Year 4 2018 - 2019

Mrs Hancock

Mrs Halewood

Mrs Amner

The summer term is an exciting and busy term…

Our recent residential was a fantastic way to start and the children were a credit to themselves and school. Learning outside the classroom within a residential is so valuable in developing independence, co-operative and communication skills and team building. It also gave us the perfect opportunity to initiate and develop our knowledge of mini-beasts and pond creatures which ties in with our scientific learning on Living Creatures and their Habitats. Much fun was had around the campfire, eating marshmallows and maximising the class’s choral skills - we are sure they will teach you a new song or two if they haven’t already!

with a variety of planned for Year 4. We will be visiting Bridgewater Hall to play our instruments with the Halle Orchestra in June which is a wonderful and inspiring opportunity that the children will love. To continue the creative theme, we will also begin to prepare and rehearse for the Key Stage Two production of ‘Sherlock and Cinders’.

The children have continued to make good progress with their learning in Year Four. We are constantly being impressed with their general knowledge related particularly to history and they are continuing to demonstrate their eagerness to learn more in our follow-on topic of the Viking invasion of Britain. We will also be developing their geography skills through understanding the watercycle and comparing countries.

Use of a pen and handwriting practice has contributed to the development and improvement of the children’s presentation. We will continue to place emphasis on the importance of presentation and pride in their work throughout the rest of the term.

Kind regards,

Mrs Hancock

Curriculum Overview

English

We will develop our skills through cross-curricular work. Specific genres that we will be investigating are:

Information Texts

Poetry

Extended Writing focussing on sentence structure and paragraphs around a theme.

In spelling, we will continue to look at the lower junior word lists (3/4) from the National Curriculum. We will also revisit prefixes and suffixes. Our grammar work will include; Standard English for verb inflections, e.g. ’We were’ instead of’ We was’; appropriate choice of nouns and pronouns to avoid ambiguity and repetition. We will continue to become more familiar with, and confident in, using language in a greater variety of situations, including through drama, formal presentations and debate.

Maths

Whilst continuing to practise times tables up to 12 x 12 and their division facts, the areas of focus this term are as follows:

Patterns and sequences including negative numbers and decimals

Fractions and how they relate to division and decimals

Measuring volume, capacity and mass

Written multiplication and division

Addition and subtraction including decimals

Interpreting data

Using co-ordinates to identify the translation of shapes

Science

We are investigating: ‘Living Things & their Habitats’ and ‘Animals including Humans’

Computing

We will be focusing on computer networking, including the use of web browsers and search engines safely and effectively, and designing educational games.

History

We will be finding out about the fearsome Viking raiders, including the design of their long-ships and famous leaders and explorers. We will research Viking farm settlements and learn about how, what and where they traded as well as learn about their beliefs, the god and goddesses, the Viking creation myth, the Norse nine worlds and Tree of Life.

Geography

We will be learning to use 8 points of a compass to locate and describe locations as well as read symbols and keys on OS maps.

RE

In RE, we will continue to explore Sikhism and Islamic belief.

FRENCH

We will start the summer term by revisiting and extending our knowledge of clothing vocabulary. We will continue to construct our own sentences in French and learn some new sentence starters. We will also extend our language skills by using bilingual dictionaries to practise word classes. During the term, we will produce some cross-curricular work on ‘The Vikings’. As always, the children will listen to and learn some traditional songs and play games to consolidate new vocabulary.