Welcome to Year 4
from
Mrs Ord, Miss Bratton and Mr Simpson
Our email address is: year4@kingsleyschool.org.uk
This is checked regularly however, if you need to speak to a member of staff as a matter of urgency, please either speak to a member of the leadership team on the gate on a morning or ring the school office.
If you require any additional information regarding our curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher or a member of the Leadership Team.
As part of our PE curriculum, the children in year 4 go swimming every week. We go on a Friday morning so remember those swimming kits!
In Science we have started our new topic 'States of Matter'. We discussed the different properties of each of the three states of matter and then sorted different materials. We realised that some materials could go in more than one section e.g. ice. The children then acted as the particles in each of the states of matter.
In Literacy we have been reading 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. We have looked at how characters can have a head, heart and speaking voice and how these different voices impact characters' actions. We looked at the different relationships between characters and how they change throughout the story.
In Maths we have been learning our 6, 7 and 9 times tables. We thoroughly enjoyed playing a game which involved us rolling a dice to create a multiplication question e.g. 6 x 4.
In Art we have been looking at Leonardo da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man'. We tested the hypothesis, 'The length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height'. We discovered that this is in fact true!
We tested a variety of materials and rated how well they absorbed sound on a scale of 0-5. We are going to use our findings to design a pair of ear defenders.
During our 'Inspire' time on Friday, some of the children chose to learn British Sign Language with Mr Evans. The children had a great time and could all sign their name by the end of the session!
We were very lucky to have a judo taster session from Glynn Fidgeon. We had an amazing time and will be coming home with information about his sessions outside of school.
We have continued to explore sound. We explored the question does distance affect the sounds we hear? We also looked at vibrations and how these change pitch.
We carried out an experiment and measured sound using decibels. The air-horn was VERY loud.
In History we had the opportunity to explore real life Roman artefacts. We looked at a helmet and sandals which were worn by Roman soldiers, jewellery, knucklebones, Roman coins and a sponge which the Romans used when they went to the toilet!
In DT we have been looking at Italian food. We completed a guided reading session focusing on traditional Italian foods before researching 'anti-pasti'. In future DT lessons we will be making, tasting and evaluating our own anti-pasti platter.
We made a little video to explain how sound travels and is heard.
We have been learning about the internet and how external networks connect, using routers. We had a map of networks and followed routes to get from one to another and saw that sometimes there was more than one route to a network.
In our weekly assembly, this week, we explored situations in daily life and online that may make us unsafe and ways to deal with this. One of our activities was reflecting on words we associate with the word safe and we created a word cloud
We've been practising French greetings
We had a practical activity looking at internal and external networks and how messages are sent. It was quite complicated and children playing the role of the switch were very busy! Children demonstrated an excellent understanding of the role of the router and the switch. We also discussed that many home routers play the role of both switch and router 🤯
We are continuing to explore sound and how we hear. We used cups and string to make 'telephones'. We realised that when the string was tense the sound travelled better. We explored through the door and found when the string had something pressing on it the sound waves were interrupted. We are looking forward to learning more.
In Literacy we are reading the book 'George's Marvellous Medicine' by Roald Dahl. We completed a hot seating activity in which we pretended to be either George or Grandma. Following this, we produced a class mind map with adjectives to describe the characters' appearance, personality, movements and voice. From our shared mind map we produced some fantastic, descriptive sentences to describe Grandma.
In History we have started our topic - The Romans. In our first lesson we listened to the legend of Romulus and Remus and how they founded the city of Rome. We then used questions stems to ask questions regarding what we want to know about the Romans.
In DT, we have been looking at food and nutrition. We have been tasting different pizzas and ingredients before designing and making our own healthy pizzas. We really enjoyed making the pizzas and loved eating them even more!
In Science, we have been learning about electricity. We have looked at main and battery-powered appliances, how electricity gets into our homes and how it moves. Once we had developed this understanding, we made circuits and tested if a range of materials were conductors or insulators.
We had a wonderful time at our Christmas disco where we played games and showed off our dance moves!
Mrs Warwick's Literacy group are currently focusing on diary writing. We have been exploring different examples and identifying text features as well as looking at the use of language. In particular, we have been looking at informal language and the writing features this includes.
We have been learning about why Remembrance Day is a significant day on our calendar and why it is important to remember the sacrifices of others. We made beautiful red poppies to decorate our classrooms.
Another Times Tables Rockstars challenge with even more participation this time!
Keep up the hard work!
In French, the children have been learning about different body parts. They drew a person and labeled them using the correct terminology.
Mrs Robinson set a challenge for the children to send some pictures of them reading in spooky places over half term. Well done to these children for completing their spooky challenge!
Before half term, the children were given the challenge to complete 20 minutes, over the course of a week, on Times Table Rockstars at home. These children completed the challenge and some went above and beyond and did extra! Well done to these superstars, get ready for the next challenge...
We work hard to improve our spelling and have a range of different strategies we use to learn our spelling rules. The children are given times to practise during the day and in Literacy lessons as well as the practise they do at home. In the pictures below, our children working together to use some of our strategies such as testing each other, jumbling letters and playing hangman.
See what we got up to in the academic year
2021-22