Year 4 – Chestnut Class
What We’ve Been Up To This Term
Who were the Romans?
Through our key text The Romans: Gods, Emperors and dormice by Marcia Williams, we are diving into the Ancient Roman world this term and will be exploring the topic through myths writing, mosaic art and history.
Books your child could read at home:
- Ancient Myths Collection by Geraldine McCaughrean
- Roman Diary by Richard Platt
- Empire’s End – A Roman Story by Leila Rasheed
- Romans on the Rampage by Jeremy Strong
What are we doing at the moment?
Chestnut Class has been learning about living things and their habitats in their local and wider environment via poetry, science and art during this half term. Through exploring poetry and the language of character and setting description, they have imagined the creatures they have found and composed their own poems based on the writing frame of A Small Dragon. They also had the opportunity to visit our school garden to discover and gather plants which they used to build their tree artwork, as well as combine the technique of continuous line drawing and thoughtful art marking to sketch the unique characteristics of different animals. In our Science lessons, children have been learning about grouping vertebrates and invertebrates and developing classification keys. Later in the rest of the half term, they will go on an invertebrate hunt in our school ground and learn to give a persuasive presentation on protecting endangered species in the UK.
Autumn Term 1 – Chestnut Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core poems Overheard on a Saltmarsh by Harold Monroe and A Small Dragon by Brian Patten. They will build vocabulary from the text and produce a story map of events in the poems. They will consider character descriptions designed to capture the readers’ interest and imagination and examples of descriptive language that explain the mood or atmosphere they create. The children will be given the opportunity to create their own poems. They will also be encouraged to evaluate the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing through drafting, revision and proofreading. The learning will involve direct speech and dialogues, expanded noun phrases, identifying synonyms, and creative writing. In addition, the children will review strategies for spelling words from Y3/4 statutory spelling list alongside root words with prefixes and suffixes, homophones and tricky words.
Maths
The children will begin by spending time on numbers within a 1,000 to ensure they are secure on this knowledge before moving into 10,000. As we move through the autumn term we will spend a little more time on addition and subtraction making sure children can add any 2 and 3 digit numbers, before moving into 4 digit numbers. We will look at content the children may have missed at the end of Y3, particularly on metric units and conversion between them. Finally we will end the term focusing on Roman Numerals.
RE
The children will consider the key question ‘what do Christians learn from the creation story?’ The children will make clear links between Genesis and what Christians believe about God and Creation. They will be encouraged to ask questions and suggest what might be important in the creation story for Christians living today and for people who are not Christian.
Science
We will be focusing on the living things and their habitats. We will be learning about animal classification, identifying species, environmental changes and what possible dangers this may pose to living things and their habitats. The key focus includes setting up practical enquiries, gathering and recording data, using scientific language, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts and tables to inform findings and reports. They will have the opportunity to work scientifically to present their results including oral presentations and written explanations. The children will draw conclusions, make predictions and implications, and suggest improvement for future investigations.
PE
The children will be developing their ball skills with particular attention to dribbling, passing and defending. Control and accuracy will be the focus for the sessions with a view to exploring different strategies for attacking and defending in games.
PSHE
The children will be learning about families and friendships both online and in person. They will recognise what a ‘safe friendship’ is and how to respond to hurtful behaviour.
Art/ DT
The children will explore a project called Dragons & Birds in Eggs: Hidden and Revealed. This will combine drawing, printmaking and collage and introduces ideas about what we reveal and what we keep secret. They will then move on to apply this and explore new techniques with wax and coloured inks.
Autumn Term 2 – Chestnut Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core text The Romans: Gods, Emperors and dormice by Marcia Williams. By using card games, role-play, school reports and poem writing, the children will deepen their understanding of the Roman Myths. Further reading of the Ancient Myths Collection by Geraldine McCaughrean, will give children the opportunity to use varied and figurative language including similes and metaphors to create a myths of there own. We will continue to use conjunctions, develop the use of expanded noun phrases and use multi-clause sentences. We will continue to focus on Y4 spelling patterns.
