Year 4

Welcome to Year 4

To start the year, we have lots of interesting things to explore, discover and enjoy.  Our priority will be to focus on regular reading as well as developing the children’s quick recall of the times tables facts to 12 x 12 in preparation for the national multiplication check in June.

Class work:  We will provide you with pencils, rulers, rubbers, colouring pencils and handwriting pens for those with a licence.  We ask that pencil cases are left at home as there is nowhere to store them safely in class.

Home learning:

Reading – 10 minutes reading daily. We ask that an adult signs the reading diary and it is handed in at least once per week. This is a whole school focus this year!

Spellings: There will be weekly tests.

Times Tables:  TT Rock Stars  5 minutes  each day.

Games and PE:

Children will need their PE kit in school all week as they will have both an indoor and outdoor session.  Children MUST have P.E. kit to take part for health and safety reasons.  Children with long hair, must have it tied back for PE lessons and stud earrings must be covered with tape that is brought to school or they will need to be removed.

Kit:        Trainers, white shirt, blue/black shorts, football/trainer socks.

In colder weather, a plain tracksuit may be worn outdoors for games.

Please ensure that all items of clothing are named. A small named bag containing your PE kit is all that is necessary as cloakroom space is limited.  Please keep your PE kit in school and we will ensure that it is sent home each half term for washing.

Ms Price and Miss Pooley

Autumn Term 2024

English

This term we will be looking explanation texts, modern fairy tales and free verse poetry. We will continue to focus on learning the Year 3/4 spelling words as well as different spelling patterns including prefixes and suffixes. Throughout this term we will be using a wider range of conjunctions and expanded noun phrases to make our writing even more exciting and engaging. We will continue to work on our editing and improving skills too.

Whole class reading activities will be part of each day. The texts we look at will be topic based and include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. During this session, we will further develop our fluency, inference, retrieval, prediction, sequencing and summarising skills.

Maths

This term we will start with further developing our knowledge of 4 -digit place value, rounding and Roman numerals. We will then be learning how to add and subtract, estimate, check and solve problems using 4-digit number. The next step will then be looking at strategies to solve multiplication and division calculations using larger numbers.

Throughout each week, we will spend time practising the times tables using many resources including TTRockstars. This knowledge will be a huge benefit to understanding many aspects of maths in the future and will also be assessed in a national multiplication test in the Summer.

Science

We will be learning about classifying organisms including vertebrates and invertebrates and plants. We will sort living things using dichotomous keys. We will also consider the importance of biodiversity. Throughout the second half term we willfind out more about the function of our teeth and the process of digestion as well as food chains and eco systems.

Art

We will be looking at the work of Yayoi Kusama and creating patterned clay pumpkins inspired by this artist and further developing our sketching skills.

Computing

We will be covering Kapow computing units this term and they will include collaborative learning usimg google docs and programming using Scratch to create animations. We will also be refreshing our understanding of e-safety and what steps to take to keep safe online.

Design and technology

We will be looking at seasoning and then preparing, making, tasting  a variety of soups and then designing a soup for a specific person.

French

We will follow the iLanguages programme and initially revise animals and classroom instructions before learning parts of the body and how to use the negative. 

After half term, we will learn about colours, different French food and the Goldilocks story.

Geography

 For the first half term, we will learn about Brazil and South America focusing on different regions, the Kayapo people and looking in more detail at the city of Rio de Janeiro. We will also familiarise ourselves with maps, atlases and the lines of latitude and longitude.

History

After half term,we will be finding out about the Ancient Maya civilisation. We will look at their rules, beliefs, buildings and the important things developed by the Maya. Finally, we will compare the Maya to other ancient civilisations and consider the similarities and differences.

Music

As well as singing and performing this term, we will follow on from the children’s successful mastery of the recorder and we will begin guitar uition using the school's guitars.

PE

The first half of term we will focus on 1980's dance following the Darcey Bussell programme and further developing our invasion games skills through basketball.

After half term, we will be working on balance, rolls and sequences in our indoor sessions and learning the net game volleyball.

PSHE

Following the Jigsaw programme, we will be looking at Being Me and Celebrating Difference through a variety of discussion tasks and activities.

Religion and Worldviews

The first half term we will look at what we mean by truth through discussion and looking at the work of philosphers including Plato. During the second half term, we will consider what sacrifice means and make links between this and religious stories.

Throughout this term, we will be reading about the heroic adventures of Hiccup and Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell.

 E-Safety

As so many of us are spending more and more time online, it is important that the children have a secure knowledge of how to be safe.  We will discuss various issues regarding this each week.  If you or your child  have any questions linked to their online world, then please do not hesitate to get in touch or have a look at some of the links below.

Additional Useful Information

• Please read the information by clicking on the link on the national multiplication check that your child will take in June.   Information concerning the times table multiplication test in June 2025 will be added when it becomes available.