Year 4

Welcome to the Year 4 page!

Mrs Gardner, Miss Harris and Miss Flude are the lucky teachers who are facilitating year 4 learning this year. We are also joined by our super support team; Mrs Atwal, Mrs Parmar, Mrs Lambat, Mrs Tooke, Mrs Kaur and Miss Creasey.

We will be updating this page, throughout the year, to keep you informed about all the interesting and exciting learning our year 4 classes are getting up to. We hope that you will also follow our school twitter accounts for instant updates. We love to have new followers!

Twitter accounts:

@HJAMissSmith     @HJAMissHarris      @HJAMissFlude

Novel Studies

This year we will be studying The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan, The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis and Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo! We love learning in a variety of ways such as; through the use of drama, building settings and immersing ourselves in them, developing language ideas, researching vocabulary and writing for many reasons! Here are some of our pictures taken during Novel Study lessons. 

Maths

Throughout the year, year 4 will be covering calculation, fractions, shape, measure, data and number work. We love working with practical resources to embed our understanding! Resources are available in every lesson (to those who want to use them) as they help us to make links between 'concrete, pictorial and abstract'. We are also beginning to demonstrate a depth of understanding of maths through our problem solving and reasoning abilities. This will be throughout a variety of different contexts. Check out our Twitter page for daily updates of our Maths learning! Here are some pictures of us during Maths.

Project Based Learning

Autumn Term Project: How can we help endangered animals? 

For our first project in Year 4, we investigated why different animals around the world are becoming endangered. Throughout the project we covered habitats, food chains, causes of extinction and what we can do to prevent extinction rates continuing to grow! In particular, children researched the reasons why Amur Leopards are critically endangered. Did you know that Amur Leopards are the most endangered cat in the world?

The children produced amazing leaflets to inform the public on ways to help Amur Leopards. We hosted exhibitions across the city where we showcased our learning and asked members of the public to commit to a pledge of helping to save Amur Leopards. We were so confident in informing members of the public and we made our parents and teachers extremely proud! Here are some of our pictures from our exhibition.

For this project, we also visited Twycross Zoo and learnt lots of new things too. Check out some pictures below.

Design and Technology Projects

In Year 4 we love challenging ourselves with exciting design and technology projects! So far this year, we have developed our practical skills by designing and making a 3D dragon based on the Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon from The Iron Man! First, we had to design and critique our Space-Bat-Angel-Dragons to help us improve the second draft then we went on to create them in our D+T studio!

How could you support your child at home?

• Read each night for at least 10 minutes. It is even better to read with an adult, or an older brother or sister, so that you can talk about what you read and check that you understand the book fully! This will help the child's comprehension and will help them to become a successful reader!
• Practising the times tables will make your child's mental and written maths skills much quicker! In year 4, we are aiming to know all of our times tables (up to x12) by the end of the year. We learn them in this order: 2, 5, 10, 3, 4, 6, 8, 7, 9, 11, 12. 
• It is important to note that there is a new formal multiplication test that every child in year 4 will sit at the end of the academic year - this is why it is so important to recall multiplication and division facts for all of the times tables up to 12 x 12.
• Handwriting is another skill that is great to practise at home. We expect all children to join their writing neatly and correctly by the end of Year 4. You can ask your teacher for copies of handwriting sheets to take home.
• Spelling homework is given out on a Friday and should be completed by the next Wednesday. Children MUST practise during the week, more than once, to be able to improve at spelling!
• Homework is given out on a Friday and is due in the following Wednesday. Homeork is designed to suit your level of learning but if you find it tricky, please speak to your child's teacher before hand in day!
• Finally, get researching! PBL work is on-going throughout every term. To become an expert, and to be truly excellent in PBL, you should research work and ideas that you have at home. We are always excited to receive original and thoughtful PBL homework that shows time and effort.

In year 4 we want you all to aim high and be independent in your learning at home and in school.

“Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin