Year 4

Welcome to Year Four

Class Teachers: Miss Braithwaite

This page will contain class newsletters, photos of interesting activities and useful links.

Week commencing 1st May

This week we launched ourselves into Monarchy Week. We learnt about King Charles III's coronation, different aspects of the main ceremony as well as the history of some of his ancestors. During Art, we tried our hand at designing a cut-out coronation crown encrusted with precious stones inspired by St. Edward's crown. In Maths we took a hiatus from decimals and examined the topic of Roman numerals, connecting these with the names of British monarchs. We enjoyed a wonderful coronation picnic together on Friday 5th May which we shared with parents, grandparents, relatives and siblings who all came out to partake in the special occasion. A huge thank you to all who showed their support and also to Y4 for another brilliant week.

Week beginning 17th April

It's the first week of Summer 1 and in Art we have been filling our minds with facts about the wonderful artist Van Gogh. We discussed his origins and three of his most famous paintings. We then used his painting 'Sunflowers' as inspiration for our own pencil and line drawings of a sunflower which we then coloured using vibrant hues in order to imitate his later post-impressionist style of paining.

Week beginning 27th March

Y4 have been training hard over the last few weeks for the Skipping Festival which took place in Armley, on Thursday 30th March. We competed against several different schools with children showing off their skills in single skip, double bounce and many other special skills. It was their (and my!) first time attending and there were lots of smiles all round from both children and staff. Well done to all pupils for participating and a special well done to pupils who were commended with bronze, silver and gold awards.

Over the last few weeks, Y4 individual pupils have also been plucking up their courage to audition for 'Cobden's Got Talent which took place on Friday. After several rounds of class auditions where contestants were scored by pupils and myself, two separate musical acts were nominated. I was incredibly impressed with the willing spirit of all who auditioned and most especially our brilliant class nominees who gave excellent performances on the day.

Week beginning 20th March

This Tuesday was World Poetry Week. In Y4 we discussed and studied a range of classic poems as well as several nonsense poems and acrostics. We discussed the message, structure, rhyme and rhythm within the poems and then performed these aloud in pairs. All the pupils worked brilliantly together and I was particularly impressed with the support and encouragement pupils gave to one another. Well done, Year 4! 

Week Beginning 6th March

In Maths we continued learning about fractions, focusing on improper fractions and mixed numbers. In English we have been familiarising ourselves with techniques used by Roald Dahl to create interesting narrative. We formulated our own fantastic sentences using adverbs, repetition, dialogue and onomatopeia. We also thought of some wonderful neologisms to describe our 'scrumptioulicious' chocolates: "toffeamy" (toffee + creamy) and "exquensive" (exquisite + expensive) were some of my faves. Keep up the great work Y4!

Week beginning 20th February

This week our theme was 'gratitude' which linked into RE and many of our class discussions. Children began filling our new 'Y4 thoughts book' with messages related to people and things they were thankful for. We began studying the topic of fractions in Maths. In English we started reading our new text, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We discussed key terms such as plot, narrative and protagonist. At the end of the week, pupils were treated to an experience day where they tasted (warm!) hot chocolate and some of Mrs. Peace's baked chocolatey treats whilst watching part of the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Week beginning 30th January

I've had a great first week with the class! In English, the children wrote me letters so I could get to know them better and I'm looking forward to reading these. In Maths we looked at length and perimeter with children calculating lengths by counting up the sides. 

Week beginning 23rd January

We've been learning about length and perimeter this week in maths, investigating how many different ways we could make shapes with the same perimeter. In history, we've been learning about the Vikings and where they invaded from before settling in Britain. We had great fun again this week with Ian who came to do a STEM Lego workshop. We had to make our own helicopter models which were then linked via Bluetooth to work the motors. It was great fun and we'd love to do it again!   

Week beginning 16th January

We've had an exciting week this week with 2 visitors delivering some fantastic workshops. First, we had a sound workshop from the Leeds Heritage Theatre company. They came in and we learned all about sounds in the theatre and how sound effects were made. Then, we used Ipad software to create our own soundscapes which linked to our topic of the Vikings which was great fun! Mindful minis came in to deliver a mindfulness workshop where we practised different yoga and breathing strategies to help us stay calm. 

Week beginning 3rd January

Welcome back and Happy New Year! We've been learning about the Anglo Saxons this week which is the start of our new topic. We learned about where they came from which followed on from our learning about the Romans and have been asking good questions which we will be researching next week. We've loved having a focus on comic creation in art and have come up with some fantastic ideas. In science we linked music as we are learning all about sound and how instruments make noise and how we hear.

Week beginning 12th December

We completed our DT this week, creating electric buzzer games which we had started last week. On Monday, we completed the designs before testing our games and evaluating our work. We've been practising our performance poetry from the text Once upon a raindrop - taking parts and practising movements in groups and performing this as a class. In the run up to Christmas, we really enjoyed Christmas dinner with the added bonus of parents and family coming to join us! Well done to Max and Lily who were our pupils of the term. What a great way to end the term with our Christmas sing-a-long too. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year!

Week beginning 5th December

We've had a bit of a D&T week this week linking with our science topic of electricity. We first investigated conductors and insulators around our classroom to see how circuits worked. We then started to design our own games which had circuits in them. We decided on creating wire games which buzzed so looked at examples and then designed 3 games before discussing these with our peers and getting feedback. From this, we came up with a final design before creating our games using copper wire. We bent the wire into shape which created a puzzle before creating a handle which moved across the puzzle with the idea of not touching the wire together or the buzzer would sound. We had loads of fun creating these!

