Year 4 Spring Term 2 - Rainforests

I hope you have had a great half term and are ready to learn even more this half term!

Our children will spend the term discovering the many wonders of the Rainforest (The Amazon as our main focus.)  In geography, they will have opportunities to learn about the climate and how this impacts on the rainforest along with the varying weather and landscape features. The children will understand what impact the modern world has had on the area and how some of these aspects have changed over time.  The children will look at various story settings and then write their own with a focus on the rainforest.

English

We will continue to work on our Grammar in class, using it within a variety of texts and focussing around explanation texts as a non-fiction. We will link this to the rainforests topic. Our focus will be on the use of appropriate punctuation, sentence structure and conjunctions this half term.

When we complete our rainforest related explanations we will write our own narratives based around short stories with a focus on vocabulary and using the list of spellings from our Homework page.

Maths

We continue our work on dividing and then move onto time where we will read, write and convert time between analogue and digital 12 and 24-hour clocks. We then move onto grids and coordinates and the children will learn to plot specified points and draw sides to complete a given polygon and solve comparison, sum and difference problems using information presented in bar charts, pictograms, tables and other graphs.

We then continue the term with decimal knowledge up to 2 d.p. before moving onto decimal and fraction equivalents 1/4; 1/2; 3/4.  The children will then move onto angle work and learn how to identify acute and obtuse angles and compare and order angles up to two right angles by size, without using a protractor.

Science

Our topic is Living Things and their Habitats.

They will learn to recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways, explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment  - vertebrates and invertebrates and classify leaves – name a variety of living things in our local environment.  Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers and have an impact on living things - Bee Study.  The children will study the impact on environment, collect data, save the bees, report findings.

Art

In art, the children will be developing their painting skills and creating a watercolour landscape linked to our Rainforests topic.

DT

We will continue with our textiles topic, having researched the areas that the children are interested in, created our mood boards and designed a vest top. We will next have to practise how to sew, thread a needle and join two pieces of cloth.

Music

The children will continue their work on composing and performing on the recorders in class. They will begin to write short melodies and learn how to put notes onto staves.  They will also write their composition onto sheet music – play from notation and memory.

Wellbeing

We continue our Staying Healthy topic and E-safety which runs throughout. The children will learn about medicine (drugs) and discuss medicines that make us better when used correctly. They will look at medicines that we use daily and how these can be misused and affect our health and wellbeing and the effects and side effects of this. They will learn about the risks and habitual natures and when and how to ask for help.

Spanish

We will be looking at the different ways that we can introduce ourselves by following the Oak National Academy. We will also be learning about Healthy living, healthy eating and different types of hobby, food and activities outside of school.

Wellbeing 

Our topic this half-term is Living in the Wider Community.  The children will look at the benefits of community and the various communities they belong too. They will study the impact of volunteers on communities.

Computing

This half-term the children will be studying technology and multimedia and create effective Keynotes and presentations to show the many things that we are learning in Year 4.