Welcome to Year Four
Welcome back Year 4! We are so excited to get our new year off to a start and hope you are ready for new challenges and an exciting and busy half term ahead!
Key things to remember:
Please bring your recorders to school on Wednesdays. These must be labelled.
Please come to school in your P.E kits on Mondays and Tuesdays. Please ensure that earrings have been removed before school and that long hair is tied up.
Swimming will take place on Tuesdays (from 19th September) so please remember to bring your swim bag! We will be leaving at 9am sharp.
Homework
My Maths, TTRockstars and Spelling Shed will be set weekly and these should be accessed throughout the week. We will also be setting extra tasks for you to complete to help you with your learning in other areas of the curriculum. These extra tasks are set for the whole half term so you do not need to complete them right away (just check the due date!). We would love for you to share your work with us and we look forward to seeing what you get up to at home! We will share these with the children on the first day back and these will be shared in the 'assignments' section.
Do remember to read every day too!
Autumn 2
Our learning this half term:
What a superb start to Year 4 you have all made! We can’t wait to start a new and very busy and exciting half term with you all.
After your fantastic ideas for an additional chapter for the Edward Tulane story, we will continue to draft and edit your writing until you are ready to publish! We will then move onto diary writing from the perspective of an Anglo-Saxon. Please continue to access Spelling Shed on a weekly basis. Lots of you are really improving!
In PSHE we will be exploring our self-esteem and what has an effect on it, which links with our book in English as we continue with ‘There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom’ with a focus on using direct speech.
In maths, we will continue to practise addition and subtraction with 4-digit numbers and we will be challenged to use our problem-solving skills. As you know, we want you to spend lots of time practising your times tables and regularly going on TT Rockstars. Can you move up a level in Olympic Maths this half term? My Maths will continue to be set weekly and will always link to recent learning in class to help you consolidate new learning.
In design and technology, we have already begun exploring how pneumatics work and we will be moving onto designing and making our own simple pneumatic monster toy.
We will begin our new geography topic which will allow us to explore the different climates and weather of the world. We will also find out what biomes are.
Our science topic is Animals including Humans, where we will be exploring the functions of the digestive system, identifying types and functions of teeth and constructing and interpreting food chains.
We will learn more about the Muslim faith in R.E and will develop our coding skills in computing.
Enrichment will continue to be on Mondays, swimming will continue to be on Tuesdays and you will need your recorders on Wednesdays please.
Thank you for the wonderful work that was shared with us on Teams. We have set 6 more assignments. Remember, the aim is to do 4 so see which ones stand out to you!
Autumn 1
Our learning this half term:
In English with Mrs Sneddon, we will be reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and creating lots of writing based on the main character. It will be interesting to hear your thoughts on the main character and whether these change throughout the story. Mrs Sneddon’s certainly did! With Mrs Moxon, we will be reading The Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom, a heart-warming story of a young boy's search for friendship and acceptance. We will also use this book as a basis for PSHE lessons. Our second PSHE lessons of the week will look further into friendships and families, including healthy relationships.
You will have definitely heard about the Vikings through regularly singing Viking Rock in singing but what about the Anglo-Saxons? In history, we will learn about these two different time periods in detail and how each of these groups managed to invade and settle in Britain after the Romans. We will learn all about why they chose Britain, how they got here, how they invaded and what life became like here in Britain once they settled. Do you think there will be any key similarities or differences compared to how we live today?
We will start our year off in maths with making sure we are confident with 4-digit numbers and begin to use these numbers to develop our calculation skills. We will practise our times tables lots too! Please make sure you log in to your TTRockstars as regularly as you can. Little and often will really help you get speedy with your times tables – a super important skill in Year 4!
In Science we will be exploring a variety of ways to identify, sort, group and classify living things. We will learn how animals are split into 'vertebrates' and 'invertebrates' and begin to consider the differences between living things within these classifications. We will use and create classification keys to group, identify and name living things from the local habitat and beyond. This unit also introduces children to the idea that environments are subject to human-made and natural changes, and that these changes can have a significant impact on living things. Throughout the unit children work scientifically by gathering, recording and presenting information in different ways.
In R.E we will explore the theme of ‘What words of wisdom can guide us?’ and in Latin, we will continue to “Meet the Family” (using our Latin names of course!), explore the months of the year and maybe find a few more names for the animals we have.
During our Enrichment sessions, we will spend half of the time with Mr Myers and take part in competitive sports with Year 3. We will then spend the other half of this time working on our computing skills by learning how to use computing systems and networks which will include creating google forms and spreadsheets.
In this half term, we will be making a start on our new sketchbooks and developing our sketching skills and exploring different sketching techniques.