Year 4
Friday 24th November
Here is what we have been up to over the last few weeks. A quick reminder to please ensure that your child is meeting the 21 minutes a week Times Table Rock Stars expectation (3 mins a day). This is really going to help them to secure the best outcomes in their end of year times table check. Little and often is best.
English - We have now finished writing our own disaster stories based on Escape from Pompeii. We have all really enjoyed this text and the children have produced stories that describe settings, character and plot really effectively. We are now moving on to look at an information style text. It is called A Walk in London and the children will write a version of this connected to our school trip called A Walk Around Dartmoor Zoo.
Maths - We have now finished our unit of learning on area. We know how to count squares in order to determine the area of a shape. We are now moving on to look at multiplication and division and will start looking at individual multiplication and division facts within the Year 3 and Year 4 times tables. We will then move on to methods to calculate multiplication and division.
Topic - In science, we have continued to classify animals and have begun to use classification keys to do this. We know that classification keys ask yes and no questions to determine what a living thing is. In history, we have continued our learning about the Romans and have been looking at gladiators and what they did. In DT, we have looked at simple circuits, reviewed some torches that already exist for product research and now designed our own torches. In the coming weeks we will begin to make our own torch.
We are looking forward to gymnastics trip that is coming up soon. If you have any questions about this then please contact our PE lead Mr Tanner.
Friday 10th November
It has been a great first two weeks back at school after the Oct Half Term holiday. Thanks to all the parents who came to our Y4 art exhibition before the break. It was great to celebrate the efforts of the children and we know they really enjoyed it. Here is what we have been up to...
English - We have started to look at a text called Escape from Pompeii which is a story about two children who escape from Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The children have thought about how the characters change throughout the story and how the author uses effective verb choices to build the tension. They will now begin to use examples from the text of adverbial phrases for where, direct speech and possessive apostrophes before writing their own version of the narrative.
Maths - We have now finished our unit on addition and subtraction. We have learnt how to use the column method with and without exchanges and can now use it confidently. Ask your child to show you an example of column addition and subtraction at home. Can they talk you through it? We also thought about making calculations efficient for example 2329 + 999 is much easier to work out by adding 1000 in our head and then subtracting 1. We are now starting a short unit on area. We will be counting squares to calculate the area.
Topic - In science, we have started to look at classifying animals and plants by their features. We have talked about how animals are broadly classified into invertebrates and vertebrates and that flowers are broadly classified into flowering plants and non-flowering plants. We will now start to apply this knowledge to classification keys which ask yes and no questions to help determine what something is. In history, we have started a unit of learning about the Romans and have thought about why Claudius wanted to invade Britain and how the Romans nearly lost control of Britain when Boudica and her army.
We also had a great trip to Dartmoor Zoo. We enjoyed seeing some animals up close (including a snake) in our keeper led workshop and were lucky enough to see tigers, wolves, cheetahs and jaguars as the weather just about remained sunny for us. We were able to make great connections to our science learning about living things and their habitats. We also saw our learning about teeth in action as the cheetahs tucked into their dinner!
Friday 20th October
We have had a fantastic first half term in Year 4. The children have made an excellent start to the year and should be very proud of their learning.
English - Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at the features of pursuasive writing and how we can use a wide range of subordinating conjunctions to add detail to our sentences. The children have produced some humorous writing that tries to convince others to become a bankrobber.
Maths - We have begun our addition and subtraction unit and have been looking at how we can use the formal method of column addition to add two 4 digit numbers together. We have looked at how this works when their is no echnage needed and also how to exchnage 10 ones for a ten, 10 tens for a hundred or 10 hundreds for a thousand when a column totals 10 or more. We will be moving on to look at column subtraction after half term.
Topic - In science, we finsihed our unit of leanring about teeth and digestion by looking at the teeth of animals and thinking about how their teeth give us clues to their diet. We found that herbivores have flat molar teeth while carnivores have sharp pointy teeth. In geography, we have finished our unit of leanring by looking at how hurricances form and how people can stay safe in a hurricane. Finally, we have been very excited to share the art work we have completed this half term with parents/carers in our Y4 art exhibition.
We hope you all have a great half term!
September 2023
Welcome to our Year 4 Blog!
We have been busy getting our new website up and running and we are excited to share with you all the brilliant learning that the children will be doing. You can find our Learning Web for Autumn 1 below which contains all of our curriculum information for this half term. This is also on display in classroom windows.
You should now have received a letter from the School Office with details about our upcoming school trip to Dartmoor Zoo on Friday 10th November. If you are able to volunteer your time for this trip then please do let us know by emailing parents@stcmat.org
Here is a link to our Y4 parent welcome letter that was sent out by the office a few weeks ago if you would like to see it again.
Here is what we have been up to over the last few weeks.
English - We have been working on a text called A River by Marc Martin. This is short narrative that focuses on a journey along a river. The children have now written their own journey stories including plenty of prepositions, conjunctions and adverbial phrases for when. The children are really proud of the work they have produced.
Maths – The children have been focussing on a unit of place value with 4-digit numbers. They have looked at the value of each digit in terms of the thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. They have looked at how we can order and compare numbers, find numbers on a number line and rounding numbers to the nearest multiple of ten and 100. We have also been having a big push on TTRS to ensure we are playing 21 minutes a week.
Topic – In science, we have enjoyed discovering all about the parts of our digestive system. It was great to see a live demonstration of how the digestive system works using everyday objects like a potato masher for teeth and tights for intestines. In Geography, we have been learning all about Florida and how it is the 11th largest peninsular in the world. In RE, we are learning all about the Trinity and what is means for Christians to believe that God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirt.
From next week, we will start to post some spelling home learning. Home learning for maths is TTRS and we would also expect children to be reading regularly at home for 15 minutes at a time.
Y4 Home Learning Documents
Current Week - Friday 24th November - Thursday 30th November
Previous Weeks
Friday 17th November - Thursday 23rd November
Friday 10th November - Thursday 16th November
Friday 3rd November - Thursday 9th November
October Half Term Spellings
Here are some seplling words that the children can look at over half term. They follow seplling rules that we have covered this half term.
1)misplace 2) misunderstand 3)measure 4) treasure 5)happily 6) merrily
Maths home learning is to play Times Tables Rockstars for at least 21 minutes a week (3 mins per day).
Reading home learning is to read at least 5 times a week for 15 minutes and for the children to record their reading in their reading diary.