Year 4

Welcome to Year 4 2024-2025

Click on the crayon to find a booklet all about your new year group.

Have a look at what the Year 4 children got up to last academic year (2023-2024)...

What will my child be learning about this half term?

Thursday 19th July 2024 Week 7 -

Racing our sling shot cars.

Thursday 11th July 2024 Week 6 -

Applying our design & technology skills to make sling shot cars.

Wednesday 26th June 2024 Week 4 -

Using the outdoor learning environment to learn all about measure! 

Tuesday 11th June 2024 Week 2 -

During science we recreated a human mouth showing all the adult teeth including incisors, canines, pre molars and molars. 

Friday 7th June 2024 Week 1 -

Today we perfected our map reading skills, locating different points in the world using longitude and latitude to ensure we were accurate.   

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Week 6 -

This week in art we have been concentrating on the artist Jackie Morris who has created lots of illustrations, including the book 'The Lost Words' by Robert MacFarlane. We tried out lots of techniques including different paint strokes, using contrasting colours and different ways to apply the paint for different effects.  

Wednesday 15th March 2024 Week 6 -

Highlights from Ufton Court

Wednesday 8th March 2024 Week4 - Ufton Court

Ufton Court update

We have arrived! What fantastic weather! All children are happy, fire drill complete and all children are happy with their friends in their rooms. Beds made and back outside or more fun. We have been in a Viking ship and learnt how to defend ourselves using an axe, sword and shield.

We have poor internet signal but will upload photos as soon as we can.

Ufton Court Evening update

We are loving this weather after tea. 

A Viking Funeral!

Still not sleepy!

Day 2

All children had a good nights sleep and ate a good breakfast. Letting of steam before archery, lighting fires and Viking games. 

Viking Archery

We have some expert archers in our year group. 

Viking games!

Fire lighting is an essential skill for a Viking. 

Down time!

The Viking feast! 
We are all dressed up and ready to party Viking style. The food was amazing and we all ate so much!

Day 3

Good morning, another exciting day. Enjoying the sun before the great battle. 

The Battle of Reading. Saxons meet the Vikings!

Friday 3rd May 2024 Week 3 

In art this week, we have been learning about saturation and how the artist Jackie Morris used this in her work to show contrasting colours. 

Friday 26th April 2024 Week 2 -

This week year four have been busy revisiting previous learning and exploring our history chronology boxes. We had forgotten we had learnt about lots of different monarchs and enjoyed talking about important historical events such as the Great fire of London.

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Week 1 -

Today, Year 4 were so excited as Open Box Theatre Company came to school to help us learn all about the lives of Viking raiders and traders. We learnt so many new and interesting facts including how the Vikings navigated our shores in longboats. 

Friday 28th March 2024 Week 6 -

Look at our learning outcome, lanterns with working lights! We are so proud of our results!

Friday 22nd March 2024 Week 5 -

This week we have focused our learning on the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. We have focused on the meaning of the nonsensical words in each stanza. We loved it so much that we decided to focus on intonation, volume, tone and actions. Enjoy the results, we think it is amazing!

Thursday 14th March 2024 Week 4 -

This week in Year 4 we focused on what it means to be a Balksbury Citizen. We discussed how our 'Code of Conduct' helps us to treat each other with kind words. We then talked about how we remember the things that others say to us and how they 'Stick To Me Like Glue'. We celebrated our understanding and the effect words can have on us now and in the future by creating a year group banner.  

Thursday 7th March 2024 Week 3 -

World Book Day: to celebrate our love of books, we shared our favourite books with Year 2. We loved hearing all about the books Year 2 loved and why they chose them. We also loved getting dressed up as characters from books we have read and shared. 

Friday 1st March 2024 Week 2 -

This week we learnt to use our scientific skills to build our own electrical circuit. We made sure we could make the light a bulb work ready for when we make our own lanterns. 

Friday 23rd February 2024 Week 1 -

This week we learnt to summarise the text 'The Promise' by Nicola Davies. We drew and summarised each key point in the story to gain a deeper understanding. We now understand that 'the girl's' heart was warmed by keeping her promise to the old woman. She planted the acorns and spread her warmth to others. 

Thursday 8th February 2024 Week 6 -

In Year 4, Anti Bulling Day was celebrated with the children enjoying the text 'Kindness Grows' by Britta Teckentrup. Together we shared and discussed the meaningful messages in the story. Each child then wrote their own important message and added it to the Kindness Tree in the hall for everyone to share.   

Friday 2nd February 2024 Week 5 -

Free Reading Friday was shared and enjoyed together by Year 3 and Year 4 

Friday 26th January 2024 Week 4 -

Gathering figurative language from a variety of sources including VR Headsets to describe the animals and plant life we find in the natural world. 

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Week 3 -

Test Valley Brass Band came to see Year 4. The children had hands on experience with a variety of different instruments and learnt all about them. 

Friday 12th January 2024 Week 2 -

In science we experimented with tunning forks to understand what sound waves are and how they travel. We described what we could hear and hear. The table tennis ball bounced repeatedly when the tunning fork was placed against it gently. When the fork touched the water, the water splashed and made a ripple effect. From this we understood that sound travels in waves which you can not always see. 

Friday 5th January 2024 Week 1 -

By looking at the artists Alberto Glacometti, Antony Gormley and Tessa Farmer to understand sculpture, scale and space. We then experimented with sculpture materials and techniques to manipulate and bind a variety of materials such as: card, paper, wire and cardboard.

Friday 15th December 2023 Week 7 -

Autumn Term has been such a learning journey full of wonderful experiences. 

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Week 6 -

Today we made our jam tarts to please the 'Queen of Hearts' from Alice in Wonderland. The children enjoyed learning all the skills needed for cooking including budgeting, food hygiene, preparation, using equipment safety, following a recipe and preparing