Welcome to Year 4!

Each week we'll be keeping you up to date with our weekly blog. In addition to this, please read our half-termly curriculum map to find out what will be happening in Year 4. 

Important information - PE & Homework

PE - Monday and Friday. Please come to school in your PE kit on these days and these days only. 

Books - Change books on Wednesday. Your child will come home with 2 new reading books and a library book every Wednesday. Please make sure you have been reading at home at least three times a week. Please record any reading you have done in your reading diary. Your reading diary must always be in your bookbag so that we can read with you in school. 

Spellings - New spellings will be sent home every Friday. Please make sure your child's spelling book is in their bookbag on Friday so that the new ones can be stuck in.  Please also see our spelling page where you can easily access this every week. Please use your spelling book to practice them in. If there is evidence of practising, your child will receive a green point. They will also receive a green point if they have achieved full marks or improved their score from the previous week. Please also check which spellings have been marked as incorrect as these will still need to be practised.

Spelling Shed - Every week you will be set new challenges through spelling shed that match the spellings we have looked at and that are on your test for that week. Children will be rewarded on a Friday when Miss Martin checks they have completed the activities.

Times Table Rockstars (TTR) - This is REALLY important this year! You can download the app access through a web browser. Completing activities on TTR will help you to prepare for the MTC at the end of Year 4. Practice your times tables as much as possible! This will not only help you with your maths but will prepare you for your test you'll take at the end of this year. Your login for this is in your reading diary. If you need your login reprinted please let your teachers know. 

Year Four End of Year Expectations

This table provides information for parents and carers on the end of year expectations for children in our school. All the objectives will be worked on throughout the year and will be the focus of teaching. Any extra support you can provide in helping your children to achieve these is greatly valued. If you have any queries regarding the content of this booklet, please talk to your child’s teacher.

Autumn 1

Week 2

This week, we stepped through the wardrobe and into the enchanted world of Narnia as we began our new English topic: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. To truly immerse ourselves in the story, we imagined what it would be like to be evacuees during World War II, just like the Pevensie children. We packed our suitcases with the essentials, thinking carefully about what we would need for our journey to the countryside.

To deepen our understanding, we watched a clip from the film adaptation, which gave us a real sense of the mixed emotions the children must have felt, the fear of leaving home, the excitement of an adventure, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. Inspired by the rich world of Narnia, we worked together to create our own word mats, filled to the brim with wonderful vocabulary that we can't wait to weave into our writing.

In music, we had our very first ukulele lesson! Mr Popple was blown away by how quickly we picked up the basics. With just a little bit of practice, we were strumming away and making real music. We can't wait to perfect our skills and put on a special performance for you all very soon.

And finally, while it may seem a little early, this week we also created our Christmas cards! We put our artistic skills to the test, designing and crafting cards that are full of festive cheer. Keep an eye out for them in the coming weeks, they'll be available to purchase, and we think they're going to be a real hit!

Our first art lesson of the year was a real treat... literally! We revisited the concepts of tone and shading, but with a delicious twist. We each chose a chocolate sweet and observed how the light hit its surface, creating highlights and shadows. Then, we put our skills to the test, sketching the sweets and focusing on recreating those light and dark areas to give our drawings a realistic, 3D look. It was a challenge to capture the glossy shine of the wrappers, but we think our artworks look good enough to eat!

It's been a fantastic start to the new school year, full of magic, music and creativity. We can't wait to see where our learning journey takes us next!

 

Week 1

What a fantastic start we’ve had to Year 4!

On Wednesday morning, we had lots of fun exploring our new classroom, getting ourselves organised and setting up our pencil cases. Most importantly, though, we made some very special new friends for the year… our glue stick friends!

We dressed our glue sticks in smart clothes, gave them googly eyes and chose some brilliant names, including Steve, Bob and Susan! We’re hoping that by turning our glue sticks into little classroom friends, we’ll take extra special care of them this year and, most importantly, remember not to lose their heads (lids)!

We’ve also been learning about the Zones of Regulation, thinking about the different emotions we might experience and exploring the tools and strategies we can use to help ourselves in each zone.

As part of creating a happy, respectful and welcoming classroom, we have explored British Values and Protected Characteristics. We discussed what these mean and thought carefully about how we can make sure everyone in our classroom feels valued, respected and included.

We’ve been getting ready for some fantastic writing in Year 4 too! We learnt about the difference between a dictionary and a thesaurus, and how each one can help us with our work. We can’t wait to start using them to develop our vocabulary and make our writing even better this year!

We’ve made a brilliant start in maths too! We have been revising how to use column addition, and Miss Martin was very impressed with how quickly it all came flooding back to us.

It’s been a busy but brilliant first few days, and we’re very excited to see what the rest of Year 4 has in store!