Year 4

Y4 News 2024-2025

Y4 News - Spring 2

It has been another action-packed half term for Year 4! In English, the children have been writing discussion texts and debating a range of topics including ‘should pets be allowed in schools?’ and ‘should roads be built in protected Amazon rainforest areas in preparation for COP30? It has been fantastic to see such passionate responses to these topical questions.

The children ‘rocked out’ in our Rockstar day to celebrate their ‘TT Rockstars’ progress and work. As well as dressing like rock stars, the children took part in various times tables battles and games, continuing to build their knowledge and speed.

In Science, we have been wondering if we could cope without electricity for a day. This has involved thinking about electrical appliances, how they work and how they can be used safely. They have created circuits, explored which materials can conduct electricity and created their own electric quiz games using switches!

In Music, ukulele lessons have continued and the children also had an amazing percussion workshop, where they learned how to use everyday objects to create some incredible sounds and rhythms!

The children have been very engaged in our ‘journey of a raindrop’ topic in Geography. They have studied the water cycle and researched which countries do not have easy access to clean water. We have looked at the process of cleaning water and the children were amazed at the results when they created their own water filters, collecting natural materials from outside to use. They also gave passionate speeches about the main causes of water pollution and what we can do about it. Well done for another incredible term Year 4!

Y4 News - Spring 1

This term has been another busy term for Year 4, full of exciting new learning opportunities. The children worked extremely hard in English to create some exciting ‘character flaw’ tales, full of detailed character descriptions.

Our class novel ‘Home Ground’ explored the story of refugees joining football teams and lent itself to some very interesting discussions and questions.

In Science, the children have been investigating how sounds are made and which materials are best at insulating sounds. They have also been using musical instruments to explore changes in pitch and volume.
 

Year 4 have been really enjoying their weekly whole-class ukulele lessons provided by Buckinghamshire Music Service. They have been exploring pitch, rhythm, notation and learning how to play in time, as a group. It has been lovely to see the progress they have made.

In Geography they were exploring settlements, including how Buckingham has grown and developed over the last century. The children were excited to find places they recognised on the map, including Lace Hill Academy!

Y4 News - Autumn 2

The last half term was another busy and exciting one for Year 4. The children wrote some brilliant non-chronological reports and have been working very hard in maths on their multiplication and division work. We had our Victorian day, where the children experienced what it was like to be a child in the Victorian era. This included identifying real Victorian objects, roleplay, writing with ink and chalk and avoiding punishment from a very strict teacher! 
In Design Technology the children designed and made buggies, learning how to use kinetic energy to help the buggy move at speed. They all came up with amazingly original designs and enjoyed racing the buggies and evaluating their designs. 
In music the children worked very hard to improve their recorder playing skills, developing their knowledge of notation, rhythm and pitch. They performed a fantastic version of ‘Jingle Bells’ for Miss Biltcliffe at the end of term. Well done Year 4, you have had another fantastic half term!

Y4 News - Autumn 1

We have had a fantastic first half term in Year 4 full of exciting new learning opportunities. The children have produced some excellent descriptive writing in our ‘Defeat the monster’ stories. In science we have been investigating how to classify animals including going on an invertebrate hunt in our school environment. Music lessons have been exploring the origins of ‘rock and roll’ and the children have become experts at hand-jiving! We have also been learning about Hinduism in RE and they all did an amazing job of sharing their learning in our class assembly. We are incredibly proud of them all! Well done for a fantastic start to the year!

28.03.24

Frog invasion!

It all happened at around 8 on Tuesday. The Year 4 class at Lace Hill were rudely invaded by an army of frogs and lily pads. Still to this day Year 4 are very confused as to why this happened. Mr West, the year 4 teacher, reported, "I just don't understand why they invaded our classroom!"

The class have taken inspiration from the picture book ‘Tuesday’ by David Wiener. 



Year 4 interviewed an old lady, a local resident and Detective North who works for the local police station. 

The children explored the difference between open and closed questions and how these can be used to write quotations to help with their newspaper articles.

In science we have been learning how to keep safe around electricity and in computing we have been learning about what AI and machine learning is. 

31.01.24

In Year 4 this term we have enjoyed finishing our character flaw stories. We really enjoyed sharing these with Year 5. In maths we have been working hard on applying our knowledge of times tables to answer multiplication and division questions. In reading we enjoyed learning about refugees in our class novel 'Home Ground' and are now reading 'The Firework makers daughter'. 

In art this time we have been learning about sculptures. We understand that sculptures can be made by different materials and we use skills such as carving, modelling, casting or constructing. So far we have made, soap sculptures, wire sculptures and shadow art. 

08.12.23

What a whirlwind this half term has been! We have been so busy in Year 4. 

In reading we loved exploring The Butterfly Lion. We had so much fun making predictions and trying to connect all the dots in the book. We have now moved onto Dead Good Detectives - another Jenny Mclachlan book which we enjoying so much! The children have been spotting patterns and similarities with the previous novel - The Land of Roar. Our passion for reading has really come to fruition this term and we can't wait to carry on exploring different books!

In maths, we have been learning our times tables and the children should now be practicing all of their times tables. In writing we continue with the mythical creature theme and wrote non-chronological reports about dragons and unicorns. The children were so creative and came up with so many fantastic ideas. We have now moved on to writing our Character Flaw stories and the children have taken a liking to the villains. 

In computing the children have been exploring physical computing and have been programming Micro:Bits to turn them into alarms! They have impressed me with their resilience as this can be challenging. In history we have been learning about how the leisure and entertainment industry has changed over the last 100 years and in science we have continued to explore animals and habitats. 

Next week the children will be looking forward to making their slingshot cars in DT and learning all about the Christmas Story through the local churches. 

 13.10.23

Year 4 have loved our class novel this half term. The children have immersed themselves in the story - we have been coming up with our 3 word reviews for 'The Land of Roar'.

Imaginary

Adventurous

Courageous 

Next term we will be looking at the Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo.

In maths we have now finished place value and will be moving onto Addition and subtraction. 

We have also just finished writing our defeat the monster stories which we loved sharing with Year 3. Next week we move onto our non-chronological reports about mythical creatures.

In history we finished our unit on Victorian life; we ended with a great lesson pretending to be in a Victorian school. It made us appreciate how lucky we are to have such an amazing learning environment.

15.09.23



We’ve had a great start in Year 4. The children have truly emersed themselves in our reading and writing. In reading we are loving ‘The Land of Roar’ - a fantasy story about twins who enter their imaginary world. 

In writing, we have been learning about what makes a good defeat the monster story.

We have been exploring place value in maths and started learning about our new topics: habitats, Victorians, online safety and sketching. We can't wait for the rest of this term.