Maths
The children will be developing their knowledge in relation to length, perimeter, multiplication and division facts. The children will learn to measure and compare lengths of different objects, calculate the perimeter of rectilinear shapes in m, cm and mm. They will also learn to recall and apply multiplication and division facts for times tables up to 9×9. They will deepen their knowledge of how to multiply by 10 and 100. They will also learn to multiply two-digit and three-digit numbers by one digit. There will be word challenge s to focus on reasoning and problem solving questions to develop mastery in problem solving.
RE
The children will be considering the key question ‘What is it like to follow God?” They will read selected stories from the children’s Old and New Testament Bible texts, including the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and Abraham. The children will make clear links between the story of Noah and the idea of covenant. They will also make simple links between promises in the story of Noah and promises that Christians make at a wedding ceremony. They will link the story of Noah and how we live in school and the wider world.
History
Our topic of the Romans will enable the children to discover the might of the Roman Empire and its lasting impact on Britain. By learning about Julius Caesar, Hadrian’s Wall, Boudica and the Romanisation of Britain, the children will develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of the Roman period. They will focus on what the Romans did for us, the reason why the Roman army was so successful in war, the value of a gladiator and how they would fight for entertainment against wild animals and famous Romans.
PE
The children will focus on developing their football skills. They will learn to control the ball with body parts including catching and throwing, as well as close control, passing and receiving, striking and team attacking and defending games.
PSHE
The children will be considering their families and the people who care for them. They will also learn to understand the importance of relationships within families and understand that not all families look the same. They will develop their understanding about their brain by considering the cognitive and emotional parts of our brain, and how this may affect our daily self-emotional regulation. By understanding this, children will learn to express their emotions and know whom to talk to if they need support.
Art
The children will have the opportunity to experience the artistic aspect of the Roman world by designing and creating their own unique piece of mosaic. In DT, we will be designing and making working models of Roman weapons.
Music
This term children will be introduced to the timeless pop songs of the 70’s/80’s by listening to and appreciating the hit music of ABBA. We will focus on analysis of the performance by listening to the songs and using appropriate musical language when responding.
French
The children will be exploring the topics of greetings and names, family, numbers and age. The children will increase in confidence, and have the opportunity to learn about other cultures.
Autumn Term 2 – Chestnut Class
English
The children’s learning will be linked to the core text The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Michael Morpurgo. Vocabulary will be a central focus with children discussing how language reflects the cultural, social and historic setting, and creates the atmosphere of the story. T. They will identify patterned language in poetry and explain its effect on the reader. They will analyse characters’ speech and actions in the story to understand feelings, thoughts, and motives. They will explore how the writer encourages the reader to empathise with the characters. In their creative writing, the focus will be on paragraph planning, plot structure, direct speech and dialogues, fronted adverbials (to show how, when or where something happened), expanded noun phrases, identifying synonyms, proof-reading and editing, and handwriting. The children will create a diary entry.
Maths
The children will be applying multiplication and division facts for times tables up to 12×12. They will practise solving problems involving multiplying and adding, including using the distributive law to multiply two-digit and three-digit numbers by one digit. They will count in multiples of 6, 7, 9, 25 and 1,000 and will use place value, known and derived facts to multiply and divide mentally, including: multiplying by 0 and 1, dividing by 1, multiplying together 3 numbers. They will also learn to recognise and use factor pairs and commutativity in mental calculations.
RE
The children will be considering the key question “When Jesus left, what was the impact of Pentecost?” To do this they will read Bible texts including sections of the Acts of the Apostles. They will be encouraged to make links between the idea
of the Church as a body, the fruit of the Spirit, and the Kingdom of God, and how Christians live in their whole lives and in their church communities.
of the Church as a body, the fruit of the Spirit, and the Kingdom of God, and how Christians live in their whole lives and in their church communities.
Science
Our topic is Sound. The children will listen to a variety of different types of music and discuss likes and dislikes. They will learn what is meant by the pitch and volume of a sound. We shall identify how different sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating. We shall explore how vibrations from sounds travel through the medium to the ear. The children will also have the opportunity to create music that would “dazzle the rats/make the children follow/send the town councillors to sleep” in The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
PE
The children will be developing their communication and collaboration skills and how to evaluate and recognise their own success.
PSHE
The children will be considering how important it is to be respectful of others even when they are different to them. We will discuss and consider the ideas of courtesy and manners. They will think about the importance of self-respect and how this links to their own happiness.
DT
The children create a telephone and will also design and make a musical instrument.
