WELCOME TO YEAR 4 KINGFISHERS

Kingfishers are resourceful, hardworking and as the oldest children in the Year 3/4 team, we also bring vibrancy and imagination to our daily learning. 

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

P.E. and Dance are on Tuesdays.

HOME LEARNING DAYS

Home Learning will be set every Friday and expected to be returned by the following Wednesday.
 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Music Trip:

Friday 9th July

Sports Day:

Wednesday 21st July

Summer Term

Science and Design Technology (16.7.21)

We've loved all of our Science learning throughout Year 4. In this past term, we have investigated what is necessary for an electrical circuit to work, discovered conductors and insulators of electricity and created circuits to power our robots. In Design Technology, we have created technical drawings to design our robots, thought about how we can reinforce materials and used 2D nets to make 3D shapes for our robots.The class have also been learning about how sound is made, how we hear sound and what changes when the volume and pitch of ansound changes.

Music trip to Lupton House (9.7.21)

Wow! We had an amazing time this morning at the event run by the music education hub. We danced, we signed, we played instruments, we sung and we did a bit of rapping too! Great fun had by everyone!

2.7.21 - Home Learning

For home learning this week, please use the words in your home learning books and the music that can be found using these links to learn the songs ready for our trip next Friday.

https://www.devonyouthorchestras.org/devon-day 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEeaS6fuUoA 

Calling all Year 4 Scientists  - Home Learning                                                           11.6.21

As we continue our theme of #ExploreMore, we’d like you to be scientists for home learning this week!

Look at the picture below – It’s a picture of sprinkles on top of a piece of cling film which has been stretched across the top of a bowl.

Predict

What do you think will happen when someone hums right next to it? Write down your prediction.

Observe

Watch this video of the experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoeDI-YkzI0 (This link can be found on your class page on the school website)

Explain

Write or draw what you saw. Can you explain it using scientific language that we’ve been thinking about this week?

11.6.21

It's been an exciting first week back following half term for Kingfishers. The children have applied their knowledge about electrical circuits to their DT project and managed to get their robot bases to travel across the floor. We've then made a start on our last science unit of the year and begun learning about an incredible musician called Evelyn Glennie. 

20.5.21

Adventure! We have certainly been adventuring this week! On Tuesday, we completed our last of 5 swimming lessons. Yesterday, we had a great time learning paddleboarding and sea-safety skills and today, many of us have faced another new challenge of indoor wall climbing. It's been an incredible week of facing fears, pushing ourselves to try new things, and persevering when its felt tough. It's also been a lot of fun!!

13.5.21

Kingfishers have continued our learning of Spanish this week as we've continued to read, speak and write about our families and animals. The children have also made a great start to our new writing journey looking at poetry. 

7.5.21

Another busy week for the Kingfishers class! This week we've been learning about decimals and apply knowledge from our fractions unit to recognising tenths. On Friday we went outside to show what happens to 1 and 2 digit numbers when we divide them by 10. In Art, the children have been learning about the impressionist artist, Claude Monet. They have learnt about his life and the impressionist movement and had a go at recreating elements of some of Monet's paintings. 

30.4.21

What a great week we have had this week! In Music, we tried to compose short pieces of music, thinking about the use of step motion (scales), jump motion (arpeggios) and repetition. We've created some pieces of music and we're going to move on to thinking how we could use notation as instructions for someone else to play our music. 

Spring Term

Science (16.3.21)

As we continue to think about electricity, we were able to attempt building circuits to light a bulb or make a motor or buzzer work. The children acted out an electrical circuit, understanding that it needs to be a complete circuit in order for it to work. 

Welcome back!! (12.3.21)

Kingfishers have enjoyed being back together this week - it's been so lovely to see everyone's smiley faces in the same room again! We've spent some time considering how we and others might be feeling about coming back to school while then launching straight into our learning about fractions, World War Two, Electricity and much more. In our geography and history lessons, the children have been comparing our current situation in comparison with evacuees in World War Two and will be writing a diary next week as though they are evacuees. 

Autumn Term

This term, we will celebrate our dreams and aspirations by ultimately creating a picture book that captures what ‘free to be me’ means to us. We will recognise that life isn’t plain-sailing and we may need to overcome barriers but that no characteristic (including race, religion and gender) within us should limit us. 

Christmas dinner day! (17.12.20)

It was a truly great day today! A lot of fun was had as we celebrated making it to the end of a term in which the children have had to adapt to different ways of doing things. Kingfishers have been brilliant throughout and have tried so hard all term with their learning. Super proud of them all!

