Round Diamond
Primary School
Year 4
2021-2022
Year 4 Team 2021-2022:
O'Keeffe Class Teacher: Mrs Jones
Picasso Class Teacher: Miss Bone
Lodge Class 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 school term in Year 4.
This term, our PE day will be a TUESDAY. 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 shelf book. Library books are 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 discussion texts, focusing on the book 'The Island'. Later in the half term, we will be focusing on instruction writing.
In Maths, we will be exploring area and perimeter, fractions, angles as well as time. Please see fluency facts for year 4 below. Please encourage your child to keep practising these, along with the rest of their times tables.
In Science, we will be looking at electricity.
In History, we will continue our learning on Early Britain, moving on to looking at hill fort
In Geography, we will be looking at weather and climate .
Please refer back to our class pages each week to see what the children have been getting up to in school!
Curriculum Documents
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.
Week beginning: 20.06.22
This week in maths, we have been learning about fractions. We have found fractions of quantities, fractions of amounts of money and fractions of measures. To deepen our understanding, we took part in a problem solving activity where we had to discuss and give reasons. We were given an assortment of cards with either a fraction on it or a representation of a fraction. We had to group the cards in different ways making sure to explain our reasoning using our understanding. We used vocabulary such as equivalent, numerators and denominators.
Week beginning: 13.06.22
In English, we have been exploring the text ‘The Island’. In the story, the islanders want the stranger to leave the island. We discussed our viewpoints and opinions on whether or not the stranger should stay on the island. We then split our class into two groups: for the stranger remaining on the island and against. Each group were given time to prepare their arguments and counter arguments. They had to infer reasons from the text as well as use evidence from the text in their debate. When the debate began, everyone put forward excellent arguments and showed fantastic energised learning! Well done at completing a great debate year 4!
Week Commencing 6th June 2022
The children in Year 4 went for a walk in the local area and were encouraged to take in their surroundings (not being told they were going to draw a map). When they returned to the classroom, they sketched a map of their route. They will then go for a walk again to compare their sketch with the route so that they can edit and improve their maps.
Week commencing: 23rd May 2022
This week we celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We completed a wide range of activities to help us celebrate. We created our own portrait of the Queen and created our own posters of key events that happened in England and around the world from our assigned decade of 1993-2002. We were also tasked with creating a special gift for the Queen. So we decided to choreograph our own changing of the guard routine. We had a great time learning the commands and trying to replicate the movements of the Queen’s guards. Enjoy watching below! :)
Changing of the guard clip 1
Changing of the guard clip 2
Changing of the guard clip 3
Week commencing 16th May 2022
This week in maths we have been learning about integer scaling. We have been looking at different amounts and scaling the amounts up or down. For example, scaling up the ingredients necessary for a recipe or scaling down the size of a baby tree frog from its parent. We have had to use multiplication and division skills to support this learning. We have completed some challenging scaling problems that we really enjoyed!
Week Commencing Monday 9th May
In Year 4, we have been looking at using Excel to help us manage data. We looked at how to format cells in different ways with colours and boarders. We used our cross-curricular knowledge from Maths to help us find cells using coordinates. We even played a class game of ‘Battleships’.
W/C Monday 2nd May 2022
This week the children looked at historical early Britain artifacts and sources, discussing if the sources were primary and secondary and what they could deduce about the time period.
W/C Monday 25th April 2022
This week for our Science learning we did a child-led investigation on 'What material and/or substance will reduce an ice-cube melting the best.' The children experimented with wrapping the ice in foil, a white cloth, and submerged the ice in cold water, salt and put the ice-cube on a metal tray. We weighed the ice cube before and after for 10 minutes to see the results in weight, the children all did beautiful learning and are excited to share their results with their grown-up!
Week Monday 18th April 2022
This week in RSHE we discussed healthy lifestyle choices and how we can look after our mental and physical wellbeing.
