Autumn Term 1 2022-23

Year 4 have settled really well and quickly back into their school routine. Their behaviour is excellent, the children are eager to learn and they are showing that they are active, resilient and independent learners already. We are collecting smiley emojis as a class for following our class rules all day. Once the class collects 30 emojis, they will have some well-earned golden time. We also have some extra rewards which are given to children for their perseverance, resilience, seeking help at the right time whilst still being an independent learner. We are all very proud of our hard work and we keep trying our very best!

Collective Worship

Collective worship is a special time for us all. We all gather together and listen to a reading from the Bible. We listen and respond to God’s word and consider how this relates to our lives. We reflect on how we can learn from the Bible and what choices we should make going forth. Together we like to pray, listen to songs and sit quietly to remember how lucky we are to be part of God’s beautiful creation!

Following Buckingham Palace’s announcement that Queen Elizabeth II has died peacefully, Mrs Cooper has lead a whole school collective worship for the children. We have been praying for The Queen and the Royal Family and celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s life together. Mrs Cooper shared some lovely quotes and tributes payed to the Queen and the children also learnt about how the Queen was a faithful disciple of Jesus all throughout her life. We also reflected on our favourite moments when we saw the Queen, for example as she delivered her Christmas messages or had tea with Paddington Bear! We also looked to the future with how King Charles III will follow in the Queen’s footsteps.

The children had a lovely assembly and hymn practice. The children got reminded of church etiquette and responses during collective worship. Their singing has been full of energy and enthusiasm as they practised the hymns together.

On Tuesday 20th September, we had Brother Jonathan, Father Franpisek, Sister John-Paul, Sister Emmanuel and Sister Ciara from The Franciscan Sisters of Renewal visiting us for a morning retreat. We started the day with a whole school collective worship where the children had some lovely key messages that they could reflect on. We had a reflection on the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, we sang songs and followed this up with actions and we also learnt different ways of prayers we can use in our lives to remind ourselves that ‘God is good all the time!’

Our visitors also came to see us in the classroom where they also told us about where they were from and how they were helping others in their everyday lives. We also spent time singing together and sharing ways that we can pray to praise our God.

As part of our learning about our virtue of love for learning, we learnt about the importance of having a growth mindset and being lifelong learners who are always ready for learning and keeping an open mind. The children reflected on their goals and what they would like to achieve in Year 4 this year. We then collected these thoughts and aspirations on our prayer table in the classroom.

Cafod Harvest Assembly

Maggie from Cafod visited us in school to deliver a whole school assembly to remind us about how we can live in solidarity with those in need in our world, as part of our Live Simply Mission. We reminded ourselves what Cafod stands for: Catholic Agency for Overseas Development and just some of the work that Cafod does to help those in the most need around the globe. We learnt global emergencies around the world, such as the floods in Pakistan, the drought in areas in Africa meaning no food and other global emergencies which means our neighbours become in need. We will soon be preparing for our Harvest Festival in school where we will be raising food donations and monetary donations to support those in need in our local community, at Wetherby Food Bank and to be able to support those in need around the world, through the work of Cafod.

To find out how you can help with current global emergencies, please click here.

To find out more about Cafod’s work around Harvest, please watch the video below which some classes in school have also watched as part of our work around Harvest.

Harvest Liturgy

Year 4 enjoyed taking part in the Harvest Liturgy where the whole school community came together in prayer, song and worship. Over the past week, our Y4 Mini Vinnies have been working hard for their Harvest Appeal and we are extremely grateful to all our families and members of our school community for supporting this appeal. We have been overwhelmed with the number of donations, both foods and other items which we have now donated to Wetherby Food Bank and monetary donations which we will be donating to CAFOD, in support of their work to support those in need around the world.

