Welcome to Year 4!

2023-24

In Year 4, our teachers are Miss Chisnall, Miss Scott, Mrs Becousse and Miss Quick We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistant (LSA): Mrs Parkin. 

If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. You can speak to your child’s class teacher by phoning the school and requesting an appointment if they are not around at pick-up.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Curriculum Newsletters

• Year 4 Curriculum Newsletter - Summer 2024
• Year 4 Curriculum Newsletter - Spring 2024
• Year 4 Curriculum Newsletter - Autumn 2023

Updated - Friday 5th July 2024

In English this week, we have started our new writing unit, where we will write a setting description of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. We read a passage from Harry Potter looking at the Great Hall and discussed the vocabulary used to describe different items in the hall. We then discussed figurative language as part of our descriptions and worked in groups to develop relevant similes, metaphors and alliteration. 

In science, we made our nightlights! We used our designs and various materials to create our nightlights, lit by either a micro:bit or a series circuit with a lightbulb. Here are a few of our creations!

In maths, we have been learning about shapes. To help deepen our understanding of symmetry, we investigated how many lines of symmetry a square has by folding square pieces of paper. We noticed that we could fold the paper exactly 4 times, proving that a square has 4 lines of symmetry. This also helped prove that for regular polygons, the number of lines of symmetry is equal to the number of sides.

Updated - Friday 28th June 2024

In art, we continued exploring geometric motifs, focusing on the significance of stars in Islamic art. We used stencils to trace star designs onto patterned paper and arranged them into patterns. 

This week, in computing, we filmed our own weather forecasts. We worked in groups, taking on the different roles of presenter, camera operator, and script supervisor. We used iPads and considered the lighting and camera positioning to ensure our videos were effective. 

In science, we explored nightlights. We investigated the switches, colours, and designs of the different nightlights and noted our findings as a class. Then, we designed our own nightlights, which we will use in the next lesson space for our final products!

Update - Friday 21st June 2024

In English this week, we continued our Harry Potter unit and worked as reporters to gather evidence about a mystery event. We read the information and quotes and pieced together what had happened. We reported on the event in a newspaper style, ensuring we applied the key writing features we had been learning about.

In music, we composed motifs inspired by Roman mosaics. We recorded our compositions using notation, representing each note as a coloured tile. Then, we explored various ways to change our motifs, including transposing to a new key, changing the rhythm, and reversing the pitch. We practised in pairs and then performed in front of the class.

In computing, we have been writing our weather forecasts. We researched the weather in different UK cities and used the data we found to write scripts. In the next lesson, we will film and edit our forecasts.

Updated - Friday 14th June 2024

In history, we recapped our understanding of hierarchies and how ancient civilisations were structured. We learnt about the hierarchy of ancient Egypt and then compared this to our previous learning about Ancient Sumer.

We have continued our Islamic art unit in art, focusing on geometric patterns. We looked at some examples and discussed the shapes we could see. Inspired by these examples, we then used compasses to make our own geometric patterns. We added colour, making sure our patterns were symmetrical.

Update - Friday 7th June 2024

With many Harry Potter fans in Year 4, we were very excited to start our new unit reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. We began by receiving a very exciting post—a letter inviting each of us to Hogwarts! We were then invited to a sorting ceremony, where we were put into a house: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff. This will help inspire our writing in future lessons.

In science, we have continued learning about electricity. We investigated lightbulbs, firstly by asking a range of scientific questions about them, such as' How do lightbulbs work?’ and ‘What is inside a lightbulb?’ We then observed the bulb before gathering additional information from videos and fact files to help answer our questions. We learnt about what each part of a lightbulb is called and how it works. Finally, we used all our new knowledge to write a report about lightbulbs.

In computing, we began our new unit of learning about weather, focusing on data handling. We researched weather on different continents across the globe and recorded our findings in a spreadsheet. We noticed that spreadsheets are useful not only for recording information but also for comparing data.

Update - Friday 17th May 2024

PSHE

In PSHE, we used drama to help us act out different scenarios and think about how we would act when faced with different friendship issues. We also thought about how friendships change and the causes of this. We used a traffic light system to discuss how to resolve friendship problems.

Computing

In computing, we have been learning about computational thinking. We have been applying the skills we learnt from unplugged computing activities to our scratch games.

Art

In art, we have been continuing our statues, statuettes, and figurines unit. We used our history knowledge to examine a range of statues from Ancient Sumer, Ancient Egypt, and the Indus Valley. We then sketched these.

Update - Friday 10th May 2024

English

This week in English, we began our new unit of work on the book Varjak Paw. We have already been reading this text in our reading lessons throughout this half-term and are excited to use it for our writing. We started by looking deeper into the characters. We played a game to match the characters with the way that they speak, their appearance, behaviour, and movement. We then watched videos of cats moving and generated a range of powerful verbs to describe these specific movements.

Music

In music, we have been learning about Samba, a genre of music originating from Brazil. We learnt that samba rhythms are normally syncopated, which means they are played off-beat. We practised clapping a range of syncopated samba rhythms before trying to play some using percussion instruments. We split into groups to practise our rhythms before putting them together and performing as a class.

Update - Friday 3rd May 2024

English

As part of English this week, we completed the outcome for our previous writing unit by sharing our water cycle narratives with year 5. We voted and chose Year 5 as our audience, so we were pleased to share our hard work with them!

Art

In Art, we learnt about Bankura horses, a traditional art form originating from West Bengal. We used our clay skills to sculpt our own. Each part of our horses had to be made separately before being carefully attached by scoring the clay and using a slip. Once they had dried, we painted them. We mixed a traditional terracotta colour and then added other details to finish our designs.

Update - Friday 26th April 2024

Science

In science, we have continued learning about circuits. We learnt what makes a complete circuit and explored this by making our circuits and discussing our observations. We noticed that when the wires weren’t connected, components such as bulbs, buzzers, and motors wouldn’t work. 

PSHE

In PSHE, we discussed different times when we may experience loss. We worked in groups to decide all the emotions someone in that situation may feel. We came up with some ideas about how to help ourselves cope with this change.

Swimming

In year 4, we have been enjoying our weekly swimming lessons. We have been practising our strokes and gaining more confidence in the water, including jumping into the pool. For those who can’t yet swim confidently, this took lots of courage and resilience. Our teachers are amazed at how much progress we have all made after just 2 lessons and can’t wait to watch our confidence grow throughout the term!

Update - Friday 19th April 2024

Art

In art, we have been practising our clay skills. We recapped our prior knowledge from previous art units and then experimented with clay, using the skills of rolling a ball/cylinder, scoring, joining, making slips, and attaching with pins. We will use these skills later in the unit to create something exciting—look out for more photos coming soon!

Science

This week, we began our new unit of work in electricity. We learnt about household items that use electricity and sorted these into those that use batteries and those that use mains electricity. We then made our circuits using various equipment, observing what happened as we changed the bulbs, motors and buzzers.

History

In history, we started our ‘Ancient Civilisations’ unit. We thought about what makes a civilisation: leadership, hierarchy, nutrition and trade. We then became archaeologists and explored a range of artefacts from the ancient civilisations of Ancient Sumer and Ancient Egypt. We examined the information and concluded what this evidence tells us about the people's lives there.

Update - Thursday 27th March 2024

English

In English, we have been building up to writing our final piece. We have recapped our use of fronted adverbials and conjunctions. To help us, we went vocabulary shopping around the room to collect good ideas for our final piece.

Art

In art, we have been working on our sketching skills. We watched an art masterclass and used the skills to have a go ourselves. We had to trace circles and then sketch the shapes to make the body. Here is some of our work:

Update - Friday 22nd March 2024

DT

This week, we finished our innovate challenge inspired by William Morris. We used the fabric we printed onto last week and used our sewing skills to add on a hem. Then, we added embellishments by adding some embroidery, including scatter stitch, back stitch and satin stitch. Here are some of our wonderful creations!

English

As part of English this week, we shared our mudlarking stories with children from across Year 4. This was our audience for this piece of work and we loved sharing our hard work with people from other classes. We gave each other positive feedback and ideas for how they could improve their writing for next time. We will use this feedback when we write our final piece next week.

