Welcome to the Year 4 page!

2021–22

In Year 4, we have 30 brilliant children who are all kind, caring and loving. We love to learn and find out new things. We have lots of different and unique talents that make us an extremely interesting bunch of people. 

Our teacher is Mrs Armitage, and our teaching assistant is Mrs Walsh.

Spring 1

English

We began our work on the novel ‘Cinnamon’ by having a debate on the importance of our different senses. We put ourselves into the shoes of different characters in the texts and wrote adverts and diaries from their perspectives. We also used the limerick in the novel to inspire our own limericks about the characters in the novel. Finally, we planned and wrote our own fantasy narratives on the text structure of ‘Cinnamon’, producing detailed stories that really impressed Miss Choma!

Maths

We have been working hard to develop our multiplication and division skills this half term. When multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by 1 digit, we have been using our place value counters to help us understand when we need to exchange 10 ones or 10 tens. We then show this exchange on our column multiplication.

When dividing 2 and 3 digit numbers, we have been partitioning the whole number into more manageable parts. We had to think carefully about the divisor and whether or not each part could be divided equally.

RE

This half term we have been focussing on ‘Celebrating the Mass’. We have reflected on the importance of Sunday and why Catholics go to Mass. We have learnt about different parts of the Mass like the Liturgy of the Word, the offertory, words of consecration and the sign of the cross. The children created their own posters on the order of the Mass and played Bingo to name the different parts of a Catholic Church.

Science

Our topic this half-term was the Digestive System. We planned and carried an experiment to test the effect of pinching our nose on our sense of taste, and created a graph to show our results. We then performed an experiment to test how different substances might affect our teeth. We learned about different organs in the digestive system, and wrote 'The Journey of Food' about them. We used vocabulary including predator, prey, producer, consumer and apex predator, and sorted different animals and plants into food chains. Finally, we had a messy lesson as we created a working model of the human digestive system using bowls, bags and tights. The children crushed food, added water for saliva and sent the food through the system.

Geography

In our Geography work, we have enjoyed learning about rivers. We have learnt about how they are formed and the different features of a river. We have also discussed about how humans use rivers and the effect this has on rivers. We made picture diamonds to debate the different methods humans can reduce the effects of flooding.

Autumn 2

ENGLISH

Our class text this half-term was ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by Roger McGough. The children began by investigating language around the root word ‘invent’. They looked at how inventions such as vacuum cleaners and toasters worked. The genre we focused on was letter writing, so the children wrote their own informal letters to Dudley, and then edited them for formality. They ended by writing formal letters to school staff about what could be improved in school.

MATHS

In Maths, we worked on embedding the formal column method for 4-digit addition. We also used the place value columns and counters to visually represent subtraction from 4-digit numbers, including an exchange. We saw how useful the column method was in our Arithmetic sessions, as our scores really improved this half-term!
In Length and Perimeter we learned how to find the perimeter of a rectilinear shape, and this developed into our topic of Multiplication and Division as we used our times tables to help us. We looked at how place value changes when numbers are multiplied by  10 and 100, and consolidated our knowledge of our times tables facts.

RE

Our topic this half-term was ‘Trust in God’. We began reflecting on the meaning of trust, and then wrote our own prayers about trusting in God.

The children reflected on the lives of key Biblical figures including Zechariah, Mary and Joseph, and how they could follow the example of their faith in God. They looked at how Advent is a time of preparation for Jesus’ birthday, and created their own calendars and Advent Angels showing how they would prepare.

SCIENCE

We have been investigating all about Sound this half term. We have learnt about how different instruments make sounds.  We explored how to make different sounds with certain instruments, for example for a drum you need to bang and a guitar you need to pluck the strings. We now know that sound is made by vibrations. We investigated this by putting some rice on a drum to see what would happen when the drum was hit. We also used a pitch fork. We struck it on the table and placed in a container of water. The vibrations made the water splash. The children created their own videos explaining ‘the Science of Sound’ and used diagrams and investigations to illustrate their points.

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

We completed our history topic on Roman Britain by planning and writing a history essay around the question “Was the Roman invasion a positive event for the British people?”. The children used different secondary sources to find out about major Roman achievements in Britain, such as sanitation and engineering, and thought about whether these had a positive effect. They then contrasted this with thoughts about the lives of the Britons and what the revolts such as the one led by Boudicca and the creation of Hadrian’s Wall revealed the British people’s reaction to the Roman invasion.

We then began our Geography topic of Rivers by thinking about what we already knew about different world rivers, their features, and the uses of rivers. The children learned about how the water cycle they had previously learned about in Science is represented in Geography, and how rivers play a part.

Autumn 1

English

Our class text this half-term was ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes. The children enjoyed the way the plot of the novel uncovered several mysteries, and this inspired them to write in a range of genres including character descriptions, a news report, a letter of advice, and their own mystery narrative.

An example of our finished work - The Ice Natalia by Natalia

Maths

In Maths this half-term the children began with Number, including: reading and writing numbers to 10,000; comparing and ordering numbers to 10,000; rounding numbers; and Roman numerals to 1,000.
In their topic on addition and subtraction, the children consolidated their knowledge of the formal column method, including numbers with 3 or more digits.

RE

Our topic this half-term was ‘The Bible’. The children discussed the Bible and reflected on the way it tells the story of God’s relationship with his people. They reflected on the lives of key Biblical figures including Abraham, Moses, Joseph and David. They learned about the structure of the Bible, including the Old and New Testament, and practised finding different Bible references in the New Testament.

Science

Our topic this half-term was States of Matter. The children started by sorting and describing solids, liquids and gases and their properties. We looked at how materials changed state, and described the different processes, including evaporation and condensation. The children performed several experiments to test materials, and to understand the concept of freezing and melting points.

History

This half-term, we began our topic on Roman Britain. The children began by ordering different artefacts in order to understand the chronology of the Roman Empire. They learned about the spread of the Roman empire, the invasion of Britain and the eventual conquest. The children also looked in detail at some aspects of the Romanisation of Britain, such as the building of Roman roads and bathhouses.

Useful links

https://ttrockstars.com/

Year 4 LTP

Curriculum Evening 2021-22