Year 4 Team 2024-2025:

O'Keeffe Class Teacher: Miss Lamont

Picasso Class Teacher: Miss Zealand

Setting Teacher: Mrs Herbert

Welcome to Year 4!

Welcome to our Year 4 class page! We hope you have had a wonderful break and are looking forward to beginning the new year and Autumn term in Year 4.

This term, our PE day will be a Monday. Please make sure appropriate PE kit is in school every day. 

We are using 'Go Read' to log the children's reading books. The children have been shown where to go to change their reading books independently and we will encourage them to change their books as soon as they have finished reading them. The children will also receive a library book to read alongside their banded book. Library books may be changed once a week. 

We are so excited for all of the learning opportunities we will get to share with the children this year. Below is some information on the learning we will be carrying out this half term. 

In English, we will be exploring poetry and form, persuasive writing (adverts) and first person diary entries. During reading lessons, the children will practise their reading skills with a focus on The Queens Nose.

In Maths, we will be exploring place value and the four operations. Please see fluency facts for year 4 below. Please encourage your child to keep practising these, along with the rest of their times tables. Children should continue to practise their times tables in their home times tables books and on Times Tables Rock Stars. In Science, we will be looking at living things, including vertebrates and invertebrates. In History, we will be learning about Anglo-Saxons.  In Geography, we will be exploring rivers. 

Please refer back to our class pages each week to see what the children have been getting up to in school!

Monday 30th September 2024

This half term in Geography, the children have been exploring features of rivers. They are now able to label key features including, source, estuary, tributary, meander and mouth. This week, they conducted an experiment to understand what happens at the mouth of a river. The children placed eggs in fresh water and salty water to see which would float and which would sink. The egg in fresh water sank because it had greater density than the water. The egg in the salt water floated because the density of the salt water was greater than that of the egg.  

Monday 23rd September 2024

This week in English, the children have been exploring persuasive devices in adverts including: slogans, rhetorical questions, superlatives and emotive language. They worked together to identify the features in the example advert and considered the purpose of each of these. The children worked successfully in groups and showed an energised approach. 

Monday 16th September 2024

This week in Science, we have been learning about invertebrates and where we might find them. The children had the opportunity to go outside onto the playground and explore. They used magnifying glasses to help them find their invertebrates. We discovered many invertebrates in our playground. 

Monday 15th July 2024

This week, we had our last Steel Pans session of the year and we celebrated by performing the song we have been practising. We worked in pairs to help each other with the order of the notes and the rhythm and our teacher played the drums to help us stay in time. 

Monday 1st July 2024 

In RE this half term, we are looking at sacred texts and the stories within them and how Sikh followers seek guidance. This week, we looked at the story of the Guru Nanak and the Two Villages. We identified the significant moments of the story which expressed fairness. 

Monday 17th June 2024

This week in Science, we have been learning about circuits and how they work. We connected a cell, wires and a lightbulb to make the lightbulb light up. We learned how electricity flows from the battery and that the circuit must be complete for the lightbulb to work.

Monday 10th June 2024

This week, both classes went on a one night residential trip to Wymondley Woods trip. It was a fun packed 2 days with den building, an assault course, archery and outdoor games. The children enjoyed eating pizza in the great outdoors, making their own sandwiches and they stayed in dormitories in groups. All the children had a lot of fun and showed great perseverance; the teachers were really proud of them! 

Monday 20th May 2024

We have been working independently and with learning partner to solve problems in maths this week. We used resources to solve place value problems and to create some of our own. We used base 10, counters and place value charts. 

Monday 13th May 2024

This week in English, we have been looking at poetry. We worked in pairs to write down adverbs, adjectives and verbs on the theme of friendship; we thought about all the things we like to do with friends and how we feel when we are with them. We used our notes to write a Haiku poem which had to contain personification.

Monday 6th May 2024 

In Geography, we have been learning about environmental regions in Europe and how some continents have more than one environmental region. We looked at ways in which plants have adapted to the conditions in their region and we compared the features of different parts of Europe.

Monday 29th April 2024

In Science, we have been learning about states of matter and the differences between solids, liquids and gases. This week, we carried out an experiment to discover whether we could weigh a gas. We poured 3 fizzy drinks into cups and weighed them. We then stirred them to encourage them to go flat and left them for a period of time. We weighed them again to see if they were lighter and recorded our results. We are going to continue to weigh the glasses for the next week. 

Monday 22nd April 2024

This week in French, we have been learning how to say which pet we have in French. We learned the question As-tu un animal? which means Do you have a pet? We practised using the question and the answer with a partner. We also learned that some nouns in French use Un and some nouns use Une.

Monday 15th April 2024

This week in music, we have been revisiting pulse and rhythm. We learned that the pulse is the heartbeat and that we can change the rhythm over the top of this. It was challenging to create different rhythms and to keep the pulse going. 

Monday 22nd January 2024

In Science this week, the children continued to explore living things. They investigated how living things can be classified using closed questions and used this information to create their own classification keys.

Monday 15th January 2024

In English this week the children worked collaboratively to explore and locate a range of persuasive techniques. They used existing example adverts to find these techniques, before discussing how each one impacts the reader and evaluating their overall impact. 

Monday 8th January 2024

In Science this week the children undertook a practical investigation, in which they applied their existing knowledge of minibeasts. They explored the school grounds, looking for microbeast and minibeast habitats, before recording their findings.

Monday 18th December 2023

This children were very lucky to attend a virtual reality experience this week. They dived into various oceans and explored life under the sea which included ducking away from sharks, getting to see turtles up close and watching seals on land and as well as under water. They were extremely energised throughout!

Monday 11th December 2023

In 

Monday 8th December 2023

Year 4 were very lucky to have a local priest visit. Father Coker explained and answered lots of questions about the church and being a Christian. The children were able to explore the Bible, rosary beads and many other religious artefacts. They all showed respect during the visit. 

Monday 1st December 2023

In English, the children have been exploring narrative poetry and the poetic devices included in these types of poems. They used what they found through this to come up with their own narrative poem based on The Santa Trap. The children showed determination to create rhyming couplets as well as move the narrative on in their poems. 

Monday 27th November 2023

In Science, the children have been completing an observation over time all about tooth decay! They have set up an enquiry to observe eggs that are immersed in a range of liquids including: coke, water, orange juice and blackcurrent. The egg shell acts as tooth enamel and the children have predicted which of the liquid will cause the most tooth decay and why. They are all very excited to see how the egg changes each day.

Monday 20th November 2023

In geography, the children have been comparing Stevenage in the past with Stevenage today, focusing on changes to human and physical features and how this has impacted the economy and employment in our town. The children used sources to identify changes and were energised when working collaboratively to do so.

Monday 13th November 2023

This week, the children were exploring religious symbolism in RE. They focused on Hinduism and Rangoli patterns. Using rice and paint they then created their own Rangoli. They showed lots of perseverance when painting over the rice! 

Monday 6th November 2023

This half term in Science, Year 4 are learning about the digestive system. This week the children brought the digestive system to life in the classroom using their drama skills, food, hula hoops to represent the oesophagus, plastic bags to represent the stomach and socks to represent the intestines. All of the children showed energised learning during this and will hopefully remember the journey of food through the digestive system forever now! 

Monday 29th October 2023

Year 4 enjoyed investigating different types of non-chronological reports to compare the key features and purpose of each. They worked in groups and recorded examples from each. 

Monday 16th October 2023

We are extremely proud of Year 4's determination, energy and pride in their steel pans this half term. Everyone worked well in groups or on their own to perform some fantastic pieces of music. The children could show me how the different parts of their pan produced different notes and pitches and could perform the notes using excellent pulse and rhythm. 

Monday 9th October 2023

This week, year 4 researched the different ways in which Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians worship. They cross-linked their learning to computing by using websites to find facts and videos. The children then shared this knowledge with each other and recorded it. We participated in some very engaging and respectful discussions about each other's religious or secular backgrounds.

Monday 2nd October 2023

Year 4 worked with amazing energy and determination this week to create their landscape wash backgrounds for the Stonehenge linking back to their history learning. We were particularly proud of their mixing of different colour combinations, their skills with using different brush strokes and the realism of creating different skies. 

