Summer 2
What a brilliant, jam-packed half-term it has been!
A huge well done to all children who took part in Sports Day this year. We finally had some beautiful weather and the children we so excited to participate. Year 4 attended an additional sports event hosted by New College Doncaster where primary schools in the academy got together to compete in a varsity celebration. Not only did our children show endless enthusiasm and resilience, but it was so lovely to see how quickly they made friends with children from other schools.
We are so proud of our Year 4 learners for their efforts in preparing for the MTC test which they completed in June. Lots of children have consistently completed their home learning on TTRockstars throughout this year and the progress they have made since their initial assessment is fantastic. A ‘little and often’ approach has really worked for lots of our pupils. They have also recently completed their end of term assessments for Writing, Reading, GPS and Mathematics. It is always a joy to see how far they have come!
In our maths lessons, we have used our knowledge of decimals to convert between pounds and pence, to compare amounts of money and we have solved a range of money problems. Year 4 found time problems involving the 24-hour clock challenging but showed great resilience. They have learned about angles and polygons in geometry lessons, and have confidently interpreted a range of data in statistics focused sessions.
Our focus texts were ‘The New World’ and ‘Simic and the Forest’. The children wrote excellent pieces using the accompanying toolkits for the features of each genre. These included using dramatic fronted adverbials, ‘show don’t tell’ to emphasize how a character is feeling, a sequence three actions for impact, a range of connectives to link paragraphs and steer readers through a specific sequence and consolidating the use of past tense verbs.
In Art lessons, we have explored the work of a range of sculptors and have learned clay techniques such as scoring and joining. Our final pieces were Egyptian sarcophagi, which linked to our topic on the Ancient Egyptians. The children sculptured and painted these models so carefully and were all so keen to participate.
We have continued our Spanish language learning this half term. The children have learned about adjective agreements, negatives, body parts, colours and sizes. Learning ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’ and the Macarena was certainly a highlight!
The children were really excited by this half term’s History topic – The Ancient Egyptians. They learned about different roles in Egyptian society, significant pharaohs and artefacts and were fascinated by the process of mummification in particular!
We wish our learners all the very best as they move into Upper Key Stage 2. Have a wonderful summer!
Summer 1
This half term has been a busy one getting ready for our MTC. We have spent lots of time practising and the children have really engaged in this and have been eager to beat their personal best. We are eager to get out MTC completed and celebrate the progress we have made towards our scores.
Our English this half term has focused on really consolidating our non-negotiables. We have completed several pieces around complaints, descriptions and a wishing tale. We have perfected our speech rules, explored the possessive apostrophe in more detail and practised using words with a variety of prefixes and suffixes. The children have worked incredibly hard to improve word choice and sentence structure while completing these pieces of writing.
Maths has been heavily fraction and decimal based and the children have really enjoyed the challenge. We now have a clear understanding of how to divide a number by 10 and 100 and understand the relationship between fractions and decimals. We also introduced money, looking at how to count, how to convert between pounds and pence, how to work out change and to solve money related problems.
In Science, we have explored solids, liquids and gasses. The children now understand how the particles move, or don’t move in these and have investigated what happens when we heat or cool things.
Our Geography has focused on the water cycle and climate change. We kickstarted this topic with a fantastic trip to the water treatment works at Ewden. The children were immersed in all things water, first exploring the cycle water goes through and moving on to how it is cleaned to be safe for us to drink. We have also explored the different types of clouds and how they are formed as well as continuing our learning around the causes of climate change and things we can do to help save our planet.
Spring 2
Spring two has been another busy half term.
We have done lots of times table preparation reading for our upcoming test in June with the children becoming more confident and fluent in their times table knowledge. Our maths learning has centered on a huge fraction unit where we have explored equivalence, wholes and parts alongside addition and subtraction in problem solving scenarios. The children have worked hard to understand some tricky concepts and are finally mastering the processes needed to add and subtract fractions from whole numbers.
In English, we have explored a journey tale and a discussion text. We have discussed and practised using a variety of toolkit features in each unit including; generalisers, connectives, subordination and coordination and speech. The children worked really hard during these units to apply the speech rules taught.
Our art unit has focused on pencil techniques while drawing Viking artefacts. We have explored how to draw objects that overlap, how to draw shadows and reflection and how to draw patterns that show different textures. We have then applied these skills to a final piece.
We have really enjoyed our singing lessons with Sarah from the Rotherham Minster. She has helped us explore tone and pitch and we have learnt some lovely songs all about Spring.
History was kicked off with a trip to York to learn all about the Vikings. We had so much fun and learnt so much. We went around the Jorvik centre learning about how the Vikings lives and looked at artefacts. We then took part in a workshop at DIG all about the Viking’s battle tactics.
Overall, it has been a busy but fun half term.
Spring 1
Spring 1 was a short but busy half term!
We spend many maths lessons perfecting our multiplication and division skills and are now confident using formal column multiplication. We have explored using our times table facts to help us divide bigger numbers and applied this knowledge to a variety of problems.
Our English learning saw us exploring the dark and wet streets in a tale of fear called ‘Zelda Claw’. We used the suspense toolkit to add suspense to our writing and thought about short, punchy sentences, empty words to make the threat seem more ominous and using sound effects to add the suspense. We also explored explanation texts. We looked at the generalisers and connectives we may use to ensure cohesion within our writing.
Our Geography unit focused on earthquakes and volcanoes. We learnt about the structure of the earth, how tectonic plate movement affected the earth and created earthquakes and volcanoes and learnt about natural disasters.
In Science, we explored living things and their habitats. We used the acronym ‘MRS GREN’ to identify the 7 life processes that all living things have. Ask your child if they can remember them! We explored vertebrates and invertebrates, food chains, classification keys and how environmental changes can affect habitats.
We had our last half term with Mr Kinman learning to play the Ukuleles and this was showcased by a small concert in school. The children got to show off their Ukulele skills to some other children. They did an amazing job, persevered when it was tricky and really shone.
We are looking forward to another fun-filled Spring 2.
Autumn 2
What a busy few month we have had in Year 4. I am so proud of how hard all the children have worked this half term, right up until the end.
Our maths work this half term has seen children master formal methods of addition and subtraction and we are working hard on applying this to multi-step problems. We have learnt how to calculate the area of shapes and are working our way through our multiplication and division unit. The children have been introduced to their 6s, 7s and 9s – why not ask them to count in these steps?
We have also been working really hard on our arithmetic skills and getting quicker at solving simple, smaller number calculations.
Our first English unit was a portal story. The children enjoyed travelling to different destinations in their imagination to create a lovely story that focused on developing the description of the setting. We also work on our adjectives and noun phrases. We gave our second unit a little Christmas slant and looked at how to trap the Grinch. The children looked at the organisational structure of an instruction text, explored fronted adverbials and comma use and how to use imperative verbs. During our English lessons, we have also been working hard on ensuring our letter formation is correct and beginning to join.
We have really enjoyed our History unit this half term. We kickstarted it with an ‘Anglo-Saxon day’ where the children explored making fires using flint and steel and learnt a little about how they lived. Throughout the unit we explored why they can to England, why they stayed, the religions they followed, the battles they found and how eventually, their reign came to an end.
Our Science unit has focused on sound. The children have explored how sound is made using vibrations and explored the role on a tuning fork. They have looked inside the ear and we have discussed how our ears manipulate the sounds and send them to our brain.