Welcome to the Year 4 blog!

Each week, we hope to share with you some of the learning that has taken place in our busy Year 4 classrooms. Maybe you could talk about what the children have been doing at school when you are at home with them?

Friday 26th April

English

In English, we have continued our diary writing, immersing ourselves into the story of Woof! Year 4 recorded a day in the life of Eric, which saw him trail the scent of his lost sister, Emily, after she was distracted at the recreation ground on Sports Day. Thankfully, he successfully locates her. Being a dog certainly seems like hard work!

Maths

In maths, we have moved onto exploring angles and have looked at the different types. Ask your child what an acute, obtuse, straight and reflex angle is! We then moved onto exploring the properties of different shapes and understanding what makes a triangle a triangle and the same for quadrilaterals.

Friday 19th April

English

Term 5 already and what a great start we have made! Following a lovely, restful 2-week break, all the children have come back raring and ready to learn. In English, we have started to read 'Woof!' by Allan Ahlberg which tells the story of a boy who turns into a dog! Year 4 have been tasked with writing a diary entry pretending that they are Eric (the boy who turns into a Norfolk terrier) and recounting his first day as a canine.

Maths

In maths, we have spent the week surrounded by money; comparing, converting, estimating and word problems have been the tasks we’ve tackled over the last few days. Confidence soared as the children were so good at identifying the value of the coins and could easily group them to make the different values.

Friday 22nd March

Music

Yesterday saw Year 4 take part in an amazing percussion and rap workshop. They began by learning about Argentinian dance and learnt a little bit about the culture and then learnt some dance moves – ask your child what the lean and lunge are! Following that, they used their bodies as percussion instruments and participated in a group performance which focused on different pitches, using different parts of the body. Moving onto the rap element, the children used their voices to create different elements of a song which they then danced to using the moves they had learnt at the beginning of the workshop and their own freestyling too. A fantastic time was had by all!

Friday 15th March

English

In English, we have begun to look at the impact of plastic on our planet and what we can do with all of our plastic waste. After coming up with some amazing suggestions, the children made a mandala using old plastic carrier bags. This was a fiddly and intricate process which they needed great patience for, but they showed great resilience in creating their designs.

DT

Following a few lessons which taught the children how to weave, Year 4 started the process of creating their own weaves, based on designs that they made last week. They had to remember the process of threading every other string on the loom to create a rhythm of up, down, up, down as this created the plain weave they were aiming for. The children found this a very therapeutic process and did not want the end of the day to come as it would mean pausing their creation!

Friday 8th March

English

After learning about African rags to riches tales, the children got the opportunity to show off their skills by creating their own alternative endings to an African tale. Using devices such as fronted adverbials, direct speech, prepositions and expended noun phrases, they focused on making their writing interesting to engage the reader and allow for a picture to be formed by their words. We look forward to reading their endings over the next few days.

Geography

In geography, we have been learning about rural and urban areas in Africa. The children then worked in pairs to create a model of their chosen environment. Just like a map, these needed to include a key to allow the viewer to interpret the symbols and gain a better understanding of that area.

Friday 1st March

English

What a fantastic start to the term; Year 4 have come back raring and ready to learn, which has been a joy to see. In English, we have begun to explore our new unit which is about rags to riches tales. The children have been looking at the traditional African story of Chinye, which not only is a Cinderella type story, but is also linked to our geography unit of Africa. They will be exploring their own alternative endings next week and all the teachers are excited to read their variations to the tale.

DT

In DT, we have been learning to weave! Starting with examining different fabrics, to see how they are constructed, we have then progressed to exploring different types of weaves and this week, have had a go at a plain weave on a cardboard loom. They cannot wait to design their own weave next week and then begin the careful process of bringing their designs to life.

Friday 2nd February

English

Continuing our persuasive writing journey, this week the children worked together to write a letter to Miss Whichcord trying to persuade her to allow them on a special trip. They remembered to use flattery, include varied sentence openers, and use causal conjunctions to make their letters engaging and effective.

