Welcome to Year 4
Spring Term 2019
Class 4T
In English this term, 4T have been reading The Angel of Nitshil Road by Anne Fine. We have tried to decide if the main character, Celeste, is an angel or not. We have used ideas from the story to create an argument to support or reject this idea. Some children have read I independently and other have begun reading other books by the same author. We are also going to be reading something by Roald Dahl, another popular author.
We have developed and learned new skills in maths this term. We have had great fun learning times tables and completing weekly Rock Star Challenges. There is a great enthusiasm about moving up the Rock Star ladder and lots of the class use the site at home to improve their times tables. Your child has their own login to this site. There is also the times tables challenge where they can earn bronze, silver and gold stars for every table. Let’s get learning!
In Science we are becoming experts on the human digestive system. We learned about the different teeth we have in our mouths and how to care for them. We carried out an investigation to find out which liquids were bad for our teeth and discovered that fizzy and acidic drinks damaged teeth a lot.
We will be learning about Ancient Greece in History and will create some very striking designs based upon Greek art and pottery. We will discover how our own democracy in the UK began in Ancient Greece over 2000 years ago.
Our Geography learning has focused on Shildon and what it can offer us. We will look at land use and complete some map work. We will also learn about the north east including the names of the counties that make up the area.
Class 4H
English
The children are making excellent progress and their writing skills are really developing. We are reading more stories by Roald Dahl and also looking at newspaper reports, poems and information texts.
The children will continue to work on correctly formed and joined handwriting. They will also be working on spelling and learning to read through their own work to correct their own spellings. We have been learning about how to make our writing more interesting by including description and starting our sentences in different ways. We are also practising writing longer pieces of text and dividing them into paragraphs.
The children are enjoying reading lots of different books independently. The focus is on understanding what they are reading and thinking about what might be happening next. We have talked a lot about new words and the children know to use dictionaries to look up vocabulary that they are unsure of.
We are looking forward to celebrating World Book Day on 7th March.
Maths
We are continuing to work on our times tables knowledge through games and regular practise. We are getting much more confident and are learning the division facts that match the multiplication facts.
The children are going to be learning about different measures (length, weight and capacity) and will be solving problems using these. We will also be doing calculations involving money. After this, we will be revising fractions and finding fractions of amounts and things. In our shape work, we are going to be plotting co-ordinates and using them to draw shapes.
Topic Work
We will be spending half of the spring term learning about the Romans. We are going to be learning about why the Romans wanted to invade Britain and about the Roman army.
The other half of the term is going to be Geography based and we will be learning about Italy. We will be using maps and books to find out about the landscape and people of Italy in the past and today.
Science
The children will continue to develop their understanding of living things through learning about the main groups that animals belong to. We will be focusing on how you know if a living thing is a mammal, bird, fish, reptile or amphibian.
PE
Some of our PE sessions are going to be led by a visiting coach and we are working on fitness and football skills. The class are very excited about this!
Art and DT
The children are going to be working with clay and learning how to mould it in different ways. We are also going to be learning to how to sew and will be joining fabric together with different stitches.
Computing
The children will continue to learn about staying safe on-line. We will also be learning about using coding skills to control a programme and about using other media such as combining digital photos and text.
R.E.
In R.E. we are going to be learning about Lent and the events leading up to Easter. We will also be learning about why Easter is such an important festival.
Music
We are very lucky to be continuing our music lessons on alternate Mondays. The children are really enjoying learning to play their brass instruments are beginning to play short pieces of music.
UNCRC Article 28 – Every child has the right to an education.
Geography Fieldwork