Update - Friday 15th March 2024

English

In English, we started our new unit of work by reading a new text with a mystery narrator! We had to listen out for clues in the text about who might be speaking and the narrative's theme. We discovered that the text is the story of the water cycle, told from the point of view of a raindrop, our mystery narrator. Next, we discussed what features in the text show us this theme and worked in groups to find and annotate these features.

Computing

In computing, we used our HTML coding skills to hack websites! We used the existing HTML of live websites and changed the text within the tags to edit the text that appears on the website. We discovered this doesn’t change the original website; it's just what the user can see. See if you can spot what we changed!

DT

In DT, we started our innovative project, inspired by William Morris's work. Firstly, we planned our designs and considered the motifs, colours, and patterns we would like to use. We then applied our previous learning about block printing to help us print our designs onto fabric. In our next lesson, we will add embroidery and sew a hem.

Update - Friday 8th March 2024

Science

In science this week, we recapped our previous learning about classification to consider how animals are classified into vertebrates and invertebrates. We learnt that the animals within the animal kingdom can then be classified into mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and amphibians. We then tried classifying a variety of animals into these groups.

English

In English this week, we had a mystery item to explore! We predicted what it could be before examining it closely. We investigated what the item could do, how old it might be and the colours and materials we could see. We then discussed impressive adjectives we could use to describe it and made word banks of this vocabulary as a class. This learning will help us write fantastic descriptions as part of our final pieces.

Update - Friday 1st March 2024

Science     

In science, we created our classification key in pairs made from sweets! We understand that classification keys are created by asking a set of yes or no questions that separate a group into two groups until objects end up on their own.

DT

In DT, we continued learning about William Morris. We learned what a seam and hem are and how they are made. We were then given a piece of fabric and had a go at sewing our own hems!

We then recapped what embroidery means: adding detail to a fabric to give a decorative finish using different stitches and colourful thread. We learnt how to do different stitches, including scatter stitch, satin stitch, and back stitch.

Update- Friday 23rd February 2024

English

In English this week, we started our new unit of work based on the text The Thames and Tide Club. We read Chapter 1, which ends with the main character Clem leaving to go mudlarking at the bank of the River Thames. We gathered our initial ideas about what mudlarking could be before having a go ourselves! We dug around in the sand and searched for treasures.

DT

This week, we recapped the use of motifs in William Morris’ work. We noticed that he had used traditional block printing techniques and made our Morris-inspired wallpaper sample.

We experimented by finding out how much ink we needed on our wooden blocks and how hard we had to press to make an imprint. Then, we had a go at creating a pattern using different colours.

Science

In science, we have started our new topic, grouping and classification. To help us learn how and why scientists group and classify things, we played the game ‘Guess Who’ which uses multi-stage classification to help identify a specific person. We discussed that classification uses the same skills: observation and asking and answering questions.

Update - Friday 9th February 2024

English

This week, we wrote our final pieces. These were non-chronological reports about creatures we had designed. We had to create a creature that could meet the main character of our class text, Peanut Jones and we chose the creature’s appearance, character and habitat. Our teachers were so impressed with how hard we had worked and the final results were amazing! We will be sending some to the author of Peanut Jones, Rob Biddulph, and we are sure he will be as impressed as our teachers!

Geography

In geography, we investigated the water cycle by setting up an experiment in our classrooms. We started our experiment by setting up and discussing all of the components and how they represented aspects of the water cycle. We filled a bowl with water and placed an empty glass inside. We were supposed to leave it on the windowsill in direct sunlight, but it was a very cloudy and dark day, so instead we placed our bowls on the radiator. After a couple of days, we noticed that the glass had water inside and we realised that this was because the water had heated up, evaporated and then condensed. This helped us to understand the processes that occur in the water cycle.

Update - Friday 26th January 2024

Science

In science, we have been continuing our topic of states of matter. We learnt that solids can change their state into liquids by melting. We proved this by investigating how chocolate melts in our hands. This happened because heat was applied to the solid, causing it to melt.