Praying the Rosary

The Key Stage 2 children took part in the KS2 assembly all about ‘One Million Children Praying the Rosary’ on the 18th October. We shared the message of how we can grow in friendship with God. Prayer has been our virtue to live by this week and we considered Pope Francis’ invitation of praying the Rosary in the month of October. We came together in prayer and our going forth message was to make time each day to pray to God and to also listen to what he speaks to us.

RE – The Bible

In RE this half term, we will learn how the Bible tells us about God and His love for us. We will learn some Old Testament stories and we will consider how the Bible can help us and others in need. Our research skills will be put to the test as we look up references from the Old and New Testament. By looking up and reflecting on Scripture, we will explore how they link to our own life experiences.

We built on our prior learning about the Bible and learnt about how we can use it in church and at home. The children applied their English writing skills to write a paragraph about their ideas. We also looked at songs and their lyrics. The children had to find the words and phrases that both appear in the Bible and songs based on the Bible scriptures. We then used the Bible to find scriptures. We learnt about the names of the books in the Old Testament and New Testament. We persevered and found the chapter numbers and then the numbers of the verses. We all worked well together as a team!

To show our learning and apply our English skills in our RE lesson, the children wrote instructions about how to find various Scriptures in the Bible. They have become more and more confident and quick at finding these.

To further deepen our understanding of the Bible, the children had to find which books belonged to the Old Testament and the New Testament. We have also been applying our maths skills to record in a tally chart the number of Books of the Bible. 

We have been reading a parable, song and a prayer from the Bible and the children applied their English skills to write in paragraphs as we reflected on what we can learn from the Bible about God.

We brought a bit of science and fizz into our RE learning when we learnt about Joseph and his brothers. Our key message was that responding in love calms a brewing fight. We used vinegar and baking soda to represent two children. The fizz formed when these two children couldn’t agree and had an argument. The fizz which represented the quarrel then was stopped by the addition of water which represented love and forgiveness. With the addition of love, all will be calm again. The Bible tells us that loves covers any amount of sin (1 Peter 4:8). Love will help a child offer a turn with a toy (Luke 6:33). Love is not easily angered, love is kind and love does not demand its own way (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Responding to others in difficult situations with love results in peace instead of discord.

English

Our theme of ‘Amazing Adventures’ runs throughout our English learning this half term. We will be exploring the classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. We will look at the curious vocabulary used in the book and work out the meaning of words and phrases within context. The children are beginning their learning journey by a class debate: Should Alice follow the white rabbit? We will begin by unpicking the key features of informal and formal letters to gain a better understanding of the features we will be learning about. Following this, we will write our own letters and diary entries.

To begin exploring our new class text, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, we made some predictions. The children had to consider the front cover of the book, the blurb and the title to predict what characters might be in the story, where it might be set and what the plot might be about.

We worked on our persuasive reasoning skills, when we organised a class debate about whether Alice should follow the white rabbit or not. The children used various sentence starters and had a great debate where they shared their opinions with each other.

To promote the love of reading, and to work on our various reading skills, we introduced reading journals in Year 4 to help us with our reading homework. The first reading skill that we focused on was decoding and vocabulary. The children had to choose ambitious words from the class text and explain their meanings as well as use these in their own sentences.

As well as having a fiction and non-fiction book to read at home, we went to the school library and the children picked their pleasure books to read and take home. 

We have been expanding our vocabulary in English. We went outside for a Burn2Learn vocabulary hunt and the children had to find matching meanings to their given ambitious words. Afterwards, we applied our knowledge and understanding by using the new words in our own sentences.

We spent time enjoying some quiet reading time in the classroom. The children had the opportunity to explore the classroom reading books from our reading corner and they could choose fiction, non-fiction books, poems, magazines or newspapers as well to read.

Year 4 had a great time playing the Burn2Learn Beach Ball Bonanza! We explored different word classes together. We bounced the beach balls and listed as many nouns, adjectives and verbs as we could!

