WELCOME TO YEAR 4 KITES

Kites are powerful, yet graceful creatures and journey through life with a strong sense of togetherness. As the oldest of the lower key stage two, our class feel passionately about working together as a team and helping those around us. 

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

P.E. and Dance are on Tuesdays.

Please ensure that your child has the correct kit in school all week. We will ensure that they are sent home at the end of every half term.

HOME LEARNING DAYS

Home Learning will be handed out on a Friday and collected in on a Wednesday. This will give you the opportunity to explore aspects of your child's learning if you wish.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Kites Swimming Lessons:

Tuesday 20th April

Tuesday 27th April

Tuesday 4th May

Tuesday 11th May

Tuesday 18th May

Kites Reach Outdoors Sessions:

Thursday 29th April

Thursday 6th May

For Reach Outdoors sessions, please ensure your child has swimwear to be worn under a wetsuit and a towel for drying afterwards. 

Parents Evening:

Monday 17th May and Thursday 20th May

#Explore More Science Fair:

Wednesday 7th July

Sports Day:

Wednesday 21st July

MEET THE TEAM

SUMMER TERM

Friday 9th July 2021 - Summer Sounds

On Friday morning, Year 4 headed to Lupton House for a morning of music inspired by sounds from Brazil and Colombia. We loved moving our bodies to the music and using our shakers to keep to the samba rhythm. It was such a delight to see the children so engaged. I'm so proud of you Kites, we are very lucky to have you at White Rock Primary School.

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 

Friday 18th June 2021 - Science

This week, Kites have continued learning about how sound is made. We have built upon last week's learning, where we discovered sound is created by vibrations, to test out our knowledge by making string telephones. Once we had made our string telephones with our learning partners, we tested them out. We has set instructions such as tie a knot in the string, to find out if there were any changes to the sounds we heard. We discovered that sound travelled best when the string was taut. Well done Kites for being so engaged with your learning and remember to keep asking questions about our amazing world!

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?

Friday 11th June 2021 - PSHE

It's been a jam-packed first week back following half-term for Kites. We have started our new learning journey finding out about the incredible musician, Evelyn Glennie. As part of our PSHE learning, we explored our differences and celebrated how we are all unique, from the colour of our hair, to our hobbies and our families. It was great finding out even more about each other! Check out our learning below: 

Friday 21st May 2021 - Writing

This week, we have immersed ourselves in poetry. We can now write both a Tanka and a Didactic Cinquain poem. We all had a go at performing our poems to each other too! Did you know Tanka poems are a Japanese style of poetry and must be 31 syllables? Check out some of Kites' children reading their Tanka or Didactic Cinquain poems aloud (as well as the background noise, who knew Y4 opened and closed doors so frequently?!)

Friday 14th May 2021 - Music

Wow Kites, what another busy week of Year 4 learning! On Thursday, we dusted off the xylophones and glockenspiels and had a go at composing our very own short pieces of music. Firstly, we looked at the c major scale and learnt that a scale is 8 notes called an octave. We then learnt about the use of step motion (scales), jump motion (arpeggios) and repetition of the c major scale and adapted our compositions to include some of these. Next week, we're going to move on to thinking how we could use notation as instructions for someone else to play our music. Well done Kites!

Friday 7th May - Art

For our Art journey this term, we're studying Claude Monet and his influence within Art with a focus on impressionism. This week, we've been studying his style, techniques, inspiration and composition. We then evaluated some of Monet's most famous pieces by commenting feelings towards it and critiquing the artistic choices within paintings. Have a look at our sketchbooks below: 

Friday 30th April 2021 - Paddle boarding with Reach Outdoors

On Thursday, we had a very fun morning at Goodrington sands. We pulled on our wetsuits, slid on our buoyancy vests and buckled up our safety helmets as we plunged into the sea for a fantastic morning of paddle boarding and surfing back to shore on the waves.  Check out our photographs below:

Friday 23rd April 2021

This week, we have started our new learning journey based on Ted Hughes' Iron Man. We created our own Iron Man-inspired character. Next, we had a go at writing the opening in the style of Hughes using descriptive devices to describe our character to the reader. Then, we up-levelled our writing by using fronted adverbials, embedded clauses, up-levelled adjectives and varied sentences. Check out some of our Writing below:

Thursday 1st April 2021 - Cooking

To celebrate the end of our topic learning about WW2, we used our knowledge and understanding of instruction texts to follow a recipe to make delicious WW2 carrot cookies. We all had a role to play in making the cookies such as measuring the ingredients, mixing and separately the mixture evenly to make two cookies each. Check out our learning below:

Friday 26th March - Art

This week, we have started to create our cardboard sculptures of famous European landmarks. We have been inspired by our focus artists: Chris Gilmour, Tony Stagg and Ana Serrano to use specific techniques such as stacking. Check out our learning below, can you guess the landmarks?

Friday 19th March - Science

For our Science learning this week, we have been investigating how an electrical circuit works. We all had a go at making a simple circuit as well as pretending to be the electrons travelling through a circuit to help our understanding. In addition to this, we have learnt about the different types of electrical energy such as sound, light, heat and movement. Check out our learning below:

Friday 12th March - Maths

I've loved being back together with my team of amazing Kites' children, hearing your laughter and conversations with your friends has been wonderful. This week, we have started our new Math's topic - Fractions. You've all engaged so well with your learning, identifying a unit and non-unit fraction and you can all  represent these in multiple ways. Well done Kites, I'm so proud of you all and very excited about this Term's learning! Check out our Math's learning below:

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. 