Monday 25th September 2023

This week, we had the exciting opportunity to bring the circus to Round Diamond. Year 4 particularly enjoyed learning to spin plates on sticks in which they showed brilliant energy and resilience. The students also learnt how to perform different juggling tricks using circus flower sticks. Their hand-eye coordination was super impressive! 

Year 4 loved watching the circus show, especially seeing the circus performers swallowing an entire balloon and even seemingly consuming fire! 

We all have also enjoyed completing cross-curricular learning in our other subjects including finding the area and perimeter of different circus items; interpreting circus related timetables and writing fact files on circuses. 

Monday 18th September 2023

Year 4 showed fantastic energy and responsibility whilst performing scenes from Peter Pan this week. The children practised to re-enact the dialogue from the scene where Peter Pan teaches Wendy and the Lost Boys how to fly. They then incorporated this into their writing using inverted commas as well as ensuring they used alternative words to said to enhance their learning. 

The students also really enjoyed learning about how pitch is created in science this week. They learnt that sounds that create faster vibrations create a high pitch whilst sounds that create slower vibrations create a low pitch. Year 4 enjoyed experimenting with different instruments to see this in action. 

Monday 11th September 2023

Year 4 worked systematically and methodically to work out problems in place value this week in maths. They used digit cards and mental strategies in groups to find target numbers and work their way through a challenge. 

Monday 4th September 2023

Year 4 have had an exciting new start to the year and impressed their new teachers with their enthusiasm and PRIDE behaviours.

In science, the children took part in a sound walk listening out for different sounds around them and identifying the cause of the vibrations for each.

In maths, the children identified place value and ordered and compared numbers up to 1000. 

Monday 10th July 2023

This week in science, year 4 created their own switches which could be used within a circuit. The children were provided with options of materials that they could use and they had to use their knowledge of conductors and insulators to ensure that the switch would be on when they wanted it to be but also was able to be turned off. 

Monday 3rd July 2023

During maths this week, the children enjoyed using the laptops to support with their statistics learning. They were provided with a table of data and then created their own tables on Google Sheets using skills previously learnt in their computing lessons on Excel.

Monday 26th June 2023

This week was the year 4's camping trip! It was great fun.

We want to thank the children for being a great representation of Round Diamond and allowing the teachers some sleep!

We hope they had a well-rested weekend after all the activities. 

Monday 19th June 2023

Over the past couple of weeks the children have been enjoying the text 'The Island'. The text is all about a man who turns up uninvited to an island and the people of the island have to decide whether he should stay or not. The children put their debating skills to the test but with an interesting twist - the debate had to be silent. The children did a great job of communicating through written sentences using conjunctions and connecting adverbs to expand or go against each other's ideas. 

Monday 12th June 2023

The children enjoyed some practical science learning this week. They were given pictures of a range of electrical circuits and they had to use their knowledge of complete and incomplete circuits to work out whether the bulb would light. The children then created the circuits to see if they were correct.

Monday 5th June 2023

The children had a great couple of days this week meeting some inspirational people. They completed a range of different learning including creating art on inspiring scientists who made discoveries about electricity. They also had a great basketball masterclass with Paul Sturgess - UK's tallest man.

Monday 22nd May 2023

Times tables fun!

This week children have had the opportunity to compete against the speed of different celebrities during Times Tables Rock Stars.

Some of the celebrities whose times they tried to beat included:
Trent Alexander-Arnold
Peter Crouch
Karen Carney
Andy Robertson

Monday 15th May 2023

During our maths learning this week, the children have been focusing on the skill scaling. We applied this skill to our learning by heading outside and scaling up shapes by using our knowledge of area and perimeter.

Monday 8th May 2023

This week in music, we spent some time learning more about the percussion instrument, the glockenspiel. The children had the opportunity to practise playing notes from sheet music and performing to each other.  

Monday 1st May 2023

In RE this week we explored a religious story called 'Duni Chand and the Needle of Heaven'.

The children listened well to the story and then in small groups retold the story using pictures for support. They then discussed the morals and lessons that can be learnt from the story. See the learning below to see some pictures and pupil voice.