We carried on reading about Alice’s adventures and exploring ambitious vocabulary from our class text. We had to quickly and efficiently find the meaning of words using dictionaries. The we also used our knowledge of word classes to write down which words were nouns, adjectives or verbs. The children then had to apply their understanding and write their own sentences with the new words.

Year 4 had a close look at the different features of an informal letter. We had to find the sender’s address, date, greeting, chatty, informal language, conclusion, complimentary close and the sender’s signature.

We moved on with our learning journey and started planning our informal letters from Alice to her older sister. The children started by planning together and then they added their own expanded noun phrases and powerful verbs to their own plans independently.

The children had to apply what they have learnt so far about word classes, expanded noun phrases, letter features and they followed their plans as they wrote their letter pretending to be Alice. They used super description and wrote about all the weird and wonderful adventures they have been on in Wonderland! The children had to self-assess their letters and reflect on their work. We also edited these after drafting to especially take care with punctuation and spellings.

After writing our informal letter, we have now moved onto exploring formal letter. As we pretend to be the Queen of Hearts, we will be sending out our formal invitations to our subjects. The children therefore have been working on identifying the features of formal letters.

After writing different letters, we moved our learning on to working on diary entries. We did a lot of active learning where the children explored the story in detail. We did a lot of hot seating and did not just stop there, but worked in groups to act out various parts of Alice’s story. The children really enjoyed this and showed super team effort to bring the story to life. Afterwards, the children had to talk as they would be writing for example when we worked on feelings and thoughts that we could be including in our diary entries. A lot of ambitious vocabulary choices and emotion words were used by the children. This has also helped us a lot when it came to planning our diary entries.

The children worked really hard on writing their diary entries as Alice. They also had to consider how to edit their work and there was an abundance of super ideas and creative, ambitious vocabulary used in the children’s writing.

Maths

At the start of this half term, children will develop their place value knowledge. We will spend time consolidating our place value knowledge about 3-digit numbers. Following this, we will learn to read, write and partition 4-digit numbers and we will investigate number lines to 10,000. We will be rounding, counting in thousands, ordering and comparing 4-digit numbers. Our learning also includes solving worded problems and working on our mathematical reasoning skills.

We have been active with Super Movers as we were practising our times tables facts. The children then had a go at completing their times tables work with a Times Tables Rocks Stars song and a 5 minute timer! We will keep working on our Key Instant Recall Facts (KRIFs)!

We ventured outside for a hoop-hop Burn2Learn activity to practice reading and saying our 4-digit numbers. The children got very competitive and many times ended in a draw scoring lots of points for their teams by naming various numbers as quick as they could!

We used different ways to represent 4-digit numbers during our daily Burn2Learn. Place value grids, bar models, number lines and different ways of partitioning were our focus.

We have been busy also working on our  reasoning and problem solving skills to do with 4-digit numbers. Our tricky questions then included various number lines with different intervals.

We have been busy working on our rounding in Year 4. The children now learnt how to round to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. We had various ways where we practised rounding and then used various representations to help us with this task. We could build on our understanding of number lines especially. The children built their confidence and also completed reasoning and problem-solving activities.

We have been focusing on comparing and ordering numbers. The children applied their understanding of place value and worked well on creating their ascending and descending orders.

In Year 4, we have been busy counting in multiples! We have been working on our times tables, counting in 1000s and counting in 25s. In class, we had a competition of which table group will find the correct order of counting in 25s and we also discussed the patterns we noticed. We ventured outside for a Burn2Learn activity to use our playground as inspiration for our counting. We used chalk to write in the multiples of 25 and then we had to jump across all the numbers whilst saying them out loudly.

Science

This half term, we will be learning about states of matter as we sort everyday materials into solids, liquids and gases. We will describe their properties and explore the behaviour of the tiny particles inside them. The children will investigate what conditions  affect changes of state.

Year 4 ventured outside and enjoyed some great weather whilst working in teams. We enjoy being active learners in Year 4! After we learnt what solids, liquids and gases are, we had a go at grouping various materials and comparing them.

