Year 4 Learning Updates
Living Land @ Detling
As part of our topic - What makes our world wonderful? - Year 4 recently visited the Living Land experience at Detling Showground. It was a fantastic day out; the children were able to learn all about farming, sustainably sourced and locally grown food, a range of farm animals and also about several birds of prey. Below are some photos of our incredible day out!
Coronation Week
As part of our Coronation Week, Year 4 have really enjoyed finding out and learning all about King Charles III and the build-up to his coronation this weekend! We have loved learning all about his life and our decade: the 1970s. We spent the week learning about 1970's toys, music, technology and fashion. Woah - some of those jeans were baggy!
Check out some of the wonderful learning which took place this week below!
Professor Bubbleworks
During our final week in Term 4, Professor Bubbleworks came and paid us a visit as part of our Science week celebrations. Each class was lucky enough to have not one, but two activities with Professor Lucy - 1 assembly and 1 class workshop.
In our class workshops we focused on the theme of 'connections' and how this linked to many of our topics on electricity. It was so much fun learning all about the different types of electricity, how to stay safe when using it and so of the mind-blowing things that electricity can do!
D.T - Boki Enclosures
Port Lymph have been after our help! A family of brown bears have recently just had a new baby (Boki) at the zoo, but sadly his family are not accepting him. This can be a common occurrence with bears; sometimes the mother or father do not accept the new cub and casts them out. We have been designing and making new enclosures for Boki as part of a regional primary schools competition.
Next time you visit Port Lymph, look out for Boki's new enclosure, which may have elements in it that we helped design.
Catapults
Following on from our recent design technology work on Boki's enclosure, we tried our hand at designing and making catapults. This linked well with our previous work on the Romans, and will also feature when we study the Anglo-Saxons in Terms 5 and 6. It all started when we studied a range of catapult designs and structures and then used our previous knowledge of this to create basis which we built up into catapults. We had to make sure that our catapults were powerful as well as accurate. It was a lot of fun!
Learning about our world & website design
Over the past week or so in Year 4, we have been learning about the names of the different parts of our world and where they are located. Some of these included the Equator, Northern and Southern hemisphere and also the two tropics.
In Computing, we developed our skills in website design this week. Using Google Sites gave us the opportunity to use our USO to sign in, copy and paste pictures and text and also embed links to other websites that our users may find beneficial.
Kensuke's Kingdom - Discussion Writing
Since starting our new book this term - Kensuke's Kingdom - we have been gripped, page-by-page by the events in the story so far! We have spent the past 2 weeks discussing whether or not we think it is a good idea for Michael and his family to go sailing around the world on the Peggy Sue.
Here are some examples of our discussion text writing.
Year 4 Performance of 'Step Into Christmas'!
We really enjoyed singing this song for our 'Carols in the Hall' performance.
Christingle
The children in Year 4 really enjoyed making (and eating) their Christingles this week. The symbolic object, used in the Advent Christmas, was studied and discussed by all classes across the school which included finding out about where the Christingle originated, why it is used and what each of the different parts represent.
Roman Canterbury Museum
Towards the end of our Romans topic this term, Year 4 were lucky enough to spend the day in Canterbury visiting the Roman Museum, Beaney and library.
The museum gave us the opportunity listened to some expert historians who had a lot of knowledge about the Romans and ask them questions we had, look at and explore a range of artefacts from the past and also take part in some activities linked to what the Romans used to do.
In the Beaney, children were able to use their deduction and inference skills to study a range of artefacts from the Roman times and then work in small teams to predict what they might have been used for. This was a lot of fun (even if it was little tricky.)
Two local librarians sat us down in the library and read us some stories from the Roman times and also informed us about Roman law, punishment and food.
All in all, it was an excellent trip!
Pizza making
Our DT project this term focused on researching, planning, designing and making our own pizzas from scratch.
Needless to say, we really enjoyed the research (eating) part of this unit and the evaluation (eating) part of this unit too.
Here are some pictures of our journey from start to finish.
Protect Our Planet Day 2022
Year 4 became research scientists for the day as part of ‘Protect Our Planet’ Day 2022. To begin the day, they took part in two different virtual workshops: ‘Forests & Earth’ and ‘Ice & Oceans’. Whilst taking part in the workshops, they took notes about all the new information or things they found interesting – some even produced 4 whole pages!
They then read a book all about a polar bear and his melting environment, prompting us to set up a time-lapse experiment to see which temperatures melted the ice the quickest. We found that the warmer the environment, the quicker the polar bear’s land melted.
All in all, it was a great day of learning with lots of work produced!
Have a look at some of the ‘ChatterPics’ they created, our work and our time-lapse videos below.
The launching of our Reading Trees!
Our books arrived, were counted, checked and stamped and were ready to be placed on our Reading Tree shelves. No sooner had the children been shown the new books, they began flying off the shelves and into the childrens hands with covers quickly opened and stories, poems and facts were excitedly devoured!
Here are some pictures of the children enjoying and engaging with our brand new, highly recommended Year 4 texts.
Performing our Pompeii narrative poems
We have had so much fun over the past two weeks reading, writing and performing our kenning and narrative poems linked to our book - Escape From Pompeii.
Below are a selection of videos of us performing our poems in the city of Pompeii!
Pompeii Poetry
This week we have begun delving into the wonder that is poetry! The children started off by exploring a range of different kenning poems and then based their own written poems on the erupting Mount Vesuvius that sadly buried Pompeii many years ago. We cannot wait to start our work on narrative poetry next, but in the meantime here are a selection of kenning poems from across the 3 classes.
First Week
Wow! What a first week it has been already in Year 4!
The children have settled brilliantly at the start of the new school year and are already working incredibly hard. As well as establishing and getting used to new routines, the children are well underway with their lessons and learning.
Year 4 children have already completed their first Computing - Lego WeDo. It was fantastic to see the children demonstrating excellent problem solving and teamwork. Below are some photos of what the children made and some of the code they used to be successful.
On Friday, Fantastic Fred came to visit The Discovery School to talk to the children all about how to look after ourselves and our mental health.
F - Food
R - Rest
E - Exercise
D - Devices
Learning in 2021 -2022
Sports Day 2022!
The sun was shining, we had all practised our events on the run up to the big day, and it had finally arrived - Sports Day 2022! Year 4 had a fantastic morning demonstrating lots of the key skills and techniques across a range of events in front of a packed field of parents and supporters. The children all showed fantastic teamwork, cooperation and many of our school values as they rotated round a carousel of events and competed to their highest abilities. Thank you again if you managed to come along and cheer the children on.
Honeybread Making
As part of our work linked to the Anglo-Saxons, we explored some of the interesting delicacies they used to enjoy wat back then. Honeybread was popular and quite simple to make, which was a firm favourite with many Anglo-Saxon people. When looking at our instruction writing unit, we thought it would be a great idea to make and write a recipe for honeybread and try it out for ourselves.
Here are some pictures showing how we got on.
Jubilee Week
Our final week in Year 4 for Term 5 has been an incredibly busy, yet fun week where we had the opportunity to learn all about the Queen, her coronation and the Jubilee celebrations that will take place to mark her 70 years on the throne.
Some of our activities this week have included: exploring all decade of the 1970's and learning all about the Queen, designing commemorative coins to mark the Queen's Jubilee, finding out all about how and when the decimalisation of money came about, looking at all things fashion during the 70's , which included studying how body image and styles have changed over the past 50 years, researching and practising the art of tie-dying and finally making a Jubilee clay tile using skills including scratching, joining and blending What a week!
To round off the week, we had a delicious whole-school lunch on the field on Friday followed by each class singing a song from their decade and some special performances from the KS1 and KS2 choirs.
Below are some pictures of our week.
Kensuke's Kingdom has been a book that we cannot put down at the moment! We have loved reading the story so far in Guided Reading and also using the characters and settings to inspire us to create some of our own creative writing. Here are some of our character descriptions for Kensuke. Look out for our setting descriptions of the beach and jungle next week!
