Skip to content ↓

Roebuck

Academy

In this section...

Year 4 Blog

Page 2

  • Latest news in Year 4

    Published 11/06/23, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 have had a busy start to the half term. We have been having one last push to learn our times tables facts ready for our MTC test over the next few weeks. 

    In art, we have been using tints and shades to experiment with 3D effects. We used a grid to draw an apple and then used water colours to create our painting.   

    In Science, we have been learning all about our teeth and the purpose of each type. It has been interesting finding out how our teeth change as we grow and when different teeth come through. 

    In Geography, we have started our new topic - 'Peculiar Plants' and have enjoyed finding out about the different plants that grow around the world. We have found out that different plants are able to survive in different biomes. We discovered that the Darth Vader flower grows in Brazil, South America and Black Bat flower grows in China, Asia. 

     

    Read More
  • Art in Year 4

    Published 11/05/23, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 have been preparing for the King’s coronation. We have created portraits of King Charles. Some of us used our sketching and shading skills to draw a portrait of half his face and others had a go at creating a caricature style sketch of King Charles.  

    We have also decorated a material square which we then put together to make a class tapestry. We thought about things that were linked to King Charles and royal family and used these to design our own squares. We are all looking forward to celebrating the coronation on Friday afternoon as a school.

    At the end of last week, we were also lucky to work with the artist Amanda Jewitt and created some amazing artwork based on beetles. We started off by finding out about three different artists who focused on this as a subject. When Amanda came in, we worked on shade, tone, texture and proportion when creating our own artwork. This week, we have continued this work with some follow up tasks. 

    At Roebuck we are artists. 

    Read More
  • Latest news in Year 4

    Published 24/03/23, by Andy Mari

    It has been another busy week in Year 4. In Literacy, we have really enjoyed being creative and writing poems based on the poem The River by Valerie Bloom. This poem is full of metaphors and rhyme so it has been a fun challenge to think of rhyming couplets and metaphors that work for each stanza.  

    In Geography, we have found out about the Aswan High Dam which was built on the river Nile. It took ten years to build as it is so big. It was really interesting to find out the negative and positive impact this had on Egypt. We used all this information to make our own leaflets about the dam.  

    During our Science and DT lessons, we have been researching different types of torches ready to design our own torches next week. We have also had a chance to experiment with wires, cells and bulbs to create a circuit that we will use in our torches. Our next step is to add a switch to our circuit so we can turn our torches on and off. 

    In Year 4 we are creative! 

    Read More
  • Fantastic finish in Year 4

    Published 12/03/23, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 were delighted to be joined by so many parents and carers this week for our Egyptian style baking sessions for our Fantastic Finish! We thoroughly enjoyed learning how to make the aromatic flatbreads and in addition to this, being able to apply our learning from across the curriculum, from History, learning that there were depictions of bread making within hieroglyphics from the time of the Ancient Egyptians, use of our maths knowledge of fractions and measures to accurately measure ingredients, using our reading skills to navigate the recipe and even some Science in understanding the chemical reactions and changes which occur when proving the bread. We certainly enjoyed tasting the freshly baked bread- so much so that lots of parents and pupils requested a copy of the recipe so that they could bake them again at home! Many thanks again to all who attended! 

    In addition to all of this, we have been enjoying experimenting with making music in computing, broadening our bank of strategies for mindfulness and have been refining our map work skills in Geography by completing puzzles and utilising digital reference tools such as Digimaps to answer true or false questions about the River Nile. 

    Read More
  • Scroll making in Year 4

    Published 25/02/23, by Andy Mari

    It has been a busy start to the half term in Year 4. Last half term, we did lots of work investigating  the style, pattern and characteristics of Ancient Egyptian art. This week we started making our own scrolls by creating a modern-day version of papyrus style paper. We did this by dipping strips of brown paper in watered down PVA glue. After removing most of the glue, we laid the paper in a vertical direction. We then repeated the process but this time placed the paper in a horizontal direction. We had to make sure the strips overlapped so that we created a solid surface. It was a messy process but great fun.