We then investigated how water changes state. We observed an ice cube throughout the day, taking its temperature every 15 minutes. We found that the temperature increased throughout the day, which caused the ice to melt and change from solid to liquid.

Geography

We have continued our topic on ‘misty mountains, winding rivers’ in geography. We have learnt about the types of mountains and how they are formed. We matched key definitions with diagrams of mountain formations to help our understanding. We then researched three mountains of the UK- Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell Pike- looking for key information such as their height, climate and location.

Music

This half term, our music has been linked to our unit in geography. We used our voice instruments to represent the 3 courses of a river. We composed our ostinatos (short repeating patterns) and put these together to create a class river composition.

PSHE

In our PSHE unit, dreams and goals, we have learned about the skills needed to achieve our goals. We considered what we wanted and the steps needed to reach these goals. We then learned that sometimes it is difficult to achieve our dreams, but with determination and resilience, we can work through problems. We then completed a team challenge, where we competed to create the funniest potato person. We created our own potato people as a group and learnt how we can take little steps to achieve our dreams. Our dreams can be reached in groups when we work together. See some of our brilliant creations below!

Update - Friday 12th January 2024

Science

In science, we have been learning about states of matter. We learned about the properties of solids, liquids, and gases and grouped everyday objects into these categories to test our knowledge. We then learned about particle theory, comparing how particles are arranged in solids, liquids, and gases. We represented this arrangement on the playground to help us compare and discover that these differences are why states of matter have different properties.

English

This week in English, we have continued our unit of work around our class text, Peanut Jones. To help with our apprentice piece next week, we have been developing our understanding of Peanut’s viewpoint to write in Peanut's style. We have read sections of the text and thought about how Peanut would react to different situations and what language she might use. We also recapped how to use fronted adverbials to add extra information about an event's time, place and cause. We can’t wait to show off our learning and hard work when we write our apprentice pieces!

Geography

This week, we have continued our topic, Misty Mountain Winding River. We learned about erosion, transportation, and deposition processes and how these change the landscape. We also recapped our knowledge of 6 figure grid references by completing a case study about the River Trent. We then used grid references to identify where physical and human features are located along the three courses of the river.

Update - Friday 6th January 2024

English

This week in English, we began our new learning based on the text Peanut Jones and the Illustrated City. We read the section of the text where Peanut enters through a mystery door and we predicted where this door may lead to. We then went around the school and looked at 3 mystery doors and predicted what may be behind them. After this, we learned about the features of a diary entry by reading some examples. We worked in groups to identify the features to help us understand how these can be included in texts.

Geography

In geography, we started our new unit of learning ‘Misty mountain winding rivers’. We began this topic by developing our knowledge of rivers and learning some key vocabulary we could apply throughout the unit. We then completed a river study of the River Thames, using our prior knowledge of the three courses of a river. We compared how the river changes at each course by following the river’s journey from source to mouth. We then drew a diagram of a river and labelled it with the key vocabulary we learned throughout the week.

Update - Friday 8th December 2023

English

We have been learning about performance poetry and the features of an effective performance. These included how to enunciate, use our tone of voice to reflect mood, and use actions and facial expressions to bring a poem to life. We read a range of Christmas poems and discussed how these could be performed in a way that would engage the audience. We then started practising our poem, ready for carols on the playground.      

History

This week, we learned about the Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. We listened to an interesting podcast, and on whiteboards, we wrote down the causes and effects of both the invasion and battle. We discussed and learnt about the changes in Britain that the Normans caused and discussed the effects of these changes on the people of Britain.

Science

This week, we continued our learning about sound. We used instruments to investigate volume and pitch by playing instruments in different locations in the classroom and using a decibel meter to see if the volume of sound changes the further away the sound is. We discovered that the further distance away the sound source is, the quieter the sound will be, and the decibel level will be reduced.

Update - Friday 1st December 2023

Computing

In computing, we have been learning how to code using scratch. We learnt about variables and how they can affect the code. We then worked in pairs to create our own times tables games for other pairs to play.