Art

Having learnt about, and been inspired by, Henry Moore over the last few weeks, the children have now created their own sculptures using nature as their inspiration and focus. They considered all different aspects of Moore’s sculptures – smooth lines, simple, abstract representations, missing parts – and included these aspects in their own creations.

Friday 26th January

English

For our next writing focus, the children are going to be developing their persuasive writing skills. Beginning with a letter to Miss Whichcord, they considered their vocabulary choices to ensure that they presented a convincing argument as to why they should be allowed to go to the beach. We will be working on their writing skills over the next week so that the final version is extremely persuasive – too good to resist!

Geography

Geography saw the children exploring the continent of Africa, but this week they were able to develop their map reading skills and use a 4-digit grid reference. Having been given a four-digit reference, the children explored the map to see which countries were located at this point which they thought was great fun.

Friday 19th January

English

What fantastic imaginations the children have! The teachers have been reading the  adventure stories they have written this week. There have been stories based in other countries – namely Brazil; the past – fighting in WW2; and setting sail on an adventure to find buried treasure! All children gave a lot of consideration to vocabulary choice and descriptive language which has made their writing a pleasure to read! Well done Year 4.

Art

In art, we have continued to learn about sculptures and to be inspired by Henry Moore. This week, the children experimented with clay and considered how they can manipulate its form to create a sculpture of any shape, while allowing objects from nature to be their inspiration. We have had some fantastic creations and I’m sure the final versions next week will be incredible.

Friday 12th January

English

Inspired by the adventures of the Midnight Gang, the children have created a space setting for the next adventure. They then used their imaginations to send Sally into space and be the first child to meet an alien! I wonder where their own stories will take the Midnight Gang next week.

Maths

Maths has seen the beginning of fraction exploration; the children have been learning about what a fraction is and then learning how to add and subtract fractions with a common denominator. Imagining the fractions as slices of pizza was very helpful for the children to understand the concept!

Geography

In geography, the children have found out about the continent of Africa. They discovered that it is made up of 54 countries as well as learning the names of the rivers that run through it and the sea and oceans that surround it. This knowledge was showcased in an amazing collaborative map, which the children worked in groups to complete.

Friday 5th January

Following on from a relaxing and enjoyable break, the children were raring and ready to go with their learning!

English

In English, we are basing our learning on the story of The Midnight Gang by David Walliams so enjoyed watching this in our lesson on Wednesday. We then used the detailed setting descriptions to draw the picture created in our minds which will be super helpful for when the children get to create their own story.

Art

In art we are learning about Henry Moore, a well-known sculptor who was born in Yorkshire in 1898. He is known for his organic, rounded sculptures which were inspired by aspects of nature such as tree roots, stones, shells and bones. The children sketched some of his creations as these will inspire them when they get the opportunity to create their own sculptures later in the term.

Friday 8th December

DT

Over the course of this term, we have been reading ‘How to Train your Dragon’, which is set in the Viking era. In the book, the Vikings use the dragons for hunting, which of course is of great benefit to them. However, should the dragon get too enthusiastic or become disobedient, it may need to be trapped! Therefore, we have been designing and making our very own humane dragon traps.

Children spent a day researching and designing to ensure that their trap did all the things they needed it to do – namely: be humane so as not to harm the dragon; be well camouflaged to blend into the surroundings; entice the dragon so that it entered the trap; include a secure trapping device so that the dragon could not escape. The results were outstanding as I’m sure you will all agree when you see them at our ‘Come and See’ next Monday.

Friday 1st December

English

In English, we have been exploring explanation texts and identifying key features. We are going to use these skills to create an explanation of ‘How a dragon trap works’, which we will be making and designing next week – watch this space for some amazing creation photos!

Maths

In maths, we have been enjoying our division journey. Using our times table knowledge, we have learnt about sharing into equal groups. We then progressed to partitioning division and have now started the bus stop method. We can’t wait to have a bit more practice next week so that we become division demons!

Art

As we are now fully fledged Viking Warriors, we designed and made our very own shields in art. We considered the use of design and colour to make them high impact and then set about using card, papier mache and paint to make them strong and durable. These will be coming home at the end of term so that your warrior can continue to train safely!

