Year 4

Summer Term Literacy

This term we have been enjoying and amazing book called 'The Butterfly Lion' by Michael Morpurgo. This book is set over 100 years ago so we have a lot of fun exploring what life (and school) would have been like back then.

Throughout the story, we follow the journey of Bertie, a soldier fighting in WW1 who was awarded a Victoria Cross medal for his heroic act of bravery that saved the lives of two men. We acted out the key scenes and created atmospheric freeze frames exploring the thoughts and feelings of the characters involved.

We also wrote newspaper reports of the event, focusing on setting description, first person language and eye witness accounts. 

Summer Term Numeracy

In the Summer term, we have had a big focus on decimals. We have learnt where we might see decimals in everyday life. We've learnt to add, subtract and order and compare decimals using our knowledge of place value.

We have also been learning about fractions. Similar to decimals, we have added, subtracted, ordered and compared fractions and also explored the world of equivalent fractions.

In our geometry learning, we have learnt how to find and calculate the perimeter of a 2d shape (the length of the line running around the shape).

Summer Term Science

To start of our summer term science, we have had a recap on thew first unit we learnt this year - Living Things and Their Habitats. We loved rediscovering our previously learnt knowledge and building upon it with some amazing new facts!

Later on this term we will be discovering the world of 'Sound'.

Summer Term Other

As well as all this fantastic learning, we have had a jam-packed schedule, filling up our days with loads of incredible learning. Both classes welcomed parents and carers in for class assemblies and an open afternoon, in which we created a stunning show case of our learning. 

We have learnt about longitude and latitude in geography, explored the world of David Hockney in art and created innovative slingshot cars in D&T.

Spring Term Literacy

This term in literacy we travelled back in time, hundreds of millions of years. Our literacy text was 'Pebble in my Pocket' written by Meredith Hooper. This book follows the 65million + year journey of a rock through time.

We began by writing poetry about our perfect pebbles. Next, as the pebble went prehistoric, we learnt all about dinosaurs and wrote some amazing non fiction facts files all about triceratops.

Finally, as the rock got closer to the modern age, we discovered how our planet is changing. Climate change and global warming are affecting the planet and we decided we wanted to do something about that. We learnt how to write persuasively and we wrote a letter to the prime minster of the UK himself telling him what he needed to do to help in the fight against climate change.

Spring Term Numeracy

In maths, we have had a big focus on multiplication and division. We have developed our calculation skills, paying specific attention to new strategies we can use to help us when the numbers are bigger. We learnt how to multiply and divide using a blank number line, the grid method and through chunking. We also continued to reinforce our knowledge of the use of practical resources.

We have also begun a new initiative called Number Sense, a programme designed to help us master our times tables and are loving it so far!

Spring Term Science

As always, our science has been truly fascinating. We have learnt about three key areas of science: Teeth, Digestion and Food Chains.

Teeth

We began by learning how many teeth humans have (20 for children, 32 for adults if you must know) and the different kinds of teeth we have. We have incisors, canines, premolars and molars and how each tooth serves a specific function. Amazingly, animals have the same types of teeth as humans, and the number of each type they have depends on what they eat. You can even tell what an animal ate just by looking at the teeth in the skeleton. We learnt how the teeth and mouth are the first step in the digestion process.

Digestion

Our digestive system is weird, fascinating and a little gross. We learnt the function of the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine and as you can see from the pictures below, had a lot of fun doing so.

Food Chains

Finally, we delved into the world of animals. We learnt that a food chain shows the movement of energy between living things. We used key words such as producer, consumer, predator, prey, scavenger, herbivore and carnivore to create sensational presentations showcasing what we know about food chains.

Spring Term Other

As if all of that was not amazing enough, we have also done a huge amount more.

In P.E., we have been developing our balances and jumps through gymnastics and in our Games lessons we have been learning how to throw, catch and lob tennis balls.

On our D&T days, we built pavilions out of everyday objects including lollipop sticks, pipe cleaners, card, paper, glue and lots of hard work. Our pavilions had to be a fun hang out space for a demographic of our choice. We have also used water bottles and electrical equipment to make our own torches.

Our PSHE lessons have continued to educate us on how to be kind to each other and we had a particular focus on online safety. 

Autumn Term Literacy

In our literacy we have been enjoying 'The Wild Robot' by Peter Brown as our focus text. The story follows the adventures of Roz the Robot who finds herself learning about a brand new world after being stranded on an island. We have written diary entries, pretending we were the otter that discovered Roz, and learned how to be amazing writers that include adjectives, adverbs, adverbial phrases and fronted adverbials in their work.

Autumn Term Numeracy

We started off this year by consolidating some core numeracy skills including place value, adding and subtracting. We re-familiarised ourselves with how to use all of the maths resources we have in school and the benefit of using them to help us visualise number sentences. We have also been introduced to some new written calculation strategies to help us solve those trickier number problems.

Autumn Term Science

In science, our focus has been on 'Living Things and their Habitats'. We delved into the world of animals and plants. Did you know you can classify living things into different groups based on shared characteristics? We learnt that within the vertebrate classes (animals that have a backbone) there are: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and birds. In the invertebrate classes (animals that don't have a backbone) there are: insects, annelids, arachnids and molluscs.

We looked at some real life invertebrates and identified some key features. 

We have also classified plants into flowering and nonflowering and what this actually means scientifically speaking.

We have also learnt the importance of caring for our planet. Different animals and plants need different things to survive and we can help with that. By picking up litter, walking more and driving less and not damaging the environment around us we can help living things thrive in their own habitats.

Autumn Term Other

In our outdoor learning sessions we have developed our resilience, teamwork and collaboration skills through a series of active activities. We have built dens, put up tents and learnt how to tie a clove hitch knot.

In our art lessons we enjoyed learning about a famous artists called Paul Cezanne and had a got painting mountains in his unique style. We also tried our hand at carving sculptures of fish using blocks of soap.

On top of all of this we have also been learning about computing in ICT, attacking and defending whilst playing football in games lessons, learning a street dance routine in indoor P.E. and have also been sea swimming down at Cobo. What a busy half term we've had!