Year 4
Welcome to Year 4!
Class 4 are taught by Miss Jess Chisnall.
Class 5 are taught by Miss Natasha Coupe on Monday to Wednesday and Mrs Laura Oswald on Thursday and Friday.
Class 6 are taught by Mrs Natalie Smith
The children are supported in their learning by Miss Janie Cameron, Mrs Penny Bridgeman and Mrs Donna Muller.
We ask that the children have their PE kit in school for the whole week as PE days can change last minute.
PE for all three classes will take place on Wednesday (if the weather is fine, if not then Friday) and on Thursday with the Premier Sport coaches.
Keep checking back to our year 4 page for regular updates about the children's learning.
Science Experiment as Waste Investigators
In science we tried to replicate the body's digestive system. We mashed up bananas and crackers and poured it into a plastic bag which represented the stomach. We then added vinegar, yellow paint and washing up liquid to act as the acids and enzymes in the stomach. After that we poured the mixture into a pair of tights which represented the intestines and squeezed out the mixture to make our own stool.
Science Experiment - Waste Investigators
Science Workshop at QMC
Year 4 were invited to go to QMC to participate in various science experiments. All the experiment linked to our current topic of Solids, Liquids and gases. We were able to test how long it took different solid items to melt, understand what a reversible change was by heating and cooling polymorph granules in order to create a plastic shape. We used microscopes to compere different solid items and to identify if an item was a solid.
Religious Education
In RE we are learning about 'temptation' linked to Christianity. We wrote our own versions of 'The Temptation of Jesus' and read them out in small groups.
English - exploring instructional texts
We are currently learning how to write instruction texts, we will be building up to write our guided ‘How to train a dragon’ in the next couple of weeks. To help us understand the features of instructions, we have unpicked the text ‘How to Care for a Bearded Dragon’. We text marked and discussed together the effect of each of the features.
British values - Democracy
We elected our class representative for our school council. The children put themselves up for election, gave a speech they had written and then the children in class gave a vote for their choice. The results are in!
Exploring properties of gases in Science
We have been looking at the properties of solids, liquids and gases. We did an experiment to research and prove that gas exists. To do this, we compared water and lemonade and put raisins in each of the liquids to observe what happens when gas is present... cue the dancing raisins!
Portals to the Past
On Tuesday 24th September Y4 took part in a Egyptian workshop run by the fantastic Doctor from Portals to the Past. The children participated in a variety of activities to enhance their learning and understanding of our topic the Ancient Egyptians.
Dragons in Year 4!
In English we are learning about Dragons! We found dragon eggs in our school grounds and have been reading 'How To Train Your Dragon' in order to learn what we must do to look after them.
Longitudinal Study
We are going to keep an eye on the outside area by the woods. Miss Charman wants us to find out what creatures use the area as a habitat throughout the year.
English
We are learning how to use adverbial phrases in our writing. Here are some examples of our work:
Maths
We have been learning how to round to the nearest 10 and 100. We used dice shakers to practice:
Accademic Year 2018-19
(In case you want to see the kind of learning we might be doing this year!)
Anjel, Kymarni & Esme.MOV
Mila, Hadley, Belle.MOV
Rudra, Harry & Kieva.MOV
Year 4 Spring Newsletter
Autumn News Letter
Our topic homework this term has been linked to our geography learning about The UK and Europe. We had to research a European country and create a presentation of the research we did, we could do this in any format imcliding use of computer technology or other creative options!
We have been using a zone of relevance during Guided Reading lessons to identify how main characters in our book ‘Varjak Paw’ have changed during the story. We have thought about how to back this with evidence from the book from how they have behaved or felt.
This year, our World Book Day Theme was International Women’s Day. We dressed up, learnt about inspirational and influential women, wrote stories of their lives, and looked at the inspirational women in our own lives. Year 4s focus woman was JK Rowling which the children loved! We enjoyed learning about not only the success of her Harry Potter books but also her huge generosity and links with charities. We were even more enthusiastic because of recently studying her Harry Potter books is English and reading!
In Science, our current unit is the digestive system. We have been learning about the different food groups, what a balanced diet is and how to live a healthy lifestyle. We are also comparing how and why diets might vary for different people e.g. athletes. We have also created our own food diaries as part of our homework to look at the different food groups we are eating from.