Maths

We have been learning and practising our 3, 6, 9 and 7 times tables in maths. We investigated the relationship between the 3, 6 and 9s and how this can help us to learn them efficiently. We then practised our 7s in a variety of ways, including loop cards and times tables games.

Update - Friday 24th November 2023

English

In English, we have continued reading our class text Loki. We learned about persuasive features and then included these in our own letters, written to persuade Loki, the main character of the text, to come to Earth.

Science

In science, we have continued our unit on sound and have learned how sounds are produced and how they travel. We investigated how sounds are made by exploring a range of instruments and observed how sounds are made and how the pitch and volume of a sound can be changed. We then did our own research into how humans and animals hear and turned our findings into a quiz to test another class’s knowledge.

Update - Friday 10th November 2023

Science

In science, we started a new unit of work all about sound. To begin our new learning, we explored what we already know about sound and recorded this on a mind map. We then learnt more about how sounds are made and how they travel and added this to our mind map.

DT

This week in DT, we used the evaluations from last week’s fruit kebabs to make them again by improving our original designs. Before making them, we planned carefully what ingredients and equipment we would need. We then continued to develop our chopping and slicing skills by applying these to a wider range of fruit. We were pleased with the delicious outcome!

Art

In art, we continued our warp and weft topic by having a go at weaving. Although many of us found this challenging, we showed determination and resilience. These will be finished next week, and we can’t wait to show off the final results!

Update- Friday 3rd November 2023

DT

This week in DT, we have continued with our ‘fresh food good food’ unit. We practised our chopping and slicing skills and produced some delicious fruit kebabs!

English

This week, we started our new unit of work focussing on 'Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good' by Louie Stowell. We read the first chapter and came up with adjectives to describe the character of Loki. Some of our best ones were devious, sly, cunning and amusing. We then applied our learning by writing a diary entry from Loki’s perspective.

Update - Friday 20th October 2023

Wow! We cannot believe we have reached the end of the first half term. It is crazy how fast time flies; we are so proud of everything we have achieved in year 4 over the last seven weeks. This week, we completed a science experiment based on healthy teeth. We were testing the effectiveness of fluoride in toothpaste on protecting our teeth. We did this by covering egg shells in different toothpastes that contained different amounts of fluoride because egg shells have a similar structure to tooth enamel. We then left the egg shells in vinegar to see which would withstand the acidity the best.

This last week of half term has also been particularly special as we have celebrated our wear red to Stand Up to racism day. We completed various activities this week, including art and drama, to help us understand what it is like to be discriminated against. We also try to understand what it is about us as humans that causes us to become prejudiced and biased about people. We used Floella Benjamin’s experience in her autobiography ‘Coming to England’ to explore these ideas in further detail. We were shocked by how different people, including her teachers, treated Floella. We tried to express our thoughts, feelings and responses in freeze frames.

As part of our Black History Month learning, we also wanted to celebrate the diversity of our local community and the contribution that black people have made to our freedoms, culture and society. We did this by making a Gee’s Bend quilt. First, we learnt all about the artist before having a go at creating our art pieces in that style. Here are some examples below.  They will be displayed outside our classrooms over the next half term - along with our class pledges to help tackle racism and prejudice as a school community – please come and look!

Update - Friday 13th October 2023

In Year 4 this week, we have completed our first RE unit. Here is a bit about what we have been learning and some examples of our work. In the first session of RE, the children explored what the concept of ‘neighbour’ means to them by coming up with words to explain what it means.  We then looked at the parable of The Good Samaritan, thinking about what Jesus was trying to teach his followers about being a good neighbour.  We have also looked at activities local churches run that help people in the community and linked this back to previous learning why being a good 'neighbour is important to Christians.

On Friday, we also got to go to Year 2 and share our final pieces with them. We worked in pairs or threes with the children from Year 2, reading our fables to them and teaching them the morals embedded within the story. We enjoyed this opportunity and hope the Year 2s did as well.

In D&T, we have continued our unit about ‘fresh food’. We have been looking at different types of food packaging from the present day and throughout history. We also looked at future food packaging because we have to make sure it is sustainable and good for the planet. We then completed a table looking at the different types of food packaging so we could compare them.