Friday 24th November

Viking Day

Wow, we have been so lucky this week as we got to be Vikings for a day! The journey began with all the trainee Viking Warriors (aka the children) being gathered in the main hall to participate in a living time line; we journeyed back over 1,000 years to live in the Viking era. One by one, they were suited and booted with their Viking tunic and headpiece.

Ready for their training session, the trainee Warriors were then invited to take part in some amazing activities: weaving, clay pot making, grinding herbs to make natural remedies, grinding grain to make flour, playing knuckle-bones (ask your children who managed to scoop 4 knuckles), artefact examination and a dressing up station to try on Warrior uniforms.

Following our hearty Viking fuelling session (lunch), we then set about creating an amulet out of precious metal. The children used their creative skills to think of a super power they would like to have and then carved that into their amulet using the Viking Runes. Carefully, on the other side, they engraved their name in Viking Runes too.

Finally, with their outfits complete, they completed the final part of their training: scare and defence techniques. Gathered in neat lines, they learnt how to defend their army using their shields.

We completed the day as fully fledged Viking Warriors!

Friday 17th November

English

This week in English, we have been sending our imaginations back in time and to far, distant shores to create a hero vs beast story. After reading the gripping story of Beowulf and learning how he defeated the hideous Grendel, we created the most amazing heroes and heroines to defeat the most deadly and gruesome beast that our imaginations could conjure.   

Maths

Continuing our multiplication journey, we have progressed to using the expanded form of multiplication to allow us to see the connections with the partitioning method. We then moved on to use the compact method – ask your child to model this for you 😊

History

We are now Viking experts! Not only do we know why they invaded Britain and where they invaded from, we also know how they travelled, where they raided and why and where they came to settle in the north of Britain. Hopefully your child has been wowing you all with their newly acquired Viking facts.

Friday 10th November

History

What a fantastic experience we had this week; we were Vikings! Filled with excitement, we made our way to the Grand Hall to partake in a delicious bowl of porridge and honey. So many children were amazed at how delicious it was and commented that they would happily eat a Viking breakfast every day of the week.

Art

Continuing the Viking journey, in art we designed our own Viking shields. We examined different sources to determine what aspects make an effective shield before moving on to our design. We noticed that they generally used just two colours of contrast to make them appear more striking.

Maths

In maths, we have begun our multiplication journey. Using the technique of partitioning, we have multiplied 2-digit numbers by a one-digit number. We used our place value knowledge to successfully partition the numbers to make the multiplication simple to solve.

Friday 3rd November

Despite the weather, Year 4 have had a lovely week. We have all taken it in turns to visit Cliftonville library. We met the librarians who told us all about the different types of books, the library card and how to work the scanning machines. Lots of us chose books to take home to share with an adult.

In English, we have been learning about Remembrance Day. We read and performed a range of war poems including ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Cornel John McCrae. We looked at similes and language used and produced our own poems.

In art, we embellished the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ using pastels.

In maths, we have been  problem solving using formal methods of addition and subtraction. We have learned how to check our answers using estimation and inverse operations.

Friday 20th October

English

This week in English, we have become grammar gurus. We have been perfecting our skills using coordinating conjunctions – ask your child what FANBOYS means; we’ve also secured our understanding of when to use a or an, as well as how we accurately use speech marks to show direct speech.  To develop our writing, we became dictionary detectives and thesaurus using synonym spies!

Maths

In maths, we have started to develop skills to allow us to complete column subtraction. Using the rule ‘More on the floor, go next door. More on top, no need to stop’ the children were able to decide whether they needed to exchange 1 ten for 10 ones, or 1 hundred for 10 tens.

Art

Our final art lesson saw us applying all the skills we have developed over the term to complete our final portrait. Some children chose to use the dividing technique which we perfected last week. This helped to ensure that all features were in the correct place. They were so good that we didn’t even need the names of the sitter which the children had written!

Friday 13th October

English

This week in English, we put all of our practice into action and created instructions for a marvellous medicine! Taking inspiration from George’s Marvellous Medicine, the children thought about what wacky medicine they could create; we had medicines for flying, talking to animals and climbing buildings like Spiderman! They wrote instructions for their medicines, remembering to write in chronological order, use imperative verbs, time adverbials and adverbs to make their steps clear and easy to follow.