Week beginning 28th March 2022
This week, we finished our DT project. Take a look at the video below to find out which skills and vocabulary we learned along the way in making our soup.
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Week beginning 21st March 2022
This week in Science, we have been looking at food chains. We were able to label the living things using vocabulary such as: producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, predator and prey.
Week beginning 14.03.22
In our history lesson this week, we looked at different secondary sources to make comparisons between the Ancient Egyptian and Early Britain religions. We found out that both groups of people believed in the afterlife and were buried with their valuable possessions,
Week beginning 7th March 2022
In our class assembly this Thursday, we continued our learning on life skills by looking at British Sign Language. We built on our prior knowledge of the letters and learnt how to sign the days of the week. We also learned how to sign words and phrases such as: 'today', 'yesterday', 'tomorrow', 'last week' and 'weekend'. Watch the video below to see what we have been learning.
Week beginning 28th February 2022
This week, we practised using compasses in Geography. We then used the 8 compass points to describe the position of countries in Europe in relation to each other.
w/c Monday 21st February 2022
This week, we took part in 'Wellbeing Wednesday' where we did activities relating to the NHS 5 steps to wellbeing: connecting with others, being physically active, learning new skills, giving to others and practising mindfulness.
We thought about what values we look for in friends, took part in some Winter Olympics-inspired sports activities, used Chrome Music Lab to compose our own music and practised some guided meditation. We also bought in donations for the local food bank to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
w/c Monday 7th February 2022
This half term, we have been learning about cave paintings in our art lessons. We have developed our drawing skills, learning how to create texture with a range of pencils and pastels. We learnt how people in the Stone Age added pigments to their drawings and used charcoal to add shadows and tones.
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w/c Monday 7th February
This week in English, we have been reading the poem ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ by Lewis Carroll. We analysed the poetic devices in the poem and then planned and wrote our own versions. On Friday, we performed our poems with actions and clear voices to the rest of the class.
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w/c Monday 31st January 2022
In computing this week, we have been making our own quizzes on Scratch. We have experimented with changing the sprite, changing the colour of the sprite depending on correct or incorrect answers and practised debugging our algorithms when things haven’t gone as expected.
w/c 24th January 2022
In Science this week, we went outside onto the playground to do an invertebrate hunt. We were very careful to treat the environment with respect and looked closely to see if we could find anything. We saw a range of invertebrates such as spiders, snails, ants and caterpillars.
w/c 17th January 2022
In English, we have been writing setting descriptions based on our book 'Cloud Tea Monkeys'. We worked together to edit and improve our learning, making sure our vocabulary choices were ambitious and that our writing was grammatically accurate.
w/c 10th January 2022
In maths this week, we have been learning about Roman numerals. We learnt how to write numbers with up to 4 digits.
Have a go at this game to revise what you learnt.
w/c 3rd January 2022
Cross Curricular Days
On Thursday and Friday, our Spring Term learning commenced with our termly cross-curricular days. This time, they focused on life skills. In Year 4, we took part in a range of practical activities to enhance our learning in this area:
First aid - we learnt how to contact the emergency services for a range of scenarios. Some of us also looked at the recovery position.
Gardening - we learnt about the advantages of growing our own vegetables and successful planted our own seeds - we are looking forward to watching them grow!
Recycling - we looked for symbols on a range of containers and learnt how to sort our rubbish at home.
Making drinks - we learnt how to make tea, coffee and squash and wrote our own clear instructions.
Tying shoe laces - we made our own cardboard shoes to practise threading and tying our laces.
Table manners - we learnt how to correctly hold a knife and fork and how to act politely when at the table enjoying a meal.
w/c 15th November 2021
This half term, we have changed from Art to D&T lessons. Our focus this half term is sewing skills and we will be using these to make our own Christmas decorations.
To begin this topic, we practised our running, back and over stitches which we will use in our final product.
