Welcome to Year 4! We are sure that our Year 4 children will settle into school life quickly and continue to work hard to produce more independent and detailed work. We will be giving the children more responsibility in school and we will expect a greater amount of personal organisation to help them to develop as individuals.

Religious Education

 In R.E. we will be using the R.E. scheme called 'The Way, the Truth and the Life'. The two topics we will be focusing on this term are 'The Bible' and 'Trust in God'. In these topics we will learn that the Bible is one story told through many different books and that in the Bible, God tells us about himself and His relationship with His people. We will also explore how different people in the Bible had to put their trust in God and we will look at when we need to put our own trust in God. We incorporate prayer into our daily school life and will be celebrating Advent and Christmas with appropriate liturgies and drama. 

In Year 4, the children also lead the school's Harvest Service. We will prepare and learn about the importance of Harvest and share this with our school and local community in Church.

RHE

In R.H.E this term we will using 'Ten:Ten Life to the Full Resources' to guide us in our learning. We will focus on the topic of: Created and Loved by God.

'Created and Loved by God explores the individual. Rooted in the teaching that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it helps children to develop an understanding of the importance of valuing themselves as the basis for personal relationships' - Ten:Ten Module Overview.

English

In the first half term our theme will be the Loch Ness Monster. We will be exploring whether the Loch Ness Monster is real or fake, creating an article to present our research. We will also focus on adventure stories using 'The Treasure of the Loch Ness Monster' by Lari Don and also 'The Family Ness' cartoon as our basis for creating our own adventure story.

In the second half of this term, we will first look at writing our own fairytales. We will look at the different features fairytales use identifying similarities in themes and structure. To support our learning we will use the fairytale 'The Pied Piper'. They will also recount events through newspaper articles and write acrostic poems based on the theme of winter. 

Throughout our English lessons we will immerse the children in different styles of writing using children's fiction and non-fiction texts as sources for our writing. We will be concentrating on punctuation: full stops, capital letters, commas, question marks, exclamation marks, apostrophes and inverted commas. We will be linking spelling and handwriting activities to develop a good cursive handwriting style.  

In addition, in the first half term our whole class guided reading text will be 'The Water Horse' by Dick King-Smith and in the second half term it will be 'The Butterfly Lion' by Michael Morpurgo. We will base our comprehension work around this text.

Spellings will be sent home on Fridays and tested the following Friday. 

Mathematics

In Maths our number work, both mental and written, will focus on place value, addition and subtraction, perimeter and multiplication and division. 

We will continue our focus within school of our 1-12 times tables in preparation for the times table check in the Summer Term.

Science

During the first half term in Science we will look at the topic of 'Electricity'. Pupils will learn the names of devices used in simple circuits and test materials to find out which are conductors and insulators. The children will be using diagrams and drawings to label and explain these circuits.

In the second half term, our topic will be 'States of Matter'. The children will learn what solids, liquids and gases are and how they can change state when they are heated or cooled. The children will also look at evaporation and condensation and how they contribute to the water cycle. 

Throughout science we will be conducting experiments to support our learning, whilst also understanding how to write up our findings.

Geography and History

In the first half term, we will be doing Geography. Our topic will be 'Land Use'. We will look at what settlements are and what are the needs of settlers. We will also look at the natural resources that we have on the earth and the pros and cons of natural resources.

In the second half term, we will be learning about the Great Plague in History. We will look at where the Great Plague came in British history and how it affected the country. As part of our learning, we will look at what the Great Plague was, the causes, what the consequences were and what people tried to do to save themselves. We will study Eyam where they had to make great sacrifices to save others in the country. We will use sources of evidence, books and our own research to support our learning. 

Art and DT

In the first half term our focus will be on 3D Models in D.T. The children will be asked to create a 3D model based on the Blackpool Illuminations. They will be drawing sketches and labelling their diagrams. They will be using their knowledge learnt in science to incorporate an electrical system to their product and use vocabulary related to the electricity topic.

In the second half of this term our theme will be the 'Art of Food'. We will be looking at collage and will create our own fruit portraits in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

P.E. and Games

Our P.E. units for the first half term will be gymnastics and net and wall games, focusing on using a racquet where we will hope to get outside as much as possible. During net and wall games, the children will work on their concentration, determination, coordination and ball skills. In gymnastics we will be focusing on different ways of travelling, balancing and creating their own sequence of moves.

In the second half term, Kathryn from Phyllis Davies School of Dance will work with the children to create their own group dance routine based on The Great Plague. The children will also be learning skills around invasion games focusing on rugby.

Music

In music, we will be focusing our attention on learning how to play the glockenspiel through the use of Charanga. We will also be focusing on our knowledge of musical theory e.g. looking at the different types of notes and their length, pulse, pitch etc.

Computing

In our computing session this half term the children will complete a KIDSAFE Unit with Mrs. Ronson. This will cover lots of elements such as peer pressure, yukky feelings and how to stay safe online.

I look forward to your continued support in this very busy term.               

Miss Parkinson