Maths

In maths, we continued our addition journey but moved on to 4-digit numbers with exchange. The children we super with their stop and swap rule and knew to exchange 10 ones for 1 ten or 10 tens for 1 hundred. We then applied our understanding with cracking word problems – the children really enjoyed this as it was snack themed!

History/geography

We’ve come to the end of our Anglo-Saxon journey, so the children completed their unit by showing off all the knowledge they have gathered about why Anglo-Saxons invaded, and settled in, Britain. We will be moving on to Vikings next term so watch this space for lots of exciting new learning.

Friday 6th October

English

Gosh, what another exciting week! In English, we followed instructions to make a pirate hat before creating our own instructions. The following day, the teachers tried to follow the children’s instructions to create their own hat – these were less successful! On Wednesday, we then followed a different set of instructions to create an origami elephant, before improving them to be clearer and more precise

Maths

In maths, we have been completing addition calculations using place value counters. We then progressed to completing column addition of 3-digit numbers. We are super confident in completing these calculations and cannot wait to move onto 4-digit numbers!

Art

Continuing the theme of following instructions, we followed a step-by-step guide to create a portrait in art. The guide helped us to achieve the correct proportions of the face and helped with placement of the features. Everyone was so pleased with their drawings and could not believe what fantastic artists they have become!

Friday 29th September

English

In English, we put on our chef’s hats and followed a set of instructions to make a delicious jam or cheese spread sandwich. The children were super at reading and following the instructions and got to enjoy a delicious and well-made sandwich!

Maths

In maths, we have continued our place value journey and have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10 or 100. We know that this is an important skill to have, as if we were to go shopping, we could keep an estimate of the cost in our heads.

History

In history, we put on our detective hats and solved the mystery of the missing person. Using different pieces of evidence, we were able to determine that the burial mound was created for an important person, and the missing person was…Raedwald!

Friday 22nd September

English

This week in English we have been coming to the end of our setting description unit. There has been some amazing writing going on and we are really proud of the first independent piece of work.

Maths

In maths we have been focussing on negative numbers. We have ordered  numbers smallest to biggest and put them in the correct place on a number line.

Art

In art we have continued with the theme of portraits but this week we have been finding out about Lucien Freud. We looked at how he used different colours to create light and shade  in his self portrait; a girl with a kitten; and boy on a sofa.

Friday 15th September

English

Wow, what a fantastic start to Year 4! Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have been practising our descriptive language, ensuring that our writing is the most exciting that it can be. We have used noun phrases, prepositions, verbs and the five senses to help the reader to build a picture in their mind from the words that we write.

Maths

In maths, we have been looking at place value to understand the value of a number. We have been utilising our place value grid and counters to explore what happens to a number when we add or subtract 10, 100 or 1,000.

History and geography

Vikings and Anglo-Saxons – what an exciting topic for Year 4 to delve into! We began our learning journey by travelling back in time to discover where the Anglo-Saxons originated from and why they invaded Britain. We learnt about push and pull factors to understand why people migrate from one country to another.

Friday 30th June

This week in English, the children in Year 4 were planning and writing a newspaper article about the Howard’s Carter discovery of Tutankhamun tomb in the Valley of Kings. We structured the text into paragraphs, used a snappy headline and sub-headings.

In maths, we have been learning about polygons and what makes a 2D shape a regular shape. We also translated patterns with respect to a specific line of symmetry.

The highlight of this week was our daytrip to Walpole Bay beach, where we completed many exciting activities. We constructed fantastic sandcastles, collected some rubbish, and made some wonderful art pictures with pebbles and seashells.

All great fun again

Friday 23rd June

Year 4 have enjoyed finding out about Tutankhamun as part of our history topic and most of us will be using this knowledge to write newspaper reports next week. We are also enjoying listening to Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll and comparing the story with the facts that we know.

We have also started to create our Egyptian masks – the bases have been made and we are starting to apply our first layer of Modroc.

