the study of living things.
We’ve been grouping and classifying animals and have used classification keys to help us do so.
All animals can be classified as either vertebrates (animals with a spine) or invertebrates (animals without a spine).
There are five types of vertebrates that we’ve explored:
- mammals
- birds
- fish
- reptiles
- amphibians
A classification key helps scientists identify things using closed questions (‘yes’ or ‘no’). We’ve been using classification keys to classify a variety of vertebrates and invertebrates.
We’ve discussed what makes a good classification key question. For example, ‘Is it scary?’ isn’t useful because people find different things scary which could lead to misclassified animals. Instead, our questions should be simple, observable and objective. Your children had a chance to write their own…
Help at home: complete this classification key with your children:
Autumn term after-school clubs – places available
As we start week two of our new after-school club schedule, there are some clubs with spaces available and it is not too late for your child to join a club.
Monday
- Y3/4 Table tennis 1 space
- Y3-6 Chess spaces
- Y4-6 Dodgeball 1 space
Tuesday
- Y1-3 Foot-tech football 1 space
- Y1-3 City of Leeds Basketball spaces
- Y5-6 now open to Year 4 Table tennis spaces
Wednesday
- Y1-3 Fun and games spaces
- Y4-6 City of Leeds Basketball spaces
Thursday
- Y5/6 Coding 2 spaces
- Y5-6 now open to Year 4 Netball spaces
Class Novel: The Legend of Podkin One-Ear
In Year 4, our current class novel is The Legend of Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood.
“Podkin is the son of a warrior chieftain. He knows that one day it will be up to him to lead his warren and guard it in times of danger. But for now, he’s quite happy to laze around annoying his older sister Paz, and playing with his baby brother Pook. Then Podkin’s home is brutally attacked, and the young rabbits are forced to flee. The terrifying Gorm are on the rampage, and no one and nowhere is safe. With danger all around them, Podkin must protect his family, uncover his destiny, and attempt to defeat the most horrifying enemy rabbitkind has ever known.”
We’re not very far in but we’re all really enjoying it so far! We can’t wait to find out what happened to Podkin.
Your children have been sharing their opinions and making some predictions…
I predict that Podkin lost his ear in a battle.
I think that Podkin is a hero and he will save his warren from the evil enemies.
I predict that the bard knows Podkin and they used to fight together.
I’m excited to keep reading it because I want to know how Podkin lost his ear.
Help at home: ask your child to summarise what they’ve read so far. You can also explore some of the other books from Kieran Larwood.
Maths: column addition
We’ve started maths in Year 4 by reviewing the column addition they learnt in Year 3. I’ve been really impressed with how quickly your children have picked this back up.
We initially used Base 10 to help us represent the addition and when we were confident we moved onto just using the column method.
We revisited exchanging and discussed how we know when to regroup in column addition.
If the column sum is equal to 10 or more, we must regroup.
Help at home: ask your children to identify which of the following calculations will need regrouping? How do they know?
329 + 132
322 + 125
573 + 143
242 + 635
Living and Learning: Rules
This week, in Living and Learning, we’ve been focussing on rules. As we’re settling back into school, it’s important we remind ourselves of our three school rules so we’ve looked closely at them and discussed why they’re important. We also discussed how we can demonstrate them around school.
We should have silent voices, empty hands and eyes on the speaker to show we’re ready and respectful.
We should always use our manners and say please and thank you to everyone.
We need to walk slowly and sensibly around the school so we don’t hurt ourselves or other people.
We’ve had some really interesting discussions this week about why we have rules and what would happen if there were no rules. It was great to hear your children’s ideas during our circle time session based around rules.
Following our school rules will make our school a happy, healthy and safe place to learn.
Help at home – think about our three school rules and talk with your child about what they might look like or sound like. Compare them with your rules at home. Are they similar? Are they different?
Welcome to Year 4!
Hello!
Your children have had a fantastic start to Year 4 today and settled in brilliantly. It has been great to see how well they’ve adapted to the new routines and new teachers. We’re really looking forward to an exciting and successful year!
This Friday, your child will come home with a reading book and new Reading Record. Just like in Year 3, they’ll need to bring in their Reading Records every Friday for Book Club sessions, where they’ll be set an activity to complete at home (more information on the activities are inside the Reading Record). It’s really important that your child reads daily. This not only develops their fluency but also their love of reading.
Important dates:
- PE – Wednesday and Friday
- Library – Monday
- Spelling test – Friday
- Times tables test – Friday
- Book club – Friday
Any questions, please ask!
Goodbye Year 4!
Thank you so much for a fantastic year! It has been a real joy to teach this class and I am so proud of all of them for what they’ve achieved this year. Here are some highlights of our year…
Your children have been incredible and I’m really looking forward to seeing them continue to flourish as they move up through the school.
Enjoy Year 5!
Being Healthy Week!
This week at Moortown has been Being Healthy Week! All week we’ve been focusing on how we can stay healthy both physically and mentally. Here are some of our highlights of the week…
We started the week talking about healthy eating and how we can ensure we have a balanced diet. Your children were very knowledgeable on this and suggested various healthy meals/snacks that include all our important food groups.
We then were lucky enough to have a visit from British Military Martial Arts (BMMA). Your children played lots of fun games and got to showcase their new skills. They loved giving martial arts a go and exploring a new way of keeping fit.
This week, we’ve spoke a lot about mental health and its importance. We often find that doing things to promote our physical health, such as exercise and eating healthy, also help our mental health. Keeping our minds healthy is just as important as keeping our bodies healthy and we discussed various ways to do this. We played a fun game of self-care bingo where the children chose their favourite self-care techniques and had to act them out.
We had another excellent session with some visitors from City of Leeds Basketball. Your children did basketball in PE last year so this was a great opportunity to recap, learn and practise some basketball skills and ask the professionals all about their experiences in the sport.
One of our favourite moments of the week was our Hip Hop workshop with Phil. He spoke all about the culture of Hip Hop and how we can express ourselves through art, literature, music and dance. We then had the opportunity to watch Phil perform some amazing Hip Hop dancing and learnt a few moves ourselves! We all loved it!
As part of our Being Healthy Week, we had our annual sports day! It’s always a brilliant day in the sunshine and the children were all amazing. Medal or not, we were proud of all of your children as everybody demonstrated our School Games values:
- determination
- honesty
- passion
- respect
- self-belief
- teamwork
Your children always love a visit from D:Side and this week, the session was on drug education. We learnt all about alcohol – what it is, the laws around it and how we can stay safe and healthy when we’re older. We did some role plays of how to say no if somebody is trying to get you to do something you don’t want to. The session taught us some really important information and was fun and engaging too!
Overall, we had an amazing, jam packed week and learnt so much about how we can always stay healthy!
Living & Learning: Body Image
In our L&L sessions in Year 4, we’ve been looking at and discussing body image.
We began by thinking about the word ‘beauty’ and what it can mean. It’s important to realise that…
Everyone’s idea of beauty is different.
We talked about how media and advertising can make us think that beauty is to look one way or another.
However, some of these images may have been edited or changed to look a certain way. So, it is important that we do not compare ourselves to the images that we see online. Not everything we see online is real! We looked at two images and identified the edits that had been made between them.
We then thought about ourselves and how we are all beautiful in our own ways.
Help at home: watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpM499XhMJQ ) and have a discussion about it. Reinforce the idea that not everything we see online is real.