Blue Peter Book Badges – apply now!
Do you like reading? Do you fancy getting your hands on an exclusive Blue Peter Badge? Now is your chance!
Blue Peter are introducing their exciting new Book badge, designed by one of the UK’s best known illustrators, Sir Quentin Blake, who you might know from bringing to life characters such as Roald Dahl’s BFG and Matilda! To earn your badge, just share your love of books with Blue Peter by answering the questions on the website! You can apply using the online form or by post.
Make sure you get an adult to help you!
Please read this information before applying.
Good luck!
Spellings
Instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.
How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.
However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.
Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more.
Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would.
We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home.
If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out this ‘Super Spelling Strategies Guide’ : Some-super-spelling-strategies
Half-term 1
This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:
- alternative ways for writing the ‘ay’ sound
- alternative ways for writing the ‘ee’ sound
- ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
- ‘drop the e for ing’
- ‘drop the y for an i’
- adding the suffixes ed, ing
- homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.
| famous | believe | accident | breathe | answer |
| library | passion | notice | were | possess |
| century | address | favourite | appear | here |
| their | weight | complete | ordinary | wear |
| straight | they’re | surprise | busy | increase |
| session | possible | there | hear | where |
| suppose | mission | eighth | extreme | occasion |
| fraction | different | attention | learn | possession |
Welcome back!
Year 4 have hit the ground running this week – it’s like we’ve never been away!
It’s been so lovely to spend time as a class again and Mrs Burgess, Mrs Charlesworth and I have been blown away by their behaviour and attitude towards school and learning. They are superstars!
A few bits of information:
- Our PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please wear PE kits on these days. (If you have been told that your child is going swimming on Wednesday, they will need to come in their PE kit and bring their swimming kit with them).
- Reading records will be sent home tomorrow. The activity (stated on the homework) needs to be completed and accompanied by a parent/guardian’s comment and signature and brought back to school every Friday for book club. Thank you for your support with this.
As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Spellings for this half term…
Instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.
How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.
However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.
Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more.
Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would.
We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home.
If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out this ‘Super Spelling Strategies Guide’ : Some-super-spelling-strategies
Half-term 1
This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:
- alternative ways for writing the ‘ay’ sound
- alternative ways for writing the ‘ee’ sound
- ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
- ‘drop the e for ing’
- ‘drop the y for an i’
- adding the suffixes ed, ing
- homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.
| famous | believe | accident | breathe | answer |
| library | passion | notice | were | possess |
| century | address | favourite | appear | here |
| their | weight | complete | ordinary | wear |
| straight | they’re | surprise | busy | increase |
| session | possible | there | hear | where |
| suppose | mission | eighth | extreme | occasion |
| fraction | different | attention | learn | possession |
Thank you to Roundhegians
We had a great sports day last Thursday and thanks go to Roundhegians Rugby Club for once again allowing us to use their great facilities.
Have a look at the options for rugby coaching available at the club.
We know the children appreciated it too.
Food Technology – Savoury scones!
Today, Year 4 completed their final Food Technology session. This time, they made savoury scones! Some of us had never eaten a savoury scone before, let alone made them.
They had courgettes, carrot and sweetcorn in to make them filling and part of our balanced diets.
We worked in groups of 10 to make a batch of 15 scones so we all had to share the jobs. The two main skills we learned and practised were grating and kneading.
Grating the vegetables was tricky as we needed to keep the slippery grater up-right! The courgette was more difficult as it was moist.
Kneading our dough was interesting as the dough was quite sticky. We needed to make sure our surface and hands had enough flour on to stop it from sticking everywhere.
Overall, we did a fantastic job and ALL of the children loved the flavour!
Help at home by using the recipe to remake the savoury scones using different vegetables! The children thought that pepper and tomatoes could be tasty…
Being healthy themed week: bike safety
Thank you to Stu and Alex from Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative, based in Chapel Allerton, for visiting this during our Being Healthy week.
They were kept busy by checking lots of bikes to ensure they were safe to use. Thank you to everyone who brought their bike into school.
Then, Year 5 and 6 learnt some different bike maintenance tips to do on their own bikes.
Health Week – what a week!
This week has been a themed week at Moortown – Health Week. This means that the whole school have been focused on being healthy in our bodies and our minds!
Year 4 have been very fortunate to have experienced a range of different activities and talks that relate to health.
Monday began with a visit from Leeds Beckett University. We were outside being active while learning about Orienteering! The children began with a quick warm up activity where they had to find certain areas in the playground that related to a picture. This then led onto map reading and navigating their groups around the school to find letters to spell words. It was a great and unique way of getting our bodies and minds working.
On Tuesday, we had D:side in to talk to us about alcohol and how to be safe around it. We spoke about how to identify if something has alcohol in it. For example, comparing WKDs to J20s. We also spoke about how alcohol affects people such as, changing how their minds and body work. Here are some of the class with the ‘alcohol’ glasses on.
On Friday, we had a martial-arts session. Some of our children already attend a martial-arts club after school so they were prepared and ready for what was to come. Others were starting as beginners but we all worked together as a team so help one another. Here’s some great snaps of us doing some kick-boxing:
Help at home by asking your child what different types of food fit into these categories:
Carbohydrates, Fruit and Vegetables, Dairy, Fats and Sugars, Protein.
Design and Technology: Go-Karts!
Hello!
As you would have seen on our last post, Year 4 have been busy designing, creating and evaluating their go-kart prototypes!
Today, they had their final session to complete any finishing touches. We had some last minute changes to make sure that they could move freely and hold a model figure. Therefore, some go-karts don’t have a motor and some do!
Here are some of our groups with their go-karts. They were absolutely fantastic and Mrs Charlesworth and I were incredibly impressed.
Well done to Year 4 for working well together as a team and using their skills to create and change go-karts for the better!
Being healthy themed week: staff vs pupils netball
At our final netball after-school club, and as it is our being healthy themed week, we enjoyed a hard fought match between the pupils and staff.
The children have progressed really well with their netball skills this term and we hope the Year 6 netballers continue to enjoy this sport as they move to high school.