We were really impressed with the effort and resilience shown by our year four children in their sports day this week. Everyone tried really hard and it was great to see children supporting each other and cheering each other on.

Friday 16th June

This week in English, it was ‘Shared writing’ sessions and altogether the children have been planning and writing parts of a newspaper article about Cliftonville Primary Coronation Celebration event. We learnt about snappy headlines and use of alliteration and rhyme.

In maths, we have been recapping previously learnt skills. The children had a chance to consolidate knowledge about rounding up numbers, calculating fractions of an amount, calculating area and  perimeter, multiplying and dividing by 10,100 and 1000.

In the afternoon lessons, the children have been engrossed in learning more about the ancient Egyptians and trying to infer who actually built the pyramids. In our art lesson, we started making Egyptian masks which we will cover with art-roc next week.                     

All great fun!

Friday 9th June

This week in English, the children have been studying the features of newspaper reports as well as following their new class novel, I Was A Rat. They have worked cooperatively in groups, highlighting the different features they have seen in various newspapers. Here are some examples of their work.

In maths, the children have focused on time – telling the time on an analogue clock, converting between 12 hr and 24 hr clocks as well as working out the duration of events. Any practise telling the time you can do at home would be much appreciated!

In the afternoon lessons, the children have been engrossed in learning about the ancient Egyptians and the wonders of that time period. They have learned about a desert biome and have designed a death mask which they will then make using mod roc.

Friday 19th May

This week in English, the children in Year 4 have planned and completed our discussion text about whether animals should be kept in zoos? We confidently included in our writing oppositional and additive conjunctions e.g., however, although, on contrary, moreover, furthermore etc. We set out points ‘for and against’ and then wrote a summary paragraph which concluded that the question still exists and is very controversial. What do you think?

In maths, we have focused on describing positions using coordinates. In this small step, children were introduced to coordinate grids and began to describe the positions of points on a grid. They know now that the x-axis is horizontal and the y-axis is vertical and it is important to always read from the x-axis first. During lessons, the children practised how to describe the positions of points using coordinates. We repeated with a range of different coordinates, including where one of the numbers is zero. At the end of this week, the children could find the coordinates of the vertices of shapes.

In the afternoon science lessons, we have looked closely at our plants (after 5 weeks of conducting our fair test) and wrote down a final conclusion. On the last lesson of this term, we answered consolidation questions about macro and micro habitats, food chains and adaptation.

In DT, the children finally completed mechanical pictures which look absolutely fantastic. There are a few examples for you to see.

So, it was another marvellous week at school.

Friday 12th May

In English, Year 4 have started to look at discussion texts. We have practised creating a balanced argument thinking about whether school uniform should be banned. There were some very valid reasons both for and against this suggestion. We then wrote an opening paragraph for our own choice of discussion.

In maths, we have focused on converting units of measurement and considering whether our estimates are reasonable. We also recapped ordering temperatures including negative numbers below zero degrees Celsius.

In the afternoons, we have continued to develop our understanding of habitats in science. We have looked at food chains being the main reason for why animals live in their specific habitat. Many of us have created the habitat background for our DT project, ready for the moving part of our design.

Friday 5th May

In English, Year 4 planned and wrote their entertaining diary extracts, pretending to be Eric the dog from the children’s story book “Woof”. They went on a day trip to London where they got up to lots of mischief, such as chasing the ducks in Hyde Park and stealing the corgis’ food on a tour of Buckingham Palace!

Take a look at these fabulous extracts!

In maths, we have focused on statistics, in particular bar graphs, line graphs and pictograms. The children have successfully interpreted data as well as answered a range of difference and sum based questions.

In the afternoons, we have researched and read different pop-up books and various other 3-D books. In addition to this, children have created a simple lever mechanism that moves their hand across a page. By the end of the term, Year 4 will have created their own moving mechanism that will be linked to a type of habitat - for instance, moving a snake up a tree in a jungle habitat.

Friday 21st April

In English Year 4 have started this term by analysing diary entries. We have been exploring the story ‘Woof’ and thinking about how Eric would have felt when he turned into a dog.

In maths we have been focusing on money including converting pounds into pence. We have looked at solving word problems including addition and subtraction of amounts and finding change.