We learnt about how particles move in the different materials. Our modelling skills were put to the test when we had to recreate the particle arrangements with ping pong balls. We had to be resilient and make sure the ping pong balls stayed in the right place or they moved to create an accurate model! As an extra fun Burn2Learn activity, we organised ourselves into groups and acted out the movements of particles.

We have been deepening our understanding of the states of matter and we used our photos from modelling the movements of particles to help us reflect on the similarities and differences.

We have also been expanding our vocabulary with scientific words relevant to our states of matter topic. The children completed a word search and had to rate their understanding of various scientific vocabulary. They then had to look up the meanings of the words in a dictionary and then apply their knowledge and understanding to write their words into sentences.

To further explore solids, liquids and gases, we carried out some fair testing in Year 4. We used fizzy drinks to demonstrate that gases have weight. We used measuring jugs to measure the volume of liquids in millilitres. We used a scale to measure in grams and had to use our Maths skills to tell the difference between our measurements. First, we had to measure the weight of the fizzy drinks. Then, after stirring our drink and making it flat, we measured again. We could prove that by the gas escaping, some of the drinks became lighter.

To build on our understanding of the fact that gases have weight, we used concept cartoons to test our knowledge. The children had to discuss and agree on the correct scientific reasoning.

We like to use our English reading skills in different subjects, and the children had the opportunity to read around the subject in science by exploring the SLS library books. They had to pick out interesting facts, reflect on what new vocabulary they have learnt and had to apply these new words in their own sentences. 

We have been learning about the different states of matter and we zoomed in on water. The children had to work in groups and discuss how much water we use every day. They had to order various activities which use water and how much water they would take. We used litres as measurements and ordered the activities. The children then had to reflect on their own lives and how much water they might be using in a day. We also felt it very important that we shared great examples on how to save water and therefore help our planet!

We went on with our learning about water and its uses by applying our maths skills to evaluate data in bar charts. We had a look at the water usage in different households depending on how many people lived there. The children had to answer questions and then they got onto drawing their own bar chart about their water usage in a day.

Computing

To begin the half term, we will be using Sketches. The children will choose famous landmarks in the UK and recreate them in digital watercolour. We will work with layering colours and choosing appropriate shades for our artwork. We will use The Queen’s Handbag by Steve Anthony as an inspiration for our Sketches art.

After we have finished this, the children will move onto using Keynote to create a book trailer for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. We will deepen our knowledge regarding the advanced features of the app to combine text, images, audio and video.

We linked our Computing learning to our Geography topic of the UK. We took inspiration from the story and illustrations of The Queen’s Handbag by Steve Anthony. We had to choose a famous landmark from the UK and create a digital artwork. The children worked really well and confidently with the Sketches app and used many layers of colour and different lines and patterns to make their work stand out.

To make sure we are safe online, we learnt more about Internet and online safety. The children made their own informative posters with key messages about keeping personal information safe, being kind online and offline, what to do if something makes them feel uncomfortable. We all know the ‘Stop! Block! Tell!‘ advice and we know why it’s important.

Our project using Book Creator built on the knowledge and understanding the children built around our class text, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The children had to create a book trailer with added text, images, drawings and sound and video recordings to show their skills in using advanced features of applications. We had a great go and the children had to tick off their top tips on Showbie after uploading their projects to self-assess how they have done.

DT

We will bring stories to life with our project this term. Children will have the chance to explore moving parts in a variety of storybooks and learn how to recreate some of these parts using different tools and techniques. Children will design, create and evaluate their very own pop-up books.

We began our learning journey by evaluating an existing product. We had a close look at the pop-up book by Robert Sabuda. The children really enjoyed looking down the mesmerising rabbit hole! We checked various pages and looked for the different moving mechanisms used. We then reflected on the use of materials and the uses of concertinas, pop-out objects, window flaps and levers.