    We left our paper to dry over night and then carefully copied our scroll designs from our sketchbooks onto the paper we had made. Once we were happy with the design, we used water colour paint and poster paint to add colour to our designs. We thought carefully about the colours we used as we needed to take into consideration the colours that would have been available in Ancient Egypt times.

    At Roebuck we are Egyptian scroll makers!

    Read More
  • Egyptians in Year 4.

    Published 12/02/23, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Ancient Egyptians and we ended our topic in style with a special workshop. This began with us stepping back in time to Ancient Thebes where we learnt that a boy king had taken the throne after a time of turmoil and was bringing back the old ways and restoring ma’at (order). We really enjoyed participating in the story of Tutankhamun’s reign through a combination of practical making activities, drama and role-play. Our morning focussed on making and role play. While working, we were also tasked with spreading news and asking questions to learn more about Ancient Egypt and the reign of Tutankhamun. For the afternoon we recreated the festival of Wepet-Renpet: The Opening of the Year. We practised and then performed The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys, The Tale of Osiris or The Dance of the Wax Crocodile.  We had a wonderful day immersing ourselves in this eventful time in history. 

     We have also been challenged to use our history learning in Literacy and all planned and wrote our own playscripts with links to the Ancient Egyptians. We really enjoyed writing and bringing the playscripts to life and many of us managed to infuse them with a sense of humour which made our friends and teachers chuckle!

     In Art we have planned some fabulous Ancient Egyptian final designs and we are excited about creating our very own papyrus style paper to create these final designs on.

     In French we have been practising and mastering vocabulary for describing the family and can now add this to a conversation where we introduce ourselves and ask and tell someone about who is in our family. We are Linguists!

    Read More
  • A busy week in Year 4

    Published 28/01/23, by Andy Mari

    It has been another busy week in Year 4!  During science, we have been finding out how sounds travel. We carried out experiments to explore this. One included using string telephones which allowed us to find out that when the string was tight the sound travelled better. 

    In PSHE, we have started our Brain Buddies sessions during which we started talking about our emotions and how we can deal with them. We focused on 'emotion surfing’ which focuses on using waves to think about our emotions. The wave will be high, but it won’t last - the emotion will pass. We used the words - It’s okay. It will pass. I’m okay - to focus our minds and help.   

    In our Computing sessions, we created two dimensional shapes using Logo commands.  

    On Wednesday, we were lucky enough to take part in a workshop run by North Hertfordshire College. The session had a Frozen theme and had a focus on saving the environment and the importance of keeping fit. We all had a great time completing the activities.  

    Another fun afternoon involved each class becoming detectives. Our task was to find out how Tutankhamun died. We knew that he was 19 when he died but there were three different theories as to how he died - accident, illness or murder! We enjoyed using the evidence and making connections between them before coming up with conclusions.  

    In Year 4, we are detectives!  

    Read More
  • Busy start to Spring Term for Year 4.

    Published 14/01/23, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 have settled into being back at school after the holidays successfully and are enjoying the start to our new learning topics for this half term.

     

    In History, we began our new topic on the Ancient Egyptians by creating our own timelines to visually represent all of the significant civilisations, events and people that we could recall from our prior learning then built on this by including some important dates related to Ancient Egypt. We found out that hieroglyphics were used for communication and writing in Ancient Egypt and used these to create our every own cartouche designs depicting our names. We have also been finding out about how the pyramids were built in Ancient Egypt and are very much looking forward to our Ancient Egyptians workshop later this half term!

     

    In Science we have relished the opportunity to experiment with sound and have enjoyed carrying out investigations into pitch, volume, continuity and repetition to create sounds with different combinations of characteristics. This topic links well with our Music learning for this half term which focuses on songs with positive messages and without a doubt, we will be using our voices to create some impressive sounds with our singing and even some rapping this half term.