Week beginning 28th November

How is it December already!? We've used the cold weather to our advantage this week especially with our learning about the water cycle and states of matter in geography and science. We've discussed the morning fog and where that has come from and noticed the condensation building on our windows. In geography, we tried to make our own cloud through investigating hot water and ice. In science, we conducted a fair test, exploring which battery was best - would it be Asda's own or Panasonic? We measured how long they worked for after making a hypothesis - many of us were wrong!

Week beginning 21st November

We have enjoyed learning about how the Romans lived this week, researching about their houses and lives. In maths, we learned about Roman numerals and tried to find examples such as on our clocks. We then learned about the Roman army. Throughout the week, we've been comparing the Celts and the Romans. We've been continuing our writing on La Luna this week trying to develop descriptive phrases and clauses to add precision to our writing. We have been slowly watching parts and then trying to develop our own ideas around the video. In maths, we've been continuing with our multiplication method practise and trying to apply these when problem solving.

Week beginning 7th November

An exciting week has been had in Year 4 this week, especially on Thursday when we had 2 visitors come and deliver some sessions. First, we had an artist come and visit us who was linked to Leeds 2023. We used clay to create sculptures and had to use water to control the clay which was messy but fun. We then had our first skipping workshop in preparation for our competition later in the year. Chris came in and taught us some new skipping skills and we had time to practise. We practised skipping on our own as well as some team games - we'll have weekly practise.

Week beginning 31st October

We've been learning about area in maths this week understanding that we can compare areas by the size of shapes or can calculate area by counting squares or using our times tables knowledge. I've been really impressed by the independence which has been shown by children going home and practising their times tables and having a go on Times Tables Rockstars - keep it up! In English, we have been learning about discussion texts and trying to balance arguments before drawing conclusions. We really enjoyed the glockenspiels this week in music as we begin to learn to practise a new instrument.

Week beginning 17 October

We learned about the Celts this week and about how and where they lived. We designed our own roundhouses, firstly the outside of them and then how we would have placed things on the inside for living during this time. In science, we have been investigating ice over time to see how the mass changes as we observe it. We set our investigation in the morning and had to observe and measure the mass at several points throughout the day. In music, we've been learning about rock and roll and made some posters whilst listening to music to inspire us. 

Week commencing 10 October

We've been learning subtraction this week which we've found a little bit tricky but have been resilient especially when having to exchange from more than one column. In English, we have been looking at letters and writing linked to our seed workshop last week. There are so many fantastic things on our grounds we've been thinking about sustainable living and how we could use the grounds effectively. In history, we learned about migration and how we can understand migration by looking at artefacts which have been found by archaeologists. 

Week commencing 3 October

We really enjoyed our seed workshop this week as you can see in the pictures below. In English this week we've continued doing some fantastic story writing looking at vocabulary and speech to entertain the reader. We learned in history about women's roles in prehistory and how we know, looking at some evidence which was found by archaeologists which tells us that women also hunted! In Geography we learned about where people settle and why - our focus has been on Scandinavian countries and we looked at the capital cities which all sit on the coast. We had some great ideas for the reasons for this!

We really enjoyed our seed workshop with Chris and Rachel. We explored our school grounds to see what seeds and organisms we could find. We found lots of different seeds and mushrooms around the school grounds and they taught us all about them. It was great fun even though it was a bit soggy!

Week beginning 26th September

We are really enjoying our class novel Queen of Darkness by Tony Bradman and have been building our writing stamina this week along with our story telling strategies. We've learned noun phrases and this week have been trying to put adverbials into entertaining story sentences. This story links to our topic and it's been really interesting learning about another powerful Queen of our past. In history, we've been discussing how we know about the past and how we know what Leeds was like during the Iron Age and until the Romans invaded. We looked at a variety of photographs of discoveries in Yorkshire and tried to use clues to distinguish what the items were - there was a chariot, a piece of jewellery and even a Roundhouse not found too far from where we live!

Week beginning 19th September

Another busy week in Year 4 with lots of hard work revising old skills to develop new ones. We started our history topic, trying to develop an understanding of BC and AD and ordering events which have happened which link our topics from last year (the Stone Age) to the Iron Age we're learning this year. In maths, we've been looking at rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. We started by physically putting ourselves on number lines and moving ourselves to the nearest boundary before drawing number lines and then applying the rules of rounding. In English, we have been developing our understanding and accuracy of using fronted adverbials and adverbial phrases within sentences and at the start of sentences to add detail. In PE, we've really matured these past 3 weeks and use time effectively to practise new skills to achieve PBs. 

Week beginning 12 September

We've been reflecting on the influence of the Queen this week, understanding what the monarchy is and why we now have King Charles III due to the line of succession. We have had some very mature discussions and thought about things we might see change like money, the national anthem, stamps and even post boxes. 

In Maths, we have been estimating numbers on a number line to 10,000. At first, many of us found this quite tricky but we realised finding the mid-point of the number line and segmenting it into equal parts helped us to estimate where different numbers would be.

We enjoyed making a human number line and using our reasoning skills to explain why we had placed each number. We then challenged each other to place numbers on number lines with different start and finish numbers.

Week beginning 5th September

Firstly, I'd like to say a huge thank you to all Year 4 for their excellent attitudes and effort they've put in this week. If we keep this up I know we'll have a really successful year!

We've enjoyed doing art this week. Our class artist is David Hockney and we have been looking at perspective when sketching trees from one of his artworks. In maths, we have been revising part whole models for numbers into the thousands which we've all been super good at! In English we have been using Hockney's work to use as a stimulus to describe characters and settings using noun phrases. In PSHE on Friday, we discussed Queen Elizabeth II and her life. We also discussed King Charles III and we will do some more work on this next week. 

Below are some of the exciting memories that children who are currently in Year 4 have experienced since starting school.