In the afternoons we have started our science work investigating whether all plants have the same requirements. We have created an experiment to see whether a flowering plant, herb and succulent all need the same amount of water. We will look at the results later in the term to see whether all of our plants are thriving.

Friday 24th March

In English this week in Year 4, the children have been researching plastic. We made posters to show the positive aspects of plastic and then went on to investigate how plastic is affecting the environment.

In maths we have been continuing to look at decimals. We have reinforced place value of the numbers and partitioned tenth and hundreds.

In our Africa work this week we have been comparing rural and urban settlements. We looked at human features that appear on maps and created our own 3D map with a key.

Friday 17th March

We have continued with some multi-cultural learning this week.  In English we have been looking at information texts.  Did you know:  You can tell crocodiles and alligators apart by their teeth.  When an alligator shuts it’s mouth you can’t see any teeth in its bottom jaw.  When a crocodile closes its mouth, you can see the fourth tooth on each side of its bottom jaw. 

We followed instructions to make mandalas in English – ask us what they are and how we made them if you don’t know!

We also read One Plastic Bag based on the inspirational woman Isatou Cessay.

Maths saw us beginning to practice estimations and we also started making a whole number from any number of tenths and hundredths.

Topic work saw us comparing urban and rural settlements.

Friday 10th March

This week, the year 4 children have continued with their topic of Africa. We read the story of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters and discussed how we could change the ending of the story. We planned, drafted and wrote then edited our own story with amazing results. The year 4’s creative writing has being going from strength to strength using paragraphs, fronted adverbials, expanded noun phrases and accurate punctuation with speech marks and exclamation marks.

In maths, we have been looking at decimals and learning how to divide a decimal number by 100. We are making great progress with our times tables and lots of us are making our 3 progressions and more in Maths Whizz.

We have had great fun this week in geography, finding out all about the climate and weather patterns in different parts of Africa. We wrote a weather report in groups, then recorded and performed them to our class.

Friday 3rd March 2023

In English in Year 4, we have been continuing working on the Chinye story set in Africa but this week we focused on the language features. We developed understanding and importance of prepositions in setting descriptions and we used varied sentence starters. The children wrote many fantastic sentences started with a fronted adverbial.

In maths, we linked fractions to decimal numbers and learned about decimal numbers on a number line. The children were converting decimal numbers into fractions and vice versa. We are continuing to practise our times tables and individual learning on Maths Whizz.

In DT we started an exciting project about woven materials and how to construct a fabric on a simple loom. The children had a chance to investigate different types of fabrics and learned lots of new vocabulary for example: warp, weft and interlacing.

Friday 24th February 2023

In English, year 4 have been exploring a rags-to-riches story with an African setting. We compared Cinderella and Chinye before making some puppets to retell the new story focusing on the ending.

We worked together to create large maps of Africa which will help us to locate all of the countries in this enormous continent. We had fun researching some famous landmarks such as the Sahara Desert and Mount Kenya in order to add them to our maps. 

In maths, we have expanded our learning about fractions and started to look at decimal numbers (tenths). We are continuing to practise our times tables and individual learning on Maths Whizz.

Thursday 9th February 2023

Friday 3rd February 2023

In English, year 4 have written an adventure story in the style of David Walliams’ Midnight Gang. The children focused on using fronted adverbials to open their sentences in interesting ways, as well using expanded noun phrases to describe settings in detail.  Here’s a few examples of their fabulous writing!

In art, the children have made their clay sculptures, as inspired by Henry Moore, and will be painting them next week. Here’s a sneak peak of what they’ve done so far!

In maths, we have been recognising equivalent fractions as well as identifying fractions greater than 1 whole.

In French, the children have learned to say where they live and what rooms they have in their house.

Week ending 27/01/23

In English, year 4 have been creating a space adventure in our groups using inspiration from the Midnight Gang by David Walliams which we have been reading. We designed the setting and then did a share write of the story together.

In maths, we have been adding and subtracting fractions and finding fractions of amounts.

In art, we have been researching Henry Moore. We investigated using different techniques for manipulating clay.