Friday 18th December - Christmas activities

What a fun-filled week we have had in the lead up to the Christmas holidays- check out the pictures below for some of our Christmas artwork and the delicious White Rock Christmas Dinner we shared together as a class.

Well done for such a great Term where we have overcome many challenges together as a team. Keep being excited about the world around us and asking questions - I look forward to starting the Spring Term together on Monday 4th January 2021. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year Kites x 

Friday 11th December- Science

This week, Kites have been using their classifying and observational skills when investigating the three states of matter: Solids, liquids and gases. We have looked at the structure and properties of each state of matter. In addition to this, we have carried out lots of investigations to find out more about them. Firstly, we looked at gases. We tried to compress an 'empty' bottle with the lid on. We soon discovered it was not empty and in fact filled with invisible gas! Secondly, we looked at solids changing state into liquids. We recorded the temperature of our ice cubes and watched them melt into a liquid and again recorded the temperature. We now know the freezing point for water is below 0 degrees and the melting point for water is above 0 degrees. Fantastic Science learning Kites! 

Friday 4th December- Hinduism

This week, we have had an RE focus and have started to learn about Hinduism; building upon our knowledge from Year 3 when we learnt about Diwali. We now know that Hindus believe in a god called Brahman and that he is part of The Trimurti alongside Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva. We also learnt about 'atman'. Hindu's believe that everyone has a spark of Brahman (god) within them and atman is similar to our soul. We made our own models of a living thing using play dough and embedded a jewel inside it to represent atman. Check out our learning below!

Friday 13th November 2020 - Music 

In music this week, we have listened to the timeless pop classic by Abba - Mamma Mia! We listened to the music carefully to find the pulse. We then focussed on rhythm patterns and had a go at creating our own. Furthermore, we extended our music learning and have started to learn some musical theory. We now know that a crotchet is a one beat note and a quaver is a half beat note. We also know the notation for 1 beat rests and that tempo refers to the speed of the music. We had so much fun creating and performing our own music. Well done Kites!

Friday 6th November- Reach Outdoors

Wow, what a great week back at school we've had Kites! As always, you have shown great resilience and have adapted well to the changes both inside and outside of school during this National Lockdown period. 

This week, we got on our warm clothing and wellies and ventured out to the school field to learn archery with the brilliant Reach Outdoors team. 

Friday 16th October 2020- Maths

This week in Maths, we have been learning about the columnar method for subtraction. Kites worked amazingly with their learning partners to understand what happens when exchanging. We took it in turns to represent using place value counters and the columnar method. Miss Drohan had great fun scrubbing the tables ready for Lunchtime! 

Furthermore, Kites were incredible at their Spanish this week. Check out the Spanish page on our school website to see some of Kites' writing and speaking in Spanish!

Friday 9th October- Writing

This week, we have immersed ourselves in our new Year 4 text 'Sulwe'. Sulwe is a powerful, moving picture book about a young girl (Sulwe) whose skin is the colour of midnight. The text is about colourism, self-esteem and learning that true beauty comes from within.We created a story map to help us learn the structure of the text and to support us when retelling the story. Check out our learning below.

Friday 2nd October- PE 

This week, Kites have continued to develop their gross motor skills by learning the skills required to play indoor cricket. We have learned how to throw a ball as a bowler and expand our catching skills as a fielder. In addition, we have also developed our batsmanship. Great team work Kites!

Friday 25th September - Learning Journey and Maths 

This week, we've continued with our second writing journey of the year based around the text 'Bill's New Frock'. The book highlights how differently girls and boys can be treated through the main character, Bill. We decided to explore how gender might affect the way we experience life.  We considered the statement "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on the field at break and lunch times."  We shared our opinions as we responded to the statement and discussed how it made us feel. We we started to look at how to present this in a discursive text to consider the different points of view.  

On Friday, we consolidated our Math's learning of place value by a game of Top Trumps. Together, with our learning partner we had to order the cards in ascending order based on their weight (kg) before playing a game of Top Trumps with a focus on 4-digit numbers.

Fantastic learning this week Kites, you've all done brilliantly. 

Friday 18th September 2020- Maths​​​​​​ 

This week, we have been exploring numbers up to 10,000. We have used our place value knowledge to represent up to and including 4 digit numbers using resources. On Friday, we took our learning outside to create a human number line. We made headbands with a 3-digit number and 4-digit number on and together in our teams we ordered ourselves. Team B took an early lead and created a number line from 0-1,000 quickest. However, Team A turned things around and created their number line from 0-10,000 first. Well done Kites! 

Welcome back Kites - Friday 11th September

It's been so lovely to see you all back in school and what a first week we have had together. In Kites, we've been consolidating our place value knowledge and taking on rounding for the first time- you've all done amazingly! Leading up to Roald Dahl day on Sunday (13th), we've been reading 'The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me and reflecting on why they work so well as a team. We've started to think about our own amazing talents, skills and personalities that make us unique and how we can use these to work as a team with our learning partners. In Science, we have started learning about the seven life processes and used the acronym 'MRS NERG' to help us identify living things in our woodland. Check out our Science learning below!