Year 4

Autumn Term - Literacy

In Year 4 this year we have been focusing our Literacy around a wonderful text called 'The Wild Robot' by Peter Brown. In this story a robot winds up lost on an island and tries to adapt to all the new and exciting challenges she meets.

We have had a focus on learning how to write adverbial phrases, fronted adverbials, similes, compound sentences as well as looking using speech marks to show where characters are talking.

We also learnt all about fables and how to write an effective fable with a strong moral message.

We ended up this half term by writing our very own sequels to The Wild Robot.

Autumn Term - Maths

We started off this year by reconsolidating our knowledge and understanding of place value and what each digit in a number actually means. We used load of practical resources to make and order numbers.

We've been adding, subtracting and, within each, learning useful practical and written strategies to help us calculate.

We've also been solving tricky problems in our problem solving lessons in which we have tested our resilience using our trial and error skills.

We ended up this half term with a data handling week.

Autumn Term - Science

Our first science topic this year has been 'Living Things and their Habitats'. This fascinating subject has taught us the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates, how to sort and classify living things, the difference between a flowering and non-flowering plant (which is more complicated than you may think) and lots more.

We have produced some really high quality learning and learnt a huge amount.

Autumn Term - Other

Lihou

We started of the year with a fantastic trip over to Lihou Island where we enjoyed the local scenery, learnt about the island, took part in amazing activities including archery and beach art and stayed over night sleeping in rooms with our friends. It was a fantastic experience and fun was had by all!

History

We have loved learning all about the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the impact they had on modern day Britain. Our first history topic of the year has been so full interesting facts we have certainly learned a lot. We especially enjoyed the role play and acting out the important key events throughout that period of history. 

P.E.

In our indoor P.E. sessions we have been learning and developing our dance skills. For our outdoor games lesson our focus has been on working as a team and learning new strategies in a number of invasion games. 

Spring Term Literacy

This term we have been basing our Literacy on 'The Pebble in My Pocket' by Meredith Hooper. The book has taken Year 4 on an epic journey dating right back to 480 million years ago.

This books follows the voyage of a rock throughout history, tracking the pebble from it's origins in a fiery volcano to it's place in a modern landscape. We have written poetry, acted out scenes from the text, written our own version of the story and researched facts about triceratops'. We linked our learning into real world issues such as the impact of climate change on our planet and wildlife and what we can do to help prevent it.

Spring Term Numeracy

We started this term developing our knowledge of place value and applying what we know to loads of different number problems. We enjoyed revisiting roman numerals, rounding and partitioning whole numbers.

Our main focus was on understanding what a fraction is. We learnt all about equivalent fractions, counting in fractions and adding and subtracting fractions. 

We finished the term with 2 shape weeks in which we learnt the names of, properties of and sorted and classified 2D and 3D shapes.

Spring Term Science

We have loved learning all about our teeth and the digestive system.

We learnt that we all have different types of teeth such as incisors, canines, pre-molars and molars and that each type of tooth serves a different function. We also explored the human digestive system and what each organ does.

We acted out the process of food being digested using biscuits, orange juice, bananas and even an old pair of tights. Each element represented a different aspect of the digestive process for example food, acid and the small intestine.

We also learnt about food chains in the natural world. A food chain shows us the movement of energy from one living thing to another.

Spring Term Other

D&T 

In our Design and Technology we learnt about the different types of fastenings that can be used to attach fabrics. We looked at the strengths and weaknesses of zips, toggles, buttons, velcro and poppers. This led us to decide which fastener we would like to use to make our very own book sleeves. We designed a book sleeve and sewed together our pieces of fabric (this required lots of resilience and perseverance).

Geography

We have loved learning all about our planet and how to locate exact places using lines of latitude and longitude. We used atlases and globes to find where different places are and how the time differs from place to place depending on the lines of longitude. 

P.E.

Our term started off with the Sport Commission leading some amazing gymnastics sessions. We then went on to choreograph and perform our own gymnastics routines.