Year 4C 2018 - 2019

Summer 2

Oh my goodness it’s our final half term of Year 4 and there’s lots to do!  Of course we will continue swimming and there will be the usual end of year activities such as Sports Day.

In R.E., we will be closing our year’s journey by exploring prayer as a way of communicating with God. We will be examining different aspects of prayer: what it is; who does it; where it takes place; and why it is done.

Maths is set to get even more challenging as we start focussing even harder on problem solving and reasoning. We look forward to working together to really show off your maths skills.

English will be full of performance and life as we look at learning poetry “Off by heart! We shall be sharing ways in which we bring poetry and performance to life to tell the stories within the texts.

In Science, we will take a journey through the digestive system and into our eco systems in terms of food chains. We will look at food chains and how these are affected by our use of the planet and the environmental changes we are all experiencing every day. This will be started off during the whole school Environmental day.

Finally, we truly hope that you have all enjoyed your year with us and we look forward to a hard but rewarding final term.

Summer 1

Wow – A new term already! We are very excited about this term and have many things we need to achieve before we are ready for Year 5. This term we will going on not one but two trips!  Firstly, to tie in with our R.E. unit on Churches, we will visit Sacred Heart RC Church. This will allow us to make comparisons between our own Church – St Peter’s – other churches from both the same and other denominations. We will explore whether the most important part of the church is the physical building, its contents or the people and atmosphere inside it.  For the second outing, we will also be visiting Gallery Oldham to take part in a Pattern and Print workshop using textiles.

In English, we are debating about Zoos at the moment. Are they good or bad?  We all thought they were fantastic until we began to consider an alternative point of view whilst reading Anthony Browne’s book “Zoo.” We are looking at all points of view and will be writing a balanced argument at the end of the Unit. Later on in the term, we will look at the Poems of Edward Lear, which are a load of nonsense, and the Books of David Walliams which are very funny. 

In Maths, we continue to challenge and stretch ourselves using problem solving techniques. We have been looking at money, using our knowledge of decimals learnt last half term. We will then move on to the challenging concept of time including telling the time and converting between different types of time. It would be greatly appreciated if you could spend some time talking to your children individually about this.

In Science, we are currently finishing off our unit on animals and their habitats.

Spring 2

Wow! We are now in the fourth half term of Year 4!  This is quite a short half term and we have lots to do.

Our History theme this term is all about, “How the Victorians Influenced our Local Area,” Last week both classes visited Toad Lane in the centre of Rochdale. Toad Lane is the site where the first ever Co-operative shop started. Today it is a global business. Some children in each class dressed up as Victorians and acted out the very first sale of half a pound of sugar. The children learnt a great deal about these innovative men and their influence on Rochdale and future modern society around the world. We will be using all the information we gathered to further our learning in the rest of our history lessons.

This week is Book Week and World Book Day is Thursday 8th March. Children will be allowed to dress up as their favourite book character, on this day. In Year 4, we are reading a book called “Paddington,” both Mr Jolly and Mrs Cavill have already read it and have been preparing lots of interesting activities for the children around its theme.

In Maths, we are continuing understanding all aspects of fractions. We will also learn about decimals and see how the two are interrelated.  

In R.E., we are currently exploring trust and betrayal and how they are linked. We will then look at how these themes run through the Easter story. Later on this half term we will spend a week exploring aspects of Judaism during our multi-faith week.

Swimming has started really well and the children are already making progress. We would just like to urge you to ensure your children’s clothing has names inside, to avoid mix ups. Thank you for your support with this.

Spring 1

Hello, Happy new year and welcome back, to all our Year 4 families. We hope you have enjoyed the two week break with your children.

This term is a very busy one. We have started the exciting opportunity of learning how to play the guitar! We are to have an hours lesson every Tuesday until Easter. We are hoping that there are some budding Rock stars amongst us. Watch out for news of our concert in the second half of the Spring term.

We will also begin our swimming lessons very soon. The children will receive letters of consent for this essential lifesaving skill in the coming weeks. More details to follow.

In English, we will continue to read a variety of text types, developing new vocabulary and writing skills. In Maths, we will be tackling fractions and decimals as well as continuing to develop number skills and problem solving.

Central to our learning is Religious Education where our lessons encourage us to reflect on our own faiths and practises. We reflect on all our learning and the impact of the Christian values on our daily lives.

May we take this opportunity to thank you for all your support in 2018 and look forward to this continuing in the new year.

Autumn 2

What a busy half term that was! We hope you had a lovely time at half term and that the children had time to rest and play with their families and carers.

Already very busy start to the second half term.  In November, we will be meeting our Linking Project class from St. Joseph’s school in Heywood. We are very excited about meeting them at the M6 theatre, where we will play getting to know you games AND watch a production! 

In R.E., we started by continuing our prayer topic where we looked at why people pray. We followed this up by thinking of questions we could ask to find out about people’s prayer habits. When we have concluded this fascinating topic, we will move on to “Christmas: Exploring the symbolism of light”.

In English, we are starting this term looking at the Fantasy genre of fiction. The children prepared for this with their homework over half term. The quality of this was great we thank you for your support. Poor Hiccup is an unlikely hero; we are looking forward to finding our if he can,” Train his Dragon.”

This half term we are staring maths with addition and subtraction, estimating and rounding.  Further to this, we will start to develop our skills in multiplication and look at challenging problems within all of our topics in maths. Later on this half term, we will explore the four operations in depth.

This half term we will be looking about how the earth “Shake, rattle and roll” in geography. This involves earthquakes and volcanos. Electricity is the topic for science and we have some exciting experiments planned. The children are getting stuck into practical work as well as understanding the importance of being safe and thinking about wasting and saving resources.