Year 4 Dont Judge a Book...

Theme

Concepts: Reality vs Fantasy

Following on from the excitement of Book Week, we will start off this term by looking at a story set in medieval times. Two main characters, with the use of a magic tree house, travel back to the times of castles and knights. There will be a strong focus on describing the setting of stories and using figurative language as the children then go on to write their own story, taking our two characters to a new imaginary world. Our Science focus this half term will be forces, concentrating particularly on air resistance and friction. We will be exploring how forces slow moving objects down or prevent them from starting to move and also learning about how to measure forces. This new learning will help the children when they start to think about their Design and Technology project: a medieval castle with such features as a drawbridge and a catapult. How will we need to consider friction and air resistance when designing such features?

Arabic
Can fantasy become reality?
Our topic this half term will be about My Things. Some children will be learning about clothes and others about items in my bedroom. They will learn to talk about what they are wearing and to describe their own clothes and have a fashion show at the end of the topic. Others will learn how to describe their own rooms, mentioning things inside it with directions and at the end of the topic they will be asked to make a 3D model of their rooms.

Maths
As our two characters explore imaginary worlds, so do Year 4 in Maths through the use of map work and plotting coordinates in all four quadrants. As well as classifying angles, some children will begin to use protractors to measure angles to the nearest degree. Measuring skills will continue to be honed as children use newton meters to measure forces in Science.

French
In Term 3, Year 4 will be working on clothes vocabulary including adjectives. They will use their knowledge in real life situations such as being part of a mini fashion show, either as the fashion show host or as a model. They will also study food and drinks in relation with healthy eating.

PE
Year 4 will be covering three different sports over a six week block. Each sport will allow every student to access different types of rules and equipment but the fundamentals of each sport will still be based around hitting over a net. We will be looking at the fundamentals and basic techniques needed to play in a competitive game of tennis, volleyball and badminton. Techniques such as grip, body position, movement, hand-eye coordination and hitting technique will be learnt during the block.

ICT
Our ICT project will be linked to our Literacy learning during this half term as the children use Scratch to animate the story of A Knight at Dawn. This will involve a progression of the control and modelling skills learnt during Term 2. Children will have to create settings, select characters and choose appropriate commands to bring the story to life.

How you can help suggestions

Practise speaking Arabic when you are out and about in Dubai Discuss with children at home how reality can be very different for children in other countries Try to spot as many different examples of friction and air resistance in action at home and when youre out at the weekend Use Linguascope to help children revise French vocabulary

Music
Year 4 this half term will be studying scale patterns, melody, musical intervals and the Tonic Sol Fa with the associated hand signs. Much of this will be delivered through music connected with animals, particularly Saint Saens Carnival of the Animals.