     

    In Maths we have relished new challenges related to fractions and developing our fluency in identifying and solving problems involving mixed number and improper fractions. So far we have explore, identified and converted mixed and improper fractions and this will undoubtedly stand us in good stead for our problem-solving sessions. In Literacy we have been highly engaged in our reading and writing linked to the tale of Aladdin and fantasy stories and we will be moving on to planning and writing our own fantastic versions of these tales.

    Read More
  • Latest news in Year 4

    Published 19/12/22, by Andy Mari

    It has been another busy week in Year 4. In Literacy, we have been planning and writing our own poems based on ‘The Small Dragon’ poem that we sentence stacked last week. The children have been very creative with the creatures they have found.  

    In Science, we have been learning about invertebrates and have been using their features to categorise them as well as creating our own keys to sort them.  

    During Art lessons, we have been creating our own wax resist pictures based on the ‘drawing with scissor’ lesson we completed last week. We have really enjoyed trying this method.  

    We have also had fun playing in the snow as well as keeping warm and playing games in the classroom at break times.  

    .

    Read More
  • Latest news in Year 4

    Published 03/12/22, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 have been learning about coding in computing. We have been challenged to create our own coding blocks to create different effects. This week, we linked these to our work on habitats in Science by creating a sequence which would return a lost animal to it’s natural habitat. Once mastered, we will combine and apply a range of elements to create our own digital games.

    In Literacy, we enjoyed interviewing one another and writing balanced arguments in response to the question ‘Should children wear non-uniform to school every day?’ We have learned how to present our ideas effectively to inform and engage the reader and have been able to explore and refine our use of formal and technical vocabulary.

    In music, we have enjoyed playing the glockenspiels as a solo, in small groups and as a whole class. We have been practising reading musical notation and have progressed from accompanying a few bars to a whole song!

    In Art this week, we were inspired by the work of Henri Matisse and in particular a piece called ‘The Circus’ in which he used paper cut outs to create a collaged composition. Matisse called this ‘drawing with scissors’. We applied this technique to our own compositions in which we explored proportion, overlapping, interlocking elements and aspects of tone.

    Read More
  • Latest news in Year 4.

    Published 21/11/22, by Andy Mari

    It has been another busy week in Year 4. We started the week writing our Myths. We have all planned our own stories with a different hero, beast and challenges along the way. We have really enjoyed this unit especially when we got to freeze frame the battle scene!  

    Tuesday morning started with Books and Breakfast. It was lovely to have so many family members come in and we enjoyed having time to share and read books with them. 

    In Maths, we started a new unit - long division. To help us to understand what is happening to the numbers, we made use of dienes to make our numbers and then divided them. It was great fun and really helped us to understand the calculation.  

    We are really enjoying our Science topic this term. We had fun making use of an alien key to help identify different aliens. Next, we moved on to keys about pond life creatures. Some of us used the key to classify the animals whilst others of us tried to create our own key based on the features of the creature. This was quite tricky as we really had to think about how we could separate the creatures into different categories.   

    During Geography this week, we created our own leaflets about key geographical features of each continent. We enjoyed finding out interesting facts about different countries.  

    Read More
  • Building Pavillions in Year 4

    Published 06/11/22, by Andy Mari

    Year 4 kicked off the new half-term in creative style with a DT Day! We followed our designs which included aerial and elevation views to create an array of pavilions for a range of purposes and audiences. We were challenged to use tools and materials safely to create a freestanding structure which matched our designs. In addition to this, we were tasked with creating cladding (coverings) using techniques such as folding, weaving, and piercing. We realised that designers often face problems when constructing their designs from drawings and therefore need to show lots of resilience, determination, and growth mindset to achieve their goals. We had a great time constructing our designs and the comment “This is the best day ever!” from Thomas in Rowan just summed this up!  

    Read More

News Feeds

You can subscribe to a feed of the latest news items, using the link below. Subscribing to this news feed is free and will keep you up-to-date with the latest news stories that have been posted.To subscribe, simply right-click on the link below, click "copy shortcut" and then paste the URL into your feed reader software.

Subscribe via RSS (Year 4 Blog)