We had some excellent sewers in both classes!
w/c 8th November 2021
In our RE lessons this term, we have been learning about ways of worship in Hinduism, Christianity and Sikhism. Last week we explored key festivals, so this week we looked at Diwali in more detail and learned all about rangoli. We looked at what rangoli patterns are, why they are used and what they can be made from. The children then used coloured rice to create their own patterns.
w/c 1st November 2021
This week, we had 2 cross curricular days which focused on learning about Parliament.
We practised writing a letter to our local MP on an issue that was important to us, watched a Youth Parliament debate, chose a debate topic for our class debate, made campaign posters and ballot slips, learned about the 4 main political parties and voted for our favourite party, wrote our debate speeches and then held our class debates and votes!
w/c 18th October 2021
We have just started our new RHSE topic of "A World Without Judgement". In our previous lesson, we spoke about how different groups of people are judged, how we are judged positively and negatively and how we can judge others too. This week, we were proud to be able to share with a group of Year 5 children how we ensure that everyone has equal opportunities to learn at Round Diamond. Ansh collected the children from their classrooms and took them to see how he accesses his learning and some resources we have used on our most recent displays! The Year 5 children then returned to their classes and spoke about what they had learned from Ansh.
w/c 11th October 2021
This week in History, we imagined we were Stone Age children! We used our new knowledge from the past few weeks on what people in the Stone Age ate, how they hunted and what they wore to write a diary entry describing a day in the life of a Stone Age child.
w/c 4th October 2021
In our Computing lessons so far this term, we have learned about staying safe online and the differences between networks and devices. This week, we learned about the differences between the Internet and the World Wide Web! The children created tables on Google Classroom to present their new knowledge.
w/c 27th September 2021
This term in Science we have been learning about sound. In this week's lesson we made our own panpipes out of straws and played them, practising with making high and low pitches. We noticed that the shorter straws made higher pitch sounds than the longer straws!
w/c 20th September 2021
This week in our English learning we discussed the effectiveness of vocabulary. We explored new adjectives like malevolent and vindictive, and in groups, ranked these in order of their effectiveness when describing Captain Hook.
As a class, we agreed that malevolent was one of the most effective words as it isn't used a lot so helps to show a lot of emotion. Some children thought that mean and unkind were the least effective words as they are not as powerful, and the children have been using them for a few years now.
The Year 4 teachers are looking forward to seeing some of this new vocabulary in the children's learning soon!
w/c 13th September 2021
We started learning about sound by exploring how we hear. We learned all about the different parts of the ear, what the purpose of each part is and finally, how we actually hear the sound - by little, tiny hairs sending signals to the brain that we are hearing a sound! Both classes then presented their understanding of the process to the rest of their class, including information we had gathered the previous week.
w/c 6th September 2021
In Art this half term we will be painting our own landscapes. To begin this topic, we spent this week's Art lesson exploring a range of brushes. We chose appropriate brushes to create different strokes and varied textures!
w/c 30th August 2021
This week, the Year 4 teachers welcomed all the children back to school. The children learned about their class artists (Georgia O'Keeffe and Pablo Picasso) as well as writing about their summer holidays, practising spelling and playing times tables games to engage everyone in this year's learning.
We are looking forward to sharing more Year 4 learning with you soon!
2020-2021
Teaching Team
Mrs Herbert (Picasso class)
Miss Blundell (O'Keeffe class) with Miss McLintock (student teacher)
Mrs Herbert ( Target group teacher)
Mrs Mason ( Teaching Assistant)
Class information
Year four PE lessons will be on Thursday afternoons.
Home learning
Home learning tasks (spellings, my maths and maths fluency) will be set on a Friday. We encourage children to read daily and this can be recorded in their reading records.
Year 3/4 Statutory Spellings:
In the link below, you will find the National Curriculum Year 3/4 Statutory Spelling List document. On page 16 of the document, you will find the Year 3/4 spelling list. The previous pages of the documents also explain the spellings rules that we teach in our weekly spelling practise. Each week, alongside a spelling rule, we send home two statutory spellings from the list to keep children practising them regularly.
