Community Week – healthy friendships
As part of Community Week, we have been thinking about healthy friendships.
We considered the story of Beegu who finds herself lost and without friends. We shared some ideas of what we could do to signal to Beegu that she belonged at our school.
If you would like to listen to the story of Beegu and learn how to draw Beegu, you can watch the video from Puffin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8oLcy1Eow
We also had a very mature debate about the vital characteristics of a healthy friendship. We all respectfully listened to the opinions of our classmates and enjoyed debating some of the characteristics which are less clear such as whether you should always feel happy in a healthy friendship.
With such considered opinions it is no surprise that there are so many healthy friendships in our class community to enjoy and celebrate!
Community Week – Stereotypes
As part of Community Week, we took part in a very exciting workshop led by Diversity Role Models (https://www.diversityrolemodels.org/) During the workshop we thought about where stereotypes come from and what harm they can do.
We challenged harmful stereotypes and thought about how we could turn these on their head.
Help at home: Lots of us were very passionate about standing up against stereotypes. If you would like more examples to discuss with your child you can find a video from the BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/young-reporter/articles/zkttm39
Community Week – British Values
As part of our Community Week, we learnt about the importance of British Values. We updated our Living and Learning board with an acronym to help us to remember the values (see above.)
Help at home: Discuss with your child what the British Values look like in your family community. Do children have individual liberty to make some choices? Do you have rules that you follow as a family? Do you make some decisions by voting? Do you show mutual respect and tolerance to each other?
Me and My Community Week
Wetherby Brass Band
On Tuesday, we were lucky to have a visit from Steven from Wetherby Brass Band. He spoke to the whole school about the benefits of playing in a band and being part of a community within the Wetherby community.
Steven, brought in some instruments and some of us were lucky enough to play some of them – some made hilarious noises.
The band play during many events in the Wetherby community, including the Remembrance Parade. They also play every Sunday at 2.30-4.30pm from the end of April to the end of September.
Democracy – from Ancient Greece to St James’
Democracy is one of the British Values we learn about in school. We found it really interesting to learn how Democracy began in Athens in Ancient Greece as part of our Topic lessons and we were really excited to see it in action as part of our JLT elections.
Our British Values are:
- Democracy
- Rule of Law
- Individual Liberty
- Respect and Tolerance
It would be great to discuss these with your child. What does the value mean to them? What would Britain be like if we didn’t have this value?
JLT elections
We are extremely proud of all the children who are running for JLT this year. The candidates spoke to the rest of the class this morning to explain why they deserved their vote.
Voters are spoilt for choice with such strong candidates to choose from. Well done to all the children for being brave and for speaking clearly at an appropriate volume (two of our oracy targets this half-term.)
As chemists we have been investigating solids, liquids and gases
In Science, we have started a new unit of learning all about states of matter. Our first lesson focused on identifying solids, liquids and gases. We started with some mystery bags that we had to observe closely.
We made observations about the properties of the samples with a particular focus on whether they had a fixed shape. We had great fun taking the samples out of the bags to see if they had a fixed volume.
Help at home: We like to use actions to help us to remember our learning and we have created gestures for our key words: solid, liquid and gas. Challenge us to teach you the gestures for the key words and play the game we played in class where one person says an object and the other person has to respond with the gesture for whether it is a solid, liquid or gas.
If your child likes an extra challenge, discuss objects which are harder to categorise such as toothpaste, shaving foam and slime. Are they a solid, liquid or a gas? Can they convince you?
As mathematicians we have been adding ones to 4 digit numbers
This week Year 4 have started a new unit in maths with a focus on addition and subtraction.
We started the learning by practising adding between one and nine to a number. We started with 2 digit numbers and worked up to 4 digit numbers. We showed great teamwork with our partner when using double sided counters and place value charts to look for a pattern.
We noticed that the digit in the ones column always changes, the digit in the tens column sometimes changes and the digit in the hundreds column sometimes changes.
We will be moving on to formal methods of addition and subtraction (often called column method) but it is really important that we all notice when there are calculations that we can do in our head. Looking for patterns and being able to imagine the numbers will help all of our amazing mathematicians to calculate efficiently.
Help at home: If you would like to consolidate this learning at home you could watch the video from White Rose Maths with your child: https://vimeo.com/729667222
You could also challenge your child by choosing a 4 digit number and asking them to add between 1 and 9 to the number. The children are really good at spotting the tricky ones where they will need to exchange. If you want to make it more like a game why not try this random number generator (https://numbergenerator.org/random-4-digit-number-generator) and challenge your child to do as many examples as they can in a minute. Can they score higher than you?
Lotherton Hall trip!
Years 3 and 4 had a fantastic time on our first trip of the year to Lotherton Hall! The aim of this trip was to support our ongoing science learning about animals, their habitats and their bone structures.
Mr Freeman and Mrs Poole were very impressed with the responses from the children during the workshops – children could confidently talk about the following:
- 5 animal groups (mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians)
- characteristics of animals within each group (classifying)
- vertebrates and invertebrates
- animals with skeletons and exoskeletons
Outside of the workshop, the children had chance to explore the wide range of animals at Lotherton. We found some very interesting bird types with unique characteristics and also noticed lots of animal names had originated from Latin roots!
Here are some great pictures from our trip – enjoy!
Innovation in Ancient Greece
We are becoming quite the experts on Ancient Greece and have really enjoyed learning about the innovations made during the Golden Era of Ancient Greece. We conducted our own research and made posters to summarise our findings. We also reflected on what the most important innovation was.
Help at home
Challenge your child to teach you what they have learned about innovation in the Golden Era of Ancient Greece. They could use this website to help them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/ztxc4xs#:~:text=The%20Greeks%20pretty%20much%20invented,and%20even%2C%20the%20vending%20machine!