Monday 24th April 2023

In science today, we explore the different states of matter and their properties. Children demonstrated what the particles look like in a solid, liquid and a gas. This then supported them to sort and classify different materials into the different states of matter.

Monday 17th April 2023

This week we started our new French unit which is all to do with being able to have a conversation about pets in French. The children learnt a new song and were able to start identifying the French terms for French pets and saying them with accurate pronunciation.

Monday 27th March 2023

The artist who has been coming in and visiting year 4 spent this morning on Friday doing some enjoyable Easter activities to generate some lovely Easter vocabulary. The children had a lovely time!

Monday 20th March 2023

It has been an exciting week of baking! On Monday, the year 4 children made some Italian bread. They had the opportunity to either observe or participate in the measuring of the different ingredients and discussions were had about the purpose of the different ingredients within the bread. They then went on to mix, roll and shape some risen dough ready for baking. On Tuesday, they either grated, chopped or sliced a range of vegetarians ingredients which they put into their bread. We hope they enjoyed eating it!

Monday 13th March 2023

This week the children went on an 'emotions journey' through the Alice and Wonderland story. They inferred how Alice felt at different points in the story and then they completed an emotions graph to show her changing emotions. This supported them to write postcards home from Alice to family members.

Monday 6th March 2023
During Spring term, children in year 4 have been lucky to have some opportunities to do activities with an artist called Jenny. These activities have been to support with their use of vocabulary and also to support them with developing their imaginations. This week, Jenny set up a very exciting Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. The children had just spent the week writing their own version of this chapter and on Friday it was a lovely opportunity for the children to share their knowledge of speech by becoming the characters and acting out what they might say! We look forward to more learning opportunities with Jenny over the next few weeks.

Monday 27th February 2023

This week we've been enjoying learning the pronunciation of new words in French. We started our new topic learning about different foods that we may eat and drink for breakfast. We practised saying aloud all the phrases and in our next French lesson we will have a go at putting them into a sentence to show what we eat for breakfast.

Monday 20th February 2023

This week year for had a lovely school trip to the Celtic Harmony Camp to experience life living in an Iron Age village. They had the opportunity to experience how the Iron Age people would trade goods, make bread, and make clothes and bracelets. This trip has prepared our year 4 historians for summer term where their history learning will travel through the Iron Age.

Monday 6th February 2023

This week we had two very exciting cross curricular days linked with Times Tables Rock Stars! 

The children loved coming in dressed as rock stars and making their own times tables games on the Friday. They had to make sure it would be appropriate for a KS1 child to play and enjoyed trying out each other's games and giving feedback. It was lovely to see some children feeling confident to battle against some of the teachers in the hall.

Monday 30th January 2023

In Science this term, the children have been learning about living things. This week, they went on a hunt outside to find invertebrates such as: spiders, woodlice, snails, slugs and worms. They identified different types as well as the habitats they found them in. 

Monday 23rd January 2023

In maths this week, the children have been representing and plotting integers on a number line. When given different ranges of numbers, they were able to plot the half way points, quarter points and estimate where other numbers would be on that number line. To support their learning, they used border roll to fold and find the different points.

Monday 16th January 2023

In music this term, we have been learning to sing in unison with increasing confidence when it comes to maintaining pitch. We sang Three Little Birds in pairs with another child. We had to careful listen to our partner and match their pitch throughout all of the song.

Monday 9th January 2023

In Geography this week, the children began their topic which focuses on the Alps. They researched the location of the Alps, the countries they cover and the closest seas. At the end of the lesson, the children used ‘Peak Visor’ to transport themselves to the Alps and find additional information such as: the elevation of different mountains, the weather in each country and what the Alps look like on a map.

Monday 12th December 2023

Over the week in maths, the children have been learning all about 2d shapes. We named a range of shapes compared the shapes based on their properties. The children presented their knowledge on Google Classroom using Google slides.

Monday 5th December 2023

In this week's DT lesson, we were finishing off our Christmas table decorations. We sewed on a base which would allow our products to fit the specification and stand on their own. There was a lot of success with this and some lovely learning outcomes.

Monday 28th November 2023

During English this week, we had the opportunity to evaluate each other's learning. We looked for strengths with their writing. We looked at where they had relevant details and where they ensured they had grammatical accuracy. We also provided areas for improvement.