Children are assessed on all the words from the list each term, throughout the years. The document also contains the Year 5/6 Statutory Spelling List and rules which children will move onto next year.
05.07.21
In our maths learning this week, we have been building our confidence with time. In Miss Blundell's class we did one of her favourite time activities, MUSICAL CLOCKS! We danced around the room to the music and then when it stopped we had to read the time off an analogue clock. Year 4 also explored 12- and 24-hour conversion later on in the week and they should be really proud of themselves, as this is challenging learning.
28.01.21
We hope everyone has recovered after the excitement of the school sleepover. We wanted to say a little message to thank the children for some of the lovely manners we saw when we were handing out food and drinks, and the general appreciation from some children for the experience.
It was definitely an early night for the teachers on Saturday!
21.07.21
In this lesson, we made pulleys. We use string, a little plastic pot, a magnet and a paperclip. We attached the pulley to the chair and attempted to pull the paperclip up with the magnet attached to the bottom of the pot. This skill will be useful to help us when we go start our DT project of making a ski lift.
14.06.21
Cross Curricular Days for PE!
We have had some fun days this week linking our lessons to PE. On Monday, we practised some first aid and we learnt and tried bandaging each other. We then went onto explore the history of the Ancient Olympics. In the afternoon, we did our learning outside. There was various different food and drink packaging around the playground and we went on a scavengers hunt to find food with certain contents. Some of the things we had to find included:
- A product that contains no fats
- A food high in sugar
- A food containing around 10g of protein per 100g
- A food that has an amber salt label
07.06.21
We started our new D&T unit this week where we are developing skills to move towards creating a ski lift. This week we looked at various pulleys and how they work. We learnt some important vocabulary including axle, wheel, force and motor. We then explained the process ourselves so that we are reading to make our own pulleys in our next D&T lesson.
24.06.21
This week we enjoyed a lovely art morning. Firstly, we did a contrasting sketch of the Stonehenge. On one part of the page we used charcoal and the other half we used sketching pencils and colouring pencils. Our focus was to create the appropriate textures on the stone structure and also to use tones to show where the light hits the stone from the sun.
We then evaluated our previously made Stonehenge structures. We considered the strength of our design and the areas that needed improvement. We thought about the skills we could use next time to achieve better results.
17.05.21
In maths, we have been spending some time building our confidence with our times tables. Miss Brooks group practised with games such as pairs, around the world and finding patterns on a 100 square. We started to feel more confident with our 3 and 4 times tables.
10.05.21
During out art learning journey, we have explored the different textures of materials you would find at the Stonehenge. We used sketches (we had drawn in a previous lesson) to collaboratively create a model of this structure. We used various tools to mould our clay and show the different textures. We had to consider how we could ensure our structure would remain stable.
03.05.21
During our art learning, we created scaled up versions of our Stonehenge sketches. We used our learning from maths to make the measures of a sketches ten times bigger. We then used chalk to sketch them out on the playground.
26.04.21 - We had two fantastic cross curricular days!
19.04.21
This week in science we began our new unit on states of matter. We sorted different materials into either solids, liquids or gasses. We then considered what properties they would have if they were in these groups. We discussed the particle formation of these materials and demonstrated how the particles would look in groups.
22.03.21
15.03.21
This week we started our playscripts unit. We practised reading Alice in Wonderland as if we were characters performing. We had to consider our tone and intonation when reading to ensure we were expressing the correct emotions.
08.03.21
For our maths learning we created human grids and plotted shapes. We discussed the various polygons that we created on the grids and their properties. We also completed shapes by identifying what the missing coordinates were.
01.03.21
This week we read various blurbs of different genres of texts, including playscripts. We then used our VIPERS skill of prediction to make sensible predictions of these blurbs and justified our views. We recorded our ideas on post it notes and placed them on the covers. This allowed us to share a good discussion at the end of the lesson and compare our thoughts.
