We have had a great start to Summer Term in Year 4 so far. We are thrilled with the children's attitudes, hard work and kindness - we have thoroughly enjoyed teaching them lots of different aspects of the curriculum over the last 6 weeks.
We started summer term with our new topic in Geography, Earthquakes. We began by exploring what causes an earthquake to happen with the children learning lots of new language, like ‘boundary plate.’ We have been investigating two case studies; The Japan Earthquake of 2011 and The Haitian Earthquake of 2010. Children have been given the opportunity to compare these case studies and use their new knowledge to express their opinions on their new learning. We have thoroughly enjoyed teaching this topic due to the children's enthusiasm and interest for learning about earthquakes.
One of our favourite subjects this half term has been writing where all our units have been linked to the rainforest, based on the text ‘There’s Orangutan in My Bedroom.’ Last week, we finished our speeches to persuade people to stop deforestation. Children even had the opportunity to put their hard work to the test by reading out their speeches in assembly to parents, year 6’s and their fellow year 4’s. They pretended they were an orangutan that had lost its home in the rainforest. The work the children produced was excellent, imaginative and they all used a range of devices to engage and convince audience to stop deforestation.
As always, Year 4 reading has been excellent this term. We have explored a range of different texts including a non-fiction text about the rainforest, a story about a new arrival in class called ‘The boy at the Back of the Class,’ and the old favourite of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ In addition, we developed our inference skills used to understand the text by thinking about what the characters were thinking and feeling.
In maths, children have amazed us in our new unit on decimals. They have learnt new concepts such as tenths and hundredths and have been able to apply their knowledge to different concepts including dividing by 10 and 100 and representing decimals in place value grids and on number lines.
In music, Year 4 have been learning a range of different skills. Liam, from Sheffield Music Hub has been teaching drumming lessons. All the classes will also learn a new song to sing for the Sheffield Music virtual concert at the end of the year which we are excited to perform.
A highlight of this summer half term has been creating our ‘Starry Night’ painting based on the famous Vincent Van Gogh. We explored mixing colours to create light and dark and looked at textures and lines in painting to create effect. We then began to paint our pieces layering up the dark colours first and then adding extra detail. It was great to see how the children using their painting techniques to create texture.
In other news, the children have been gearing up to celebrating the Platinum Jubilee by designing posters marking the occasion. The designs the children came up with were fantastic and imaginative, the children developing their understanding and knowledge of the Queen and her immense sense of duty.
We hope that all our children and families celebrating Eid, had a wonderful time. We really enjoyed hearing the children's stories of their celebrations and celebrating with them at our Eid parties in school. We had a great afternoon making Eid cards and it was a wonderful time to share culture and have fun with our classes.
The Year 4 team have thoroughly enjoyed teaching this half term and are so p