Year 4

 

 

 Welcome to the Year 4 Class Page!

Hello and welcome to the Year 4 page. Here you can find information about what we are learning through the year, examples of the children's work, and photos of them enjoying their lessons and completing practical activties. 

If you need to contact your class teacher about anything please email us:

Miss Howard-  r.howard@st-clares.manchester.sch.uk

Mrs Harling-  s.harling@st-clares.manchester.sch.uk

 

Welcome to Year 4 information:

4H Welcome

4O Welcome

PE Days: 

4H - Spring 1- Wednesday (Swimming)     Spring 2- Thursday

4SH-

 

We ask that your child has a plain white t-shirt, black shorts (jogging bottoms in the colder weather) and suitable footwear. Children are to come to school wearing their PE kits on their PE day. On swimming days children can come into school in their uniform and bring their swimming costume, a towel and a swimming cap in their bags.

 

Reading Books:

Reading is vital for your child’s development, so we naturally want to promote a love of reading here at St Clare’s. Your child will have opportunities to read in school, but we need your support too and we ask that your child reads daily at home for at least 20 minutes. Your child will be able to change their shared reading books daily, providing their reading record is signed. 

 

Homework and Spellings:

4H: Homework will be given on a Wednesday and handed in the following Wednesday. It will mostly be digitally, through Purple Mash. 

4SH:

 

Spellings are based on the National Curriculum, and are given to pupils weekly. We spend time in class learning the meaning of words, and strategies to help learn how to spell them correctly. Through the year, we revisit previous spellings taught, to give pupils opportunities to remember them. We always look for opportunities for spellings to be applied into written work. Alongside weekly spellings, new vocabulary is consistently taught through our topics.

4H: Spellings will be introduced to pupils on a Monday, and in class they will look at the meaning of each word, and learn some strategies of how to spell them. They will then take them home to learn, and be tested on them on the Friday.

4SH:

 

Here is an overview of the spellings they will learn this year (scroll to find their current half term):

Y4 Spelling Overview

 

Times Tables:

 

During the Summer Term, Year 4 will sit a Times Table assessment, this will test their knowledge of the 1- 12 times tables. We practice times tables in class daily, but we do ask that children also practice at home. To help prepare for the test children have a TTRockstar login, which is a great tool to help them practice. Below is a PowerPoint with more information about the assessment:

MTC 2023

 

 There is more information about the multiplication tables check on:: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/multiplication-tables-check

Multiplication Scheck Information For Parents

 

 

We have made Curriciulum Overviews for each half term, so that you can see the things your child will be learning about. 

Here is an 'at a glance' overview of the whole year...

Y4 overview

 

Followed by a more detailed, in-depth overview for each half term, including descriptions of what we will cover in each subject. 

Autumn 1:

Year 4 Autumn 1 Overview

Autumn 2:

Y4 Autumn 2 Overview

Spring 1:

 

Y4 Spring 1 Overview

 

Spring 2:

Y4 Spring 2 Overview

 

 

 

Here are some videos on the four operations that we have made. These are the methods we use in school, and it may benefit your child to practice these at home.

Addition

Subtraction

Multiplication

Division

 

Our Year 4 Pupils have had a lovely first day! This week in Maths, we will be doing a lot of wotk on Place Value, and 4H started the day today by playing Place Value Dominos. They worked with a partner so it was a great opportunity to talk and discuss strategies, whilst embedding our maths knowledge.

 

In RE, our Year 4 Pupils have been learning all about Jesus' Family Tree, and people who are important to him. We have learnt the story of Jacob and Esau, and pupils in 4H had fun working in small groups to do some role play based on the story. 

 

Pupils in 4H have really been enjoying our Free Verse Poetry Unit in English. They have written poems about water and dogs, and have performed a poem called "Some Other Names For Rain" to the class. The way they performed with such confidence and expression was so impressive! Some groups even added actions to their performance, it was fantastic to see them develop their confidence in oracy and public speaking. 

 

In Science, we are learning all about the Digestive System, and the journey that food takes through our bodies.We have started with the teeth- studying the five types of teeth (incisor, canine, premolar, molar, wisdom) and what their purpose is. Children were surprised to find that they all have a different role in the breaking down of food. We then solidified our knowledge by using clay to make a model of our teeth. Pupils had so much fun doing this!

 

Following on from making a clay model of teeth, and learning about the functions of different teeth, we conducted a very egg-citing experiment!!!