22.02.21
This week we started our new unit in D&T all about food technology. It will lead onto the children using skills such as chopping, slicing, grating and peeling and then planning their own soup.
For this lesson we explored how food is sourced and we conducted research and presented our finding in a leaflet.
08.02.21
01.02.21 - Mental Health Awareness Week
We are all going through a challenging time in lockdown, so it is more important than ever to ensure we are staying happy and healthy.
Do you remember our "Take Notice" assemblies last term? Taking notice of the world around you and what you are grateful for is one way that you can improve your happiness every day.
There are so many benefits to practicing mindfulness, you can feel happier, less stressed or anxious, calmer, more focused, be kinder and even sleep better!
Explore this link - hopefully it will keep you healthy, happy and have a little fun along the way!
Please check with an adult that they are happy for you to access this.
25.01.21 - A holiday to the French Alps would be nice right now, wouldn't it?
This week the children used their English learning of persuasive writing and their Geography learning all about the French Alps to create a holiday brochure.
This week year 4 created some powerful descriptions of a rainforest.
We enjoyed our last week before Christmas. Here's little Christmas message from us in Year 4 at Round Diamond.
Merry Christmas from Picasso
Merry Christmas from Mrs Herbert's English group
Merry Christmas from O'Keeffe
7.12.20
In our assembly this week we practised using Makaton to sing a Christmas song.
Makaton.wmv
30.11.20 - Sewing in Year 4
23.11.20 - Maths - Coordinates battleships game
Some children wanted the sheet to play more battleships at home.
16.11.20
Year 4 had great fun this week in science! Miss McLintock and Miss Blundell demonstrated the human digestive system with some biscuits, a banana, orange juice, a sandwich bag and a pair of tights.
After that, the children went outside and we had a cross-curricular link to PE. Mr Beeson had set up a fantastic circuit of exercise for the children to carry out which represented different parts of the digestive system.
11.11.20 - 3d shapes in maths
5.11.20
19.10.20
12.10.20
05.10.20
28.09.20
21.09.20
14.09.20
07.09.20
Picasso welcome video.wmv
Welcome to O'Keeffe
Goodbye to our lovely year four cohort!
You have made us very proud this year with all your achievements and the maturity you have shown with how this year has turned out.
Have a well deserved summer break and we wish you all the best for your year 5 experience.
Miss Blundell, Miss Mitchell, Mrs Herbert and Mr Haig
2019 - 2020
Home learning week commencing 20.07.20
Resources
Home learning week commencing 13.07.20
English Summer 2 Week 7
Maths Summer 2 Week 7
History
Science
RE
DT
French
French Listening assessment .mov
Computing
Home learning week commencing 06.07.20
English Summer 2 Week 6
Maths Summer 2 Week 6
Geography
History
Science
RE
DT
French
Computing
Home learning week commencing 29.06.20
English Summer 2 Week 5
Maths Summer 2 Week 5
Geography
History
Science
RE
DT
French
Computing
Home learning week commencing 22.06.20
English Summer 2 Week 4
Maths Summer 2 Week 4
Geography
History
History MEDIUM/HOT
History task 2 demo.mov
RE
Science
DT
French
French
Computing
Home learning week commencing 15.06.20
English Summer 2 Week 3
English 1
For learning your spellings this week you could...
- Write them in melted chocolate or shavingfoam
- Write them on a family members back using your finger
- Create a rap using as many of them as you can
- Write silly sentences with them in
Maths Summer 2 Week 3
Steps and what it looks like (rounding to estimate and using the inverse to check)
Geography
History
RE
Science
French
English 1
For your spellings you could do the following activities...
