Year 4

Welcome back everyone and welcome to Year 4! This half term pupils will be learning about many exciting topics, mostly based around our Power of Reading book, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.

Pupils will be learning about place value of numbers beyond 1000 and how to order them in a variety of ways in their maths lessons. During this time, they will understand the basic addition and subtraction of 1000 more and 1000 less as well as applying their knowledge of addition and subtraction to a formal written method, using numbers of up to four digits.

As part of the science curriculum, pupils will be looking at states of matter, understanding the properties of materials, building on their learning from Key Stage 1, and how they melt, evaporate and solidify. To relate this back to the focus of the term, pupils will be using chocolate to demonstrate some of the processes that change states.

Linked to chocolate, pupils will learn about the Ancient Maya and the Aztecs, where chocolate originated.  They will locate countries within South and Central America and understand the lives of individuals in these ancient times. They will devise questions and make comparisons between the two civilisations, using different sources to find out what happened in the past.

In English, pupils will be focussing on the use of apostrophes for plural possession and learning that an apostrophe and an ‘s’ is used to show plural possession for irregular plurals. From both reading and writing in English, pupils will conjure up some exciting narratives based about our theme and Power Of Reading text and including the use of plural possessive apostrophes in their writing!

In PSHE, pupils will think about what skills, interests and strengths they have.  They will consider how their personal attributes, strengths, skills and interests contribute to their self-esteem and learn how to set themselves personal goals.

Pupils will explore combinations of different timbres and think about how different timbres can be descriptive in music lessons.  They will then use this knowledge to create an introduction for a song. Pupils will build on their knowledge of Spanish by naming items in school as well as recapping on their knowledge of numbers.

In computing, pupils will understand how to program a virtual robot and will program a sequence of movements including picking up and dropping objects.  They will then plan and activate an algorithm that navigates and reacts to obstacles.

We would like to welcome the children and parents into Year 4 and hope they settle in well. Just a reminder that Wednesday is our PE day, so please ensure your child is wearing the correct kit on this day and that pupils in Emerald Class bring their swimming kit to school.