We discussed all the different food and drinks that can damage our teeth, and we decided that eggs are similar to teeth in the sense that they are soft inside but have a hard shell (like the enamel on our teeth) on the outside to protect them. We left four eggs in four cups... one sumbmerged in water, one in energy drink, one in vinegar and one in coke. After a week, we took them out and closely inspected the eggs. The results were shocking! The one sockaed in coke had been dyed completely brown,showing that sugary drinks can turn our teeth brown. The one that had been left in an energy drink was coated in a furry substance, representing the plaque that can build on our teeth when we don't brush them properly. The egg that had been submerged in vinegar was most interesting- the shell had disintegrated and left behind a squishy, grey egg. We loved poking it and seeing how different the texture now was. Unsurprisingly, the egg that had been left in water had not changed at all, proving that drinking water is very good for us!!

Take a lookat the egg images below. Can you guess which one is which?

4H Egg Science

 

4H have ended their science topic of the Digestive System, by learning all about owls and how their digestive system is very different to ours- they swallow small animals but then regurgitate the bones, wrapped in fur! We call this waste 'pellets'. Pupils found this fascinate, and loved watching some videos of owls doing this, We were then lucky enough to have some owl pellets donated by a local sanctuary to dissect ourselves. Pupils absolutely loved using tweezers to pull them apart, and discover, bones, teeth, and even a few mouse skulls! What a great way to end this topic!

 

 

4H Space Week Entries

4H brought in some AMAZING entries for Space Week! Their creations ranged from space packs to rockets, from art work of the sun/planets to models of the solar system. I am so proud of their hard work and effort!

 

Geography in 4H

4H Geography

4H pupils have had a brilliant start to the new half term, and thoroughly enjoyed using Atlases to locate countries and continents in the world. They found all the styles of map really interesting, and loved seeing how the world looks, and how all the countries and continents link together. Pupils can now really confidently describe the difference between a country and a continent, as well as being able to list lots of each.

 

Community in RE

 

Our Year 4 pupils are currently learning all about the local community in RE, and are aware that our church is a fundamental part of our local community. We were lucky enough to have a visit from Father Giles, where they interviewed him about his life, and learnt all about what it is like to be a Priest. They had some excellent questions, such as who inspired him to become a priest, what his journey to priesthood was like, where around the world he has traveled, and what his favourite TV shows are! They learnt that he is from New York originally, and he was inspired by other priests as he was growing up. Children were overjoyed to find out how much he enjoys working in our community and helping others. One fact that shocked them the most was that Father Giles loves listening to the Wicked soundtrack, and enjoys watching sports on TV. It was a lovely session for the children, they all came away from it with so much knowledge and couldn’t stop talking about it all day!

 

Viking Artwork

 

Our pupils have LOVED the Viking topic in History this half term, and we celebrated the end of it by using clay to sculpt dragon jewels/brooches, inspired by the dragons that featured on many Viking long ships. The children know that Vikings used a lot of knots in their artwork, so attempted to incorporate some of these into their designs. The focus was a coloured eye... the finished results were striking!

 

 

 

English: Nature Haiku's

4H have had a great first day back after the half term holidays. This week in English we are doing some poetry, and we are focusing on Haiku's. Children had a lot of fun working out how many syllables go in each line, and we even had a competition to work out who could think of a word with the most amount of syllables. We are going to be writing Haiku poems about nature, so we went outside to the prayer garden to jot down many things that we could see. Over the course of the week, we will choose something that interested us the most, and we will write a Haiku about it!

 

 

Science- Habitats- Trip to Blackpool Zoo

 

Our Y4 pupils had an AMAZING day out at Blackpool Zoo! We were so lucky to get up close and personal with so many animals. We watched a lovely sealion show, and got to hear a talk on the Big Cats. As our focus is habitats, it was really interesting to hear how the lions and tigers have heated rocks to lie on, as they are used to much warmer climates. It was interesting to see the camels in their desert-like habitat, and pupils loved the cuddlynred pandas. It was nice to see the monkeys swinging on their vines, and we were lucky enough to see a baby orangutan with his mummy. Pupils loved seeing elephants and girraffes too. All in all, it was a fantastic day, and the sun shone brightly for us!

 

 

DT- Structures and Pavilions

 

Pupils in 4H had a fabulous time today using spaghetti and marshmallows to make the structure of a building. We are learning all about structures, pavilions, cladding and aesthetics... our end result is to make some sort of building for animals that links to our schience topic (habitats).