Year 4
Year 4 Wonder and Mozart 2023/2024
In Year 4, we have had an enthusiastic and hardworking start to the school year. The children are showing a positive attitude to learning and are excited about their new learning in the year ahead.
In English, we have been reading The Royal Rabbits of London by Santa Montefiore. We have spent time discussing the fantastic vocabulary and grammatical features in the books. We have learnt about expanded noun phrases, similes, personification, fronted adverbials and how to punctuate direct speech. We used all of these skills to write character descriptions, setting descriptions and play scripts. This was particularly fun as we had the chance to act out our play scripts- not forgetting the stage directions of course!
Maths has had a big focus on number. We have consolidated our understanding of place value. Working as a class, we have looked at negative numbers. Thinking about their uses in real life and ordering and comparing them. We even built a human number line and made sure to place numbers in either ascending or descending order. We also practised Roman Numerals up to 100 and challenged ourselves by writing Roman Numerals in 1000’s! We have worked really hard on our problem solving and reasoning skills. On top of this, we have been preparing for the Multiplication Tables Check by exploring our times tables in a number of ways – singing songs, playing games and Maths Battles! We are working hard to make sure that we can recall them all at speed and know the inverse by the end of the Year 4.
Our question for RE this term has been “How does worship and liturgy enable a Christian to grow and express their faith?” We learnt about Liturgy and the Liturgical calendar in more detail, understanding the symbolism behind the colours and what is celebrated throughout the year and when. We have also learnt about Christian worship across different countries in the world. We looked at percentages of Christians in different countries and found that Portugal had a higher percentage - 94% - compared to the UK with 60%.
Our learning has not stopped there. In Science, we have looked at ‘Living Things and their Habitats’. This involved venturing around the school to find different animals in local and microhabitats. We learnt about the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates and looked more closely at the characteristics of the five types of vertebrates: fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds. We have then used this knowledge to classify the animals using classification keys, particularly focusing on branching keys.
Geography this term has been all about the United Kingdom and India. We have been improving our map skills by locating both places on a map, comparing the human and physical geography and the surrounding countries and seas. We focused on London and New Delhi as the capital cities of the UK and India and researched mountain ranges which cover both areas: Snowdonia and the Himalayas. After gathering research, we made brochures on the mountain ranges, detailing mountains such as Mount Everest and Snowdon.
We have improved our football skills in outdoor PE and enjoyed our Squash lessons with qualified coaches from Surbiton Racket & Fitness Club. One of the most important things that we have learnt is to try our best and keep persevering. This definitely helped us when we played matches!
In PSHE, we have used Jigsaw Jaz to discuss concepts such as democracy and citizenship. We have learnt the importance of working as part of a team and understand how this affects ourselves and others. We have also looked at the British Values and have discussed how we follow them in our everyday lives.
In our Computing lessons, we have learnt about the internet. This has involved understanding networks, sharing information and the World Wide Web. We learnt that the World Wide Web is created by people and that not everything that you read online is necessarily true.
In our Music lessons, we have been singing Mamma Mia. 4Wonder and 4Mozart projected their voices and made a good effort to sing in time with the music. We have been drawing portraits in Art and paying careful attention to detail. We have also worked hard in practising French and using Duolingo to present ourselves!
We have really enjoyed the challenge of Year 4 so far and are looking forward to all our new topics.