Monday 21st November 2022

During religious education this half term, the children have been learning about Hinduism. This week, they focused on Diwali and the beautiful patterns created as part of the celebration. They made their own Rangoli patterns using rice and food colouring. 

Monday 14th November 2022

This week in Mrs Hooper's English group we were summarising information by taking notes. Children were taking notes on sabre-toothed cats from a range of different sources. They watched a video, read texts and used the iPads to find the relevant information.

Monday 7th November 2022

We had a really exciting visitor this week! Bea, a microbiologist, visited Round Diamond to introduce our exciting new topic, the human digestive system. We carried out different enquires to explore the length of the intestines, to help understand how our teeth breakdown the food, and then how it continues to breakdown in the stomach. A very fun day was had by all!

Monday 31st October 2022

In history, we explored a primary source. It was a Stone Age headdress. The children deduced what they thought this artefact would be used for and made their own to reenact its purpose. Some children thought it would be used as camouflage when hunting whilst others thought it might have been used in ceremonies or rituals.

Monday 17th October 2022

This week we had a very exciting couple of cross curricular days where we learnt all about space! The children carried out a range of activities including making top trump cards, used pastels to create a piece of art of the solar system which had a 3d effect and they also had a chance to go into a planetarium. 

Week commencing Monday 10th October 2022

In Science this week, the children applied their knowledge of sound by creating pan pipes. They carefully measured their paper straws to ensure each pan pipe was shorter than the one next to it and then used cellotape to wrap them together. When they had finished, they explored and practised playing the instrument to see how the length of each pan pipe changed the pitch.

Week commencing Monday 3rd October 2022

In maths this week, children started the week by exploring various multiplication strategies which would aid them when we move onto grid method. They reviewed the strategies considering whether they were time efficient, age appropriate and whether they would ensure accuracy or whether they were too complex. The children enjoyed reflecting on the effectiveness of these strategies.

Week commencing Monday 26th September 2022

In year 4's music learning we have been enjoying the song Step Back Baby. The children have created their own performances to accompany the song. They have had to be aware of their audience, incorporate facial expressions and collaboratively sing.

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Week commencing: 19.09.22

On Thursdays, Year 4 are now extremely lucky to receive British Sign Language teaching in the classroom. This week, they learnt the alphabet, some common phrases including “good afternoon”  “my name is” and “how are you” as well as the signs for a range of emotions.  Miss Lamont and Mrs Hooper feel so proud of the children, the respect they have shown the visitors and their determination to learn BSL. Well done! 

Week commencing: 12.09.22

This week in English, the children retold the story of Peter Pan through drama. To begin with they recorded down the key events from the story using story telling language. They created a range of freeze frames for these key events. They used their knowledge of the characters and the relationship between the characters to use the appropriate facial expression and body language.

Week commencing: 06.09.22

To begin our geography topic this term ‘Eastern England’ the children used the atlas’s to explore the United Kingdom and more specifically, the regions in England. They were challenged to work together to find as many cities in the different regions as they could, which they did successfully. Well done on an excellent first week back, Year 4! 

2021-2022

Week commencing: 11.07.22

In English this week, we are learning about poetry. We are looking closely at the poem ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ by Maya Angelou. We have all thoroughly enjoyed exploring the text so far. We learnt about how to perform a poem and followed some top tips from Michael Rosen. Below are some clips and pictures from our performances. Enjoy! :) 

Week Commencing 4th July 2022

Year 4 were delighted to perform at the music festival. We performed the song 'Count on Me' as a year group trying out vocal harmonies. We also performed alongside the Year 5 and 6 children singing 'Eye of the Tiger, The Ugly Duckling and 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'. We hope the audience enjoyed the festival as much as we did!

Week commencing: 27.06.22

This week we took part in cross-curricular days with the theme of Animals. We researched a range of animals such as hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets and scorpions. We completed an assortment of activities with the focus of our chosen animal. For example, animal origami and designing an animal enclosure. We also were given the opportunity to take part in an animal experience. We were able to pet and hold some really interesting animals. Below are some pictures from our animal experience.