Ukulele updates
Year 4 are now well into the swing of our weekly ukulele lessons and are currently working on a few songs, which we are hoping to be able to perform for the school at the end of the term. Watch this space for any more picture updates or video clips in preparation for our performance.
All things Term 4 and 5!
Year 4 were incredibly busy at the end of Term 4 and have been for the beginning of Term 5 across all areas of the curriculum! We have been enhancing our knowledge and skills from finding alternative ways to generate power and electricity, to mastering our skills in football, learning about states of matter and how these can be changed, to working with a partner and a group to create expressive and sleek gymnastic balance routines.
Bubbleworks
In preparation for Science week at The Discovery School, The Bubbleworks came to visit us and demonstrated some of the many wonders of Science. We learnt all about what is needed to make fire, how important oxygen is, upthrust and how fun bubbles can be!
Here we are in action:
Learning Updates
Today we began our new and exciting text - Kensuke's Kingdom. The children really enjoyed our stunning start to the new English and reading topic, which included learning all about Japanese calligraphy writing and how to make interesting animals and objects using origami.
Here are some pictures of our activities today:
Pizza Making in Design Technology
As part of our design technology work this term, Year 4 got busy creating, making and evaluating pizzas! The children began by discussing and reflecting on their knowledge of pizzas, including what they liked and didn't like, to help them make informed choices about their topping selections. They then went on to learn key skills and techniques when it came to making their dough from scratch and also preparing a range of toppings which included: cutting, grating and peeling.
Kent Fire Safety Visit
We were very lucky this week when a member of the Kent Fire and Rescue team came to visit The Discovery School and educated us about fire safety and also about what to do should a fire arise in the building or house you are in. We got to watch a video about the importance of a fire escape plan, talk about what to do when a fire breaks out and ask questions about keeping ourselves and others safe.
Christingle
On Tuesday 14th December, the Discovery School all took part in a whole-school Christingle service. We began by learning all about what the Christingle is, then we watched a lovely assembly with Reverend Montgomery who explained what each of the parts of the Christingle represent and why we remember at this time of year. The choir also treated us to some beautiful singing, which the children joined in with.
Kent Life
As part of our new topic on the Romans and what they brought to Britain, Year 4 were lucky enough to visit Kent Life to learn more about this. It was a fun-filled and action-packed day where each class took part in 3 workshops - meeting Boudica, meeting a Roman soldier and learning about Roman technology. We will be using this new knowledge to help us with lots of our work this term and also to help us answer our Big Question!
We learnt all about Roman life and how this has helped shape our world today.
Here are some pictures of what we got up to on our trip:
Exploring pneumatics!
The fantastic 'Leon and the Place Between' gave use the inspiration and ideas for learning all about pneumatics in D.T. First we learnt all about what pneumatics are, where we can see and use them in our everyday lives and then explored the science behind how they work. After investigating our own mini pneumatics, we turned our simple, ordinary shoe boxes into magical and mysterious worlds with a moving pneumatic part.
Here are a few pics of us in action!
Little People Big Dreams inspired work in English
In our final week of Term 1, the children in Year 4 have been incredibly busy with their learning!
After reading a range of biographies based on several famous people from around the world, we learnt all about what makes a biography engaging and interesting for readers. We then applied the skills we learnt about biographical writing in our English lessons into our own similar style of writing.
Completing and publishing our 'This Is Me' biography booklets based on the fantastic 'Little People Big Dreams' series is something all the children can't wait to share with with their grown-ups when we return back to school.
Drama! Drama! Drama!
On Friday, Year 4 were luck enough to have a local drama specialist visit each class to teach us all about how to be an effective performer and what it takes to be great on stage!
The children took part in a range of short activities ranging from acting, speaking and listening. Here are a few snaps of us in action.
All of the pupils were also given a short monologue sheet at the end of the session to take home, whereby they choose one short speaking part to practice and then deliver this next time our drama visitor is back in school.