We started planning our 3D pop-up book designs. The children had to consider which parts of the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland they will retell and which moving mechanisms they will be able to us on each page. We drew the different story plots and practised using different fonts for our writing. We had to apply our English skills as we wrote the important events from the story.

To work on our fine motor skills, we had a go at some finger gym exercises that we carried out before getting on to the cutting, sticking and shaping tasks!

We used card and paper to create our moving mechanisms. Accuracy and precision were very important!

Check out some of our finial products! The children worked very resiliently and showed great determinations throughout this project!

To reflect on our use of skills and successes, the children also evaluated their products.

Geography

We will go for an adventure around the United Kingdom, learning about where the UK is in the world, then exploring its countries, capital cities and counties. We will develop our map skills as we identify the topographical features of the UK and explore famous natural and man-made landmarks. The children will carry out an environmental survey around the school grounds for their fieldwork activity. They will compare and evaluate environmental factors and consider how our surroundings could be improved.

We have started exploring the United Kingdom by using atlases. The children had to find the countries and capital cities and show these on their maps. We also applied our maths skills and worked on a grid to show different points on the map.

To further deepen our understanding of using maps, we worked with the 8 points of a compass. The children had to find various cities and towns in the UK and then had to use the points of the compass to describe geographical directions.

We made links to our prior knowledge where the children had to think about their own experiences of the UK. We thought about trips we went on and where the children visited around the UK.

To build on our prior experiences and have a way of comparing what we know about Wetherby to coastal towns, the children applied their maths skills and drew a Carroll diagram. They had to note down what they knew about physical and human features of Wetherby and Scarborough. Our notes will be later used to be able to express our geographical understanding of the two towns and to comment on their similarities and differences.

We like to use our English reading skills in different subjects, and the children had the opportunity to read around the subject in geography by exploring the SLS library books. They had to pick out interesting facts, reflect on what new vocabulary they have learnt and had to apply these new words in their own sentences. 

History

We will investigate the Victorian era this term. We will use historical sources (Victorian paintings and other images) to find out about the Victorian period. Our research will include learning about the life of the rich and the poor and finding out more about the life and work of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).

We used timelines to explore the life and work of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson or better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. The children applied their reading comprehension skills to find out more information about the famous author and to retrieve the important dates and events from his life. We then had to apply our maths skills to estimate where certain important dates would go on a timeline.

We like to use our English reading skills in different subjects, and the children had the opportunity to read around the subject in history by exploring the SLS library books. They had to pick out interesting facts, reflect on what new vocabulary they have learnt and had to apply these new words in their own sentences. 

MFL

As part of our French learning, we will be exploring vocabulary relating to French greetings, colours and school. The children will develop their vocabulary by taking part in active learning activities, listening to songs and speech. We will be discussing school objects and school routines to practise our pronunciation.

We began our French learning with an active Burn2Learn activity. We danced and copied the Super Movers and repeated French greetings after them.

After we had a go at learning how to pronounce the greetings, we worked in partners and acted out a conversation in French!

Some comments the children made:

“It was fun to say comme ci, comme ça in French.”

“I was nervous to perform, but we did it!”

“I found Bonjour easy to remember.”

Music

We will use descriptive vocabulary to evaluate music. The children will listen to music pieces composed by Hans Zimmer and express their likes and dislikes. We will take inspiration from film music compositions and how they are used for dramatic effect.

We started our music learning with exploring musical vocabulary. We evaluated various pieces of music as we applied our English skills. We had to choose appropriate adjectives to show how relevant they were as we considered different musical pieces. The children worked very well together and they enjoyed listening to the music.

Some of the comments the children made:

“My favourite song was the most dramatic.”

“I enjoyed chair dancing to the music!”

“I liked the joyful, modern song.”

Building on our previous work with the zones of relevance, the children listened to Earth composed by Hans Zimmer and they had to sort adjectives to describe the composition. 