Update - Friday 4th October 2023

In Year 4 this week, we have had some exciting visitors enter our outdoor learning sessions. Kala the Arts group, has come into school to teach us some very special Diwali dances in preparation for a parade that is being held in town on the evening of the 3^rd November. We were all very excited to learn something new. Here are some pictures of our first workshop. We will have two more sessions to practice before November to fully prepare for the parade.

We also started a new topic in English, this unit marks the start of Black History Month at Oakridge, where we will be learning about lots of significant individuals and the impact they have had on our society. We will look at the trials and challenges they faced and how they are often missing from history due to them not being seen as equals to white members of society. The significant individual that we are learning about is Katherine Johnson. We read a story about her life and used this to create a story map of the key events. Did you know she was a very clever American Mathematician who figured out the paths for space crafts to orbit Earth and land on the Moon? NASA used her maths and it worked!

In Computing, we have been working on internet safety, particularly looking at how to check a website’s information is reliable and accurate. Already, we have looked at pop-ups, advertisements, in-app purchases and the differences between facts, opinions and beliefs. This week, we looked at bots. We discussed what they did and where we might encounter them. We also looked at the pros and cons of having bots in our life. After this, we created our own bots, describing what we would use them for and their pros and cons. Here are some examples of our bots.

Update - Friday 29th September 2023

In Year 4 this week, we continued our science unit on food and the digestive system. This week's lesson was to look at the different organs in our body that comprise the digestive system and understand how they work. We then completed an activity where we matched the organs to their function. This was trickier than we thought, but it was also a lot of fun.

This week was also very exciting as we started our new DT unit, ' Fresh Food, Good Food’. We looked at what causes food to decay and how we can keep it fresher longer. This included drying, salting, pickling, canning, refrigerating, freezing, pasteurising and packaging. We all found it interesting, but looking at pictures of mouldy food was a bit gross.

Update - Friday 22nd September 2023

In Year 4 this week, we have continued to make progress on our invasion unit in history. We have been focussing specifically on sequencing significant historical events using timelines. First, we completed a matching activity to look at who invaded Britain and when. We discussed the key terms ‘duration’ and ‘overlap’ to decide how long different groups settled in Britain for and if any of these times overlapped. The next day we made a human timeline where we discussed all the events and practised putting them in chronological order. We then came up with an action for each event to help us remember what happened during each significant event.

In reading, we have been continuing with our class text The Nothing to See Here Hotel. We have really enjoyed reading the chapters about Prince Grogbah’s arrival and have practised using our retrieval skills to answer questions about the text. Here is some of our work below.

Update - Friday 15th September 2023

In Year 4 this week, we have made lots of progress in our English work, looking at Aesop’s fables. We have had lots of fun retelling the stories verbally and with actions. We have completed story maps to retell the key parts of The Hare and the Tortoise. We also retold the story verbally using lots of expression and actions! We all did a fantastic job.  In art, we have been looking at complementing and contrasting colours. We have been mixing watercolours and using the colour wheel to decide which colours work well together and which do not.

In PSHE, we deepened our understanding of what it means to be a good school citizen by understanding our rights and responsibilities. We looked at different scenarios and decided whose rights were respected and why some people were treated unfairly.

Update - Friday 8th September 2023

Year 4 have kicked off the new school year with lots of exciting activities over the last few days. We began by immersing ourselves in our new topic called ‘Invasions’, which is all about the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. On Friday, we learnt a song called ‘Dragon Ships’, which was all about Vikings invading other countries like England, where they would maim and set fire to things.

On Monday, we deepened this understanding by looking at a range of artefacts. We discussed what we thought they might be used for, what they might be made from and what they told us about what life was like to be a Viking.

We also started our new Science topic, all about ecosystems. We learnt that an ecosystem is a group of animals, plants and conditions that are balanced to ensure the survival of everything that lives there. We also practised recording information in a range of ways, including tables and mind maps. In PSHE, we are working on what it means to be a good school citizen and how being responsible for our own choices helps us and others learn.