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 Mondays.
Please come to school in your P.E kits on Tuesdays and Fridays and make sure that earrings have been removed before school and that long hair is tied up.
Swimming will take place on Tuesdays (from 13th September) so please remember to bring your swim bag. We will need to set off at 9am prompt.
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!
Summer 1
Welcome back to another busy and exciting half term in Year 4! We hope you have had an enjoyable break during Easter and are ready for lots of new learning.
In English, we will be writing biographies and looking at other non-fiction writing. We will also continue to use the story of Harold Snipperpot’s Best Disaster Ever as our English hook. We will focus on writing a newspaper report for the day the animals caused chaos in the street! We will look at some more formal language that we can use and then present our writing to others by reading aloud in our best news presenter’s voice!
In maths, we will continue to practise, practise and practise those times tables! It is really important that you continue to go on TTRockstars as regularly as possible and your maths Teams assignment also directs you to some other games you can play too. In our maths lessons, we will improve our knowledge of fractions and introduce you to decimals. We hope you are up for a challenge!
In Geography, we will be exploring the Amazon River and the Rainforests, looking at the climate and how the climate is influenced by its location, describing key aspects of physical geography within the rainforest (layers and biodiversity) and probing into how deforestation impacts the environment
During our enrichment sessions, we will be putting our cooking skills to the test! We will look at skills such as cutting with a knife, grating, sieving and even cracking an egg open. We wonder what your tastiest recipe will be. We are definitely looking forward to these lessons!
We will continue to use Bill Withers’ song Lean On Me as our focus in music lessons which will include us learning to play the recorder to aspects of the song. Please have your recorders in school on Wednesdays.
In art, we will be using Henry Moore as our inspiration for our work this half term. In R,E we will be exploring which faiths make up our community. In PSHE, we will be looking at maintaining a balanced lifestyle including oral hygiene and dental care and looking at what makes up our personal identity, recognising that we are all different and have different strengths and qualities and exploring how we can maintain our mental wellbeing.
Spring 2
Welcome back to Spring Term 2! In Maths, we will be taking our multiplication skills even further and looking at more formal written methods. We will continue to access TT Rockstars to work towards the Multiplication Tables check later in the year.
In Science, we will be exploring Electricity . We will construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers, recognise that the construction of a circuit will influence how it works and recognise some common conductors and insulators.
In History and English, we will be travelling to 3,000 years before the birth of Christ to learn about the Ancient Egyptians. Children will discover that the Ancient Egyptians were united under one ruler, Menes, and the empire lasted until 30BC, when the Romans conquered Egypt. This unit aims to give an overview of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation, focussing on the period between the time of the first pharaoh around 3100 BC to the Roman invasion in 31 BC, when Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. Across the unit, pupils will look at the impact of notable people and events as well as broader themes of significance, achievements, chronology and legacy.
In DT we are getting practical with each child sewing their own bag and in Computing we will be researching and storing data using spreadsheets and learning how weather forecasts are made.
We continue in Latin this term looking at days of the week and months of the year.
Spring 1
Welcome back Year 4 and a very happy new year to you all! Let’s take a look at some of the learning we will be getting involved with this half term!
Our English and art topics will be linked this half term. Have you ever heard of the Jabberwocky? Or have any idea about what it could be about? Well, we will explore this wonderful, yet challenging poem by Lewis Carroll and put our drama, performance and art skills to the test! This will also spark lots of creative and exciting writing opportunities too where you can really show off your developing SPaG and vocabulary knowledge.
In science, our topic is States of Matter. We will be exploring how everything is made up of particles (tiny building blocks) and that these particles are organized differently in the three different states of matter: Solid, Liquid and Gas. We will explore melting, freezing, evaporation and condensation and will explore the Water Cycle, using one of Mrs Moxon’s favourite songs which the class are already familiar with (remember Uncle Dan?)
Very much linked to our science topic is our geography topic – Rivers and the Water Cycle. We will follow the journey of water and how it starts in rivers, lakes and oceans, evaporates and condenses, then falls as precipitation and runs back into rivers, lakes and oceans following the continuous water cycle that is essential to life on Earth.
We all know how important our times tables practise is so please continue accessing TT Rockstars – who can access it every day this half term? Our Power Maths topics will challenge us even more with our multiplication and division and we will continue to look at perimeter and then move onto area. My Maths will continue to be set weekly and will always link to recent learning in class to help you consolidate new learning.
We will begin our R.E. learning with our Hand to Mouth launch and experience some Godly Play too which you loved last half term!
We will be thinking about online safety in our computing and PSHE lessons and having lots of discussions about this important topic.
We will continue to improve our Latin using Duolingo and Minimus books and this half term we will be singing – A LOT – getting ready for our big trip to Young Voices. We cannot wait!
Recorders will continue to be on Mondays once we have been to our Young Voices concert. Swimming will continue to be on Tuesdays and P.E will be on Fridays.
We have seen some more fabulous Teams assignments before the Christmas break so thank you once again for all of your hard work. Which ones will you complete this time? Remember, the aim is 4.
Autumn 2
What a superb start to Year 4 you have all made! We can’t wait to start to 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.
As we have spent lots of time on place value in maths, we are now ready to move on to addition and subtraction 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.
After a really successful half term learning how to word process (show your adults at home the magic you can work on a photograph!), we will be moving onto Design and Technology, where we will design and make 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 – have a look at your Teams assignment for more on this!
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.
Recorders will continue to be on Mondays, swimming will continue to be on Tuesdays and P.E will be on Fridays.
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.
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!) and maybe find a few more names for the animals we have. We will make a start on our new sketch books in art and continue learning lots more skills in computing.