To further improve our knowledge about music and vocabulary to describe it, we solved a fun word search puzzle to learn more musical vocabulary. The children will use these to be able to evaluate our next musical piece composed by Hans Zimmer which has the title of ‘Friends’ from the animated movie Madagascar.

PE

In PE, the children will be developing their skills in team games. They will learn about the importance of warming up before exercise and the benefits exercise has on our own physical and mental wellbeing. They will also be working on improving their fitness, strength and accuracy.

We have been building our strength in PE. The children practised various ways to work on their core. They did sit ups, push ups, planks and worked on their running stamina and speed too.

To further work on their strengths, the children further work on their skills to strengthen their core muscles. They showed super resilience and a teamwork when they practised and helped each other out!

The children have been working on their teamwork and observation skills. The had to give feedback to each other about their techniques of different throws and catches. They all worked well and could suggest improvements to each other as well as encourage each other.

We kept up the good work and played games where we had to use our skills of listening, observing and giving feedback to each other. The children played games and worked in smaller groups to practise throwing, catching, moving with basketballs and playing their own mini-matches as well.

We carried on with our teamwork skills and practised skills of moving through space with improved spatial awareness. We then formed groups and played dodgeball games in small groups and then as a whole class as well. We reflected on the importance of following rules and being good sportsmen in games.

We had our fantastic Skipping School workshop where the children learnt many different ways to skip! All of them have been showing excellent determination and self-belief as they practised the various moves and built their confidence.

PSHE

In PSHE, we are focusing on mental health and emotional wellbeing. We agreed our classroom targets and rewards together and discussed how a growth mindset will help us embrace learning challenges and how we can build up our resilience. By having high aspirations for ourselves, we are keen on giving 100% effort in all we do and take our learning forward as we become lifelong learners.

When we started school this week, one the first day the children completed their check-ins to see how they were feeling and what fun activities they did in the summer. They could share their favourite experiences and draw these too. The children also used emojis to explain how they felt on their first day of Year 4!

To get ourselves ready for the new school year and to be able to settle into our new Year 4 classroom quickly, Year 4 did a classroom treasure hunt! We had to make sure that we know what resources, helpful working walls are around that we can use when we are learning. The children had fun and now everyone knows how to use their surroundings for the best results!

At the end of our first week, we completed another written check-in with the children to see how they felt about being back to school. The children had to choose a blob character that represented them the most and they had to pick what they have enjoyed this week. Luckily, we had lots of positive feedback!

We have been learning about British Values and democracy. The children then had a vote and chose their School Council representatives. They also wanted to be able to fairly choose the name of our worry monster. Let me introduce you Cookie, the Year 4 worry monster who lives in our classroom and also has a worry jar where children’s worries can go and live so they don’t have to hold on to them for long!

We have continued to deepen our learning and understanding of British Values and we applied our English skills to read and find out more about the UK Parliament. The children reflected on the roles of the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Monarch.

We have re-visited the important message about Pants are Private. The children had to complete a Burn2Learn activity outside to remind themselves of: 1) privates are private 2) always remember your body belongs to you 3) no means no 4) talk about secrets that upset you 5) speak up, someone can help. The children had a good class discussion and really enjoyed singing along to the Pantosaurus song!

We worked on our teamwork and we also learnt more about friendships. The children had to read a poem together and discuss what qualities good friends have. The children then also had to solve puzzles together as a team to show they understood what good team mates and friends.

We had a whole school assembly for Dyslexia Awareness Week to explore what it is like to have dyslexia and to celebrate that we are all the same but we are all different. The children were very understanding and explored different things that dyslexic people might find tricky and many other things that they can be really good and successful at.

In class we also learnt more about dyslexia and even the author of our class text, Lewis Carroll was dyslexic! The children have been able to identify many successful dyslexic people and we reflected on their talents.