In RE, we have been looking at the concept of myths. We have identified what a myth is and read a variety of myths from differents and beliefs. We have also identified what the myths show us about their beliefs and why they would be important to a believer.
We have been learning about fractions and their equivalent decimals. In arithmetic, we played a matching game to help us remember them!
In art, we have been learning about observational drawing. We have made figures using tin foil, we will be adding shadows from the figures and then sketching them using our observation skills to add detail, light and shade.
Happy Valentine’s Day! For our early morning task, we have reflected on what we love most about school and celebrated all of the different aspects of our school life.
In spellings, we have been looking at words ending with the ‘ture’ sound...
In Health and Wellbeing, we have been learning about pollution and the impacts of pollution on the environment. Today, we tested different types of water that had been affected by “chemicals” and “farm soil” and “washing machine waste” to find out their pH level. We used pH test strips and compared the colour changes to the number grading.
In our topic, UK and Europe, we have been beginning to locate countries and capital cities. We have used the Atlases to help locate the counties before placing them onto our maps.
In art, we have been moulding beads using clay in order to create Egyptian jewellery! We had to make a selection of beads and an amulet too. We have then painted them and joined the beads together to complete the necklaces.
Year 4 have been working hard on drawing facial features over the last few weeks and now we have completed a portrait of ourselves!
We were very luckily to have a special science event in the science dome on Friday. The children were taken on the journey through the digestive system, learning technical names and the process of food digestion. At different stages, we also took part in science experiments to show what happens and we were amazed to see how long the intestines are!
Year 4 talks Brexit!! For our guided reading, we have discussed a news article about Britain leaving the European Union. After many many questions from the children, we answered questions about the text in our books. The children showed great interest in learning about this topical subject.
For anti-bullying day, we became superheroes for the day! We did activities during the afternoon linking to what bullying looks like and how we have an impact on other in how we treat them.
In science today, we did an experiment to test if all solids melt when heated. We tested an ice cube, Haribo sweet, a Jelly Baby and a chocolate button. We found that the ice cube melted quickest followed by the chocolate button (which stayed in its shape as it melted). The jelly sweets didn’t melt in the same amount of time but we could see changes beginning to happen as they became stickier and softer.
This afternoon, Class 4 have been creating classification charts as part of our longitudinal study. We had to think carefully about closed questions and the different significant features of the creatures we have seen in the woodland area on the field.
Today (6th November) Class 4 went on their trip to the Basingstoke Discovery Centre library, to support the work we have been doing about the book ‘How To Live Forever’. The children were given a tour, shown how the library works and were set challenges to find different books in the children’s area. We also looked at some of the oldest books in the library before reading our class text. It was a lovely experience!
We have done some beautiful art work during this half term. We have been focussing on dragon eyes to link in with our English writing project about ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ We have also used water colours to look at colour mixing and how to create different tones of colour ready for our next project - Egyptian portraits.
It’s the slime olympics! We have been testing the flow of liquids (the viscosity) We made predictions about which we thought would be the quickest to flow through thei tube. In Class 4 our prediction was water, washing up liquid, custard and then ketchup as the slowest. We we almost correct... the children were definitively surprised by how long it took for the custard to flow through!!
At the start of this year, we received a letter from Miss Charman asking us to monitor the wildlife in the forested area on the field as part of our longitudinal study. We acted straight away and have already been outside twice to find out which creatures there are living outside at the moment. We will be monitoring this throughout the year to observe the changes.
We had a brilliant time when Ufton Court came to visit Year 4. This has linked into our Creative Curriculum topic of Ancient Egypt. We dressed up in costume, played Egyptian games and learnt about the process of how to mummify a body. There was plenty of audience partitcation as everyone took on a role in the procession around the hall!
In maths, we have been looking at related/associated facts for multiplication and division. We have learnt about using the skills of multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100 to help us do this...
Library Visit
Winchester Trip
To kick start our Anglo-Saxon topic Year 4 took a visit to Winchester Cathedral and City Museum. We had a guided tour of the Cathedral where we discovered the burial grounds of possible Anglo-Saxon Kings and Queens. We also learnt how to write our name in Runes and decorated our own Anglo-Saxon brooch. We enjoyed dressing up in traditional Anglo-Saxon clothes and pretended to be archaeologist. Finally we got to handle a real life Anglo-Saxon pot which is believed to be over 1000 years old.
