Year 4

Welcome to Year 4 2023-24 with Mr Flory, Mrs Jones and Mrs Ten Broeke.

We would encourage you to keep an eye on these pages as we like to share aspects of the children’s learning and experiences from Maple and Oak classes.

6th February 2024 - DT

Having compared two different bridges and researched their properties, the children have turned their focus to pavilions and what makes a strong structure.  Investigating different types of structures and how to make them sturdy was a sweet task, as pictured!

11th December 2023 - Art

Alongside their history topic on the Egyptians, Year 4 composed their own Egyptian portraits, paying particular attention to tone, shading and pattern.

6th October 2023 - DT (Food)

Year 4 have been busy becoming biscuit designers in DT. They tasted existing biscuits then designed their own to suit a 'brief'. They had great fun making the biscuits, mixing and kneading the dough before adding flavours, colours and extra ingredients. 

Y4 DT Biscuits Oct 23

19th September 2023 - Electricity

Y4 have been learning all about what makes a successful circuit within their Science lessons. Today, they were adding a switch within circuits in order to turn a light bulb on and off. 

2022-2023

23rd June 2023 - Wessex water Trip

What a fabulous day we had! A tour of the water treatment works, finding out about all the cleaning processes water goes through before it comes out of our taps followed by a walk around the reservoir. In the afternoon, we made dens in the shade and explored the river, pond dipping.

15th May 2023 - Engineers (DT)

Year 4 became pizza chefs as they created their own pizza, which they had designed.  They used various skills and techniques including kneading, chopping, slicing and spreading.  The smell was amazing and we are reliably informed that they tasted "out of this world!"

29th March 2023 - Chepstow Castle

Year 4 had a wonderful time exploring Chepstow Castle. What a fantastic end to our enquiry, "Who has stood here before us?".  A huge thank you to Neil Eddiford, Historical Interpreter, who led the tour and provided detailed, expert knowledge. 

24th January 2023 - Electricians!

 

24th November 2022 - Musicians

Year 4 had a visit from Ben from Stage Electrics & the Great Western Youth Theatre to demonstrate how electric and bass guitars can make different sounds based on the thickness and length of the strings. Ben entertained the children with songs and musical sequences and answered their questions. It was great opportunity for the children to experience a real musician and the joy music can bring, as one child said, ‘this is really cool!’  

14th October 2022 - End of Enquiry 1!

In their first term in Year 4, Maple and Oak classes have been answering the enquiry, “Why do we live here?”.  This enquiry has taken us across the globe as Historians and Geographers, as well as Artists and Athletes.  They have considered why people have settled where they do and what features influenced their decisions.  Along this journey, they have created One Point Perspective Art and choreographed dances with Egyptian influences.

2021-22

1st July 2022 - Volcanoes!

YAY! We finally began erupting our fabulous volcanoes! The children have spent weeks in small groups creating their volcanoes out of papier mache. They then painted them using various designs. Today, we combined vinegar, red food colouring and bicarbonate of soda to cause the eruptions. What an explosive end to Year 4!

Y4 Volcanoes 2022

 28th June 2022 - Wessex Water Trip

Year 4 had a very interesting and informative visit to Wessex Water. They took part in three activities – a tour of the water treatment works, river walk/dam building and reservoir/nature walk. 

The tour of the water treatment works gave us  an understanding of how water is taken from the environment (rivers/reservoir) and cleaned to provide healthy water in their homes.
On the river walk, the children had the fun of carrying out river profiling and dam building.
The reservoir/nature walk demonstrated the importance and the responsibility Wessex Water has to protect the abundance of wildlife around the reservoir.

The children had a wonderful time, learnt lots and were a credit to Mary Elton!

29th March 2022 - Egyptian WOW day!

The children came dressed in Egyptian costumes to take part in WOW activities throughout the day.

They became mummification apprentices and followed the Ancient Egyptian process to mummify REAL sardines, they worked collaboratively to recreate Howard Carter finding Tutankhamun's tomb in the 'Reconstruction Relay' challenge and they used 3D shape nets to build their own pyramids/Queens/Kings. 

They also learned how to make and play the Ancient Egyptian board game - Senet and how to 'walk like an Egyptian!' 

They ended the day eating the Egyptian delicacy of bread and honey whilst watching the Prince of Egypt.

18th March 2022 - 'My job is ...' parent talk!

We were lucky enough to have our second 'my job is' presentation from one of our parents. This time, Julie Swann from Swann Fit came to tell us all about being a personal trainer. She answered our thoughtful questions as well as gave us a workout that definitely put us through our paces!

My job is ... Year 4 Mrs Swann Visit

 17th March 2022 - British Science Week LIVE lesson

We attended a 'Climate Change Superheroes' LIVE lesson with the NFU as part of British Science week. They introduced us to a dairy farmer, who is trying to reduce the impact of the methane produced by her cows by feeding them seaweed. We also looked at some SHOCKING statistics on food waste and came up with some brilliant ideas on how to reduce this in our homes.

4th March 2022 - 'My job is ...' parent talk!

We were very lucky to have Mrs Palmer in today to talk to us about being a nurse. She also brought in some of her kit to let us have a look at e.g. stethoscope. sphyg, pulse ox etc. We were able to see some of this in action - don't worry, Miss Brown's blood pressure and Mr Flory's eyes were ok! 

'My job is ...' parent talk to Y4

10th February 2022 - Science Double Page Spread!

As part of our Science topic 'Eating and Digestion', we have been learning all about teeth. We learnt about the different types of teeth and what they are used for and also how to maintain teeth hygiene. We put all of our knowledge into our fantastic double page spreads!

14th January 2022 - Egyptian Workshop

Ali, an infant and SEN teacher, who has been studying Egyptology since 1999, provided our Y4 children with the most fantastic Egyptology day! The children were able to think like an Egyptologist - encouraged to share the facts they already know about ancient Egypt, and consider where these facts come from.

First, they became scribes and got stuck into hieroglyphs! They had a go at cracking some codes to find out how the language works. They also found out how to make themselves into royalty by reading and writing some Pharaonic titles.

During our Ancient Numeracy session, the children were encouraged to think about their own number system before moving on to look at Egyptian numbers with a game of ancient bingo. They learnt how to translate both small and huge numbers. They also took part in a pyramid building maths challenge.

In the afternoon, it was time for Mythology and Mummies! Ali introduced us to Gods, goddesses and a gory tale about the first ever mummy that set the scene as we looked at mummification. We found out which of the gooey body bits were removed with our mummification ‘mucky dip’, and got creative with clay to make a heart scarab amulet that the Egyptians believed would guarantee that you pass the test to safely enter the afterlife. If this wasn't enough … Ali also brought some real ancient Egyptian artefacts for the children to get up close to! 

Y4 Egyptian Workshop Jan 2022

4th October 2021 - Science (Sound)

Y4 investigated how sound waves are created when sounds make vibrations in the air. Their voices vibrated the air inside the cup, which were then transferred to the bottom of the cup. The bottom of the cup then passed the sound waves to the string, and on to the other cup. They found out that you can hear surprisingly far using a string telephone! 

They also found out that if the string is kept tight, the sound waves will travel. If the string is loose, the sound is less. This is because the lose string causes the vibrations to travel all around rather than directly down the string. They experimented with different lengths of string, types of string, and types of cups to see which produced the best sound over the longest distance. 

27th September 2021 - Story boxes!

We are so proud of Year 4! Not only did they create such beautiful story boxes but they also each gave a fantastic presentation to recommend the chosen book to us! Here are photos of a selection of the boxes.