Christmas Art (14.12.20)

Wow! What an achievement! The children have been remembering the story that Christians celebrate at Christmas through assemblies and lessons. We've then combined our learning in Art about tone and concentric circles to create these wonderful pictures to represent the nativity. What a result!

Spark of Brahman (27.11.20)

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about how Hindus understand What God is like. We learnt the story of Svetaketu and how salt in water is similar to what Hindus believe about Brahman -he might be invisible but he is in everything. We learnt about 'atman' -the spark of Brahman that is in every created thing and reflected on whether this would make us treat people differently if we believed it too. We thought about how we can treat others as though they are special and how we can treat ourselves as special.

States of Matter (20.11.20)

In Year 4, we have started looking at different states of matter. The children have successfully classified solids and liquids and described their properties. Yesterday we investigated gases and enjoyed listing the gases that we are aware of! The class carried out a couple of investigations to explain how we know gases are there even when we can't see them. One of those was trying to squash a bottle with the lids tightly on - it turns out the bottles weren't empty after all!!

Our muscles are learning too! (13.11.20)

We may be in a national lockdown but Kingfishers have been out, unlocking their muscles! For the next four weeks, we are working on fitness and strength as we complete some circuits. Each week we'll count how many of each activity we can complete in 30 seconds and hope that by week 4, we can do more than we could in week 1! Every single member of the class has worked their hardest  this week and are looking forward to seeing how the next 3 weeks go. 

Clear targets (6.11.20)

We've had a great first week back after half term. Kingfishers have come back to get stuck straight into converting between different units of measurement and have been learning about the impact of Harvey Milk on the world. On Thursday, we had the opportunity to learn some new skills in Archery. We discovered how to hold the bow and arrow properly, how to aim well at our targets and of course, how to remain safe throughout.

Living Things (16/10/20)

Wow! This week, Kingfishers have worked really hard on all of their learning. In Maths we've been covering addition and subtraction with exchanging of values. In writing, together we've been coming up with a class version of the story of Salwe. In Guided Reading sessions, all groups have started reading a fiction book and have had the opportunity to discuss them with adults almost every day. In Science, the class have been coming to the end of their science unit on Living Things and have created posters to demonstrate what they have learnt about. Theyve discovered the impact of climate change, urbanisation, deforestation, single-use plastic and intensive farming.

Salwe (9.10.20)

This week we completed a short Geography and History journey finding out elements of the African slave trade from the late 1500s to the early 1800s. The class were fascinated by the conditions slaves faced, particularly on the voyage from Africa to the Americas.) we then started our new writing journey looking at the story of Salwe, a young black girl who is called names for her dark skin. 

Exploring local habitats (2.10.20)

This week we have continued looking at our science unit of Living Things. We've considered the natural habitats we have in our school grounds and the ares we most love to spend time. We considered a (fictional) letter about the possibility of new climbing equipment in the school grounds but at the expense of the living things that inhabit the woodlands area. The class could recognised the value of living things -both plants and animals -and agreed that ruining the natural habitats would be unfair to the living creatures living there.

"Girls shouldn't be allowed on the field at break and lunch times." (25.9.20)

This is the statement the class have been considering this week. Having been reading Bill's New Frock (Anne Fine) in which Bill discovers how differently girls and boys can be treated we decided to explore how gender might affect they way we experience life. The whole class had the opportunity to write a discursive text to consider the different points of view and they've all done it brilliantly! We've recognised gender shouldn't stop us from being free to be ourselves. 

In Maths, we've played a lot of games to consolidate our understanding of place value for up to 4 digit numbers. This included a game of Top Trumps in which the children ordered a set of very swish looking cars based on their engine sizes. 

Beginning our Year 4 Science (18.9.20)

Another great week getting stuck into our Year 4 learning. This week we have Refreshed our minds of some of our Year 2 Science, remembering the seven characteristics of living things. We went outside to find some living things and write about how we knew it was living. We also began our second writing journey of the year as we considered the statement "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on the field at break and lunch times." There was some passionate debate and we started to look at how to present this in a discursive text.

Welcome back to Kingfishers! (11.9.20)

It's been so great to have everyone back to school this week! In Kingfishers, we've got off to a great start. The class have done brilliantly at consolidating on their place value knowledge and taking on rounding for the first time. Leading up to Roald Dahl day on Sunday (13th), we've been reading The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me and thinking about why they work so well as a team. We've started to think about the the amazing talents, skills and personalities we each have and how we can help our learning partner by working as a team. In PE, we've begun learning indoor cricket and in Dance we've started learning about African dance.