- Write them in sentences
- Rainbow writing
- Pyramid writing
English 2
English 3
English 4
Maths 1
Maths 2
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
History
Science
RE
DT
French
Computing
English 1
English 2
English 3
English 4
Maths 1
Maths 2
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
History
Music
Science
R.E
Diversity posters
DT
Computing
Half term activities
Message to Year 4
Recommended Texts
Hi Year 4,
We had a few requests for book recommendations during our phone calls so we have compiled a list of ones we love! There is a range of levels here as we know you are all on different book bands.
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth by Oliver Jeffers
The Lorax by Dr Seuss
The Day the Crayons Quit By Drew Daywalt
Slime by David Walliams
The Peski Kids by R.A Spratt
Percy Jackson By Rick Riordan
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi
Home Learning overview
English 1
English 3
English 4
English 5
Maths 1
Maths 2
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
Music
History
R.E
Art
French
English 1
English 2
English 3
English 4
Maths 1
Maths 2
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
Music
History
Science
French
Weekly overview
English 1
English 2
English 3
English 4
Maths 1
Rainbow fractions
Maths 2
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
History
Science
Music
Week 1.MP4
R.E
Art - A Street Through Time
Week 2 Overview 27.04.20
English 1
English 3
English 4
English 5
Parallel ascenders
Maths 1
Maths 2
Reminder about rounding rules
Maths 3
Maths 4
Geography
History
Science
Art
Miss Mitchell chose to do a dragon for her St. George inspired piece!
R.E
French
Home Learning overview Year 4 WB 20.04.20
English 1
English 3
English 4
English 5
Maths 1
Maths 2
The grid method demo.mov
Bus stop method demo.mov
Maths 3
Maths 4
Example of rainbow factor pairs.mov
Maths 5
Geography
History
Art
Science
R.E
13.04.20
Hi Year 4,
This is just an idea for your second week of Easter holidays if you are looking for something to do. In The Spiderwick Chronicles, a family encounter a world of creatures around their new home and find a field guide, detailing all the ones Arthur Spiderwick has found. This links to what we were doing in Science before Easter (Living things, classification and keys). If you want to, you could create your own field guide of imaginary creatures that may be living in your house, garden or even the darker creatures in a shed! This is not a compulsory task, just a fun activity that links a lot of learning. Remember, when creating your creatures you have to think about what kind of habitat, diet and characteristics they have. Below are some examples of a field guide and the audio book for the first novel in the series.
Have fun explorers!
What children have done in Easter
03.04.2020
Hi Year 4,
We hope you are all keeping well and have enjoyed the last two weeks of learning. We will not be setting any new learning over the Easter holidays but have found a wide range of activities you can do while you are at home over the next few weeks - 65 fun things to be precise! We wish you a happy, fun Easter break and hope to see you all soon!
The Year 4 Team
65 things to do at home
Crafts and activities
19.03.20
Hello Year 4 parents,
Due to the upcoming school closure on Friday 20th March, we will now be providing learning through the website. This will be learning for the children to complete over the next two weeks at home. We recommend children continue in a daily routine to ensure a sense of stability and to allow them to continue to progress in their learning.
Below we have structured a two week time table which will allow children time to practise their maths fluency, spelling, reading, creative writing and topical learning.
If you have any questions regarding this learning please email rpaice@rounddiamond.herts.sch.uk
Keep safe and healthy & we will see you all soon.
The Year 4 team
As well as our learning below, Twinkl have offered free resources for the next two weeks.
https://www.twinkl.co.uk/offer
The code is: PARENTSTWINKLHELPS
Year 4 Timetable Week beginning 23.03.20
Monday Resources
Tuesday resources
When writing your setting descriptions, you may find the following website useful for inspiration or for settings to describe.
https://www.literacyshed.com/
Wednesday resources
Thursday resources
Friday Resources
Please see Monday's timestables activity.
Year 4 Week 2 Week beginning 30.03.20
Monday resources
Tuesday resources
Please refer to Wednesday from week 1 for spelling practise
Thursday resources
Friday resources
10.03.20
We braved the cold in maths this week and went out to create human grids to plot different coordinates.
We then created a range of different polygons on these grids.
