Year 4

Year 4

English

In English this term, the children have been working on producing information texts about lions. They have spent time researching lions using a range of resources to gather information they could include in their final texts. They even had the opportunity to use their acting skills to hot-seat a ‘lion expert’!

The children have learnt about a lion’s appearance, diet and habitat. The children have learned what features an information text should include, such as a glossary, captions and a fun facts box, and have been working hard to incorporate these features into their own work. The children have been developing their skills as writers and have learnt how to use expanded noun phrases and create complex sentences using subordination and relative clauses. Both teachers are very impressed with how enthusiastic the children have been about this unit of work and it is safe to say that the whole of Year 4 (including the teachers) are now fully fledged lion experts themselves!

Maths

This term, the children have been learning about fractions. Within this unit of work, we have focused on finding equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions to the lowest form, converting fractions, finding fractions of a number and adding and subtracting fractions.

It has been a challenging unit, but the children have worked extremely hard and impressed both teachers with the amount of knowledge they have acquired. The children have also looked at drawing and measuring angles which has been enjoyable for all children yet challenging as they tried to use a protractor correctly.

History

This term the children have been learning about the Romans. They have been working in groups to research key leaders during the Roman period. They have found out about Julius Caesar and Queen Boudicca and have produced work related to the facts they have researched. Also, they have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in role play, where they had to act out the final speeches given by each leader explaining whether they wanted to be part of the Roman Empire or not. We know that the children have found this History unit very interesting and have learned lots of new facts about the Romans.

Science

We have been investigating Electricity this half term, which has been very exciting for the children. We have looked at how electricity is produced. The children have also been investigating different materials which stops and allows electrical current to flow through a circuit, giving them the opportunity to see why materials are called conductors and insulators.

The children then investigated how we use switches to open and close a circuit allowing the lamp to be switched on and off, this then moved on to the children creating their own switches that were used in their circuits. This term the children have thoroughly enjoyed science.

Topic

This term the focus has been on Geography and learning about the continents of South and North America. The children have used laptops and books to research different cities within these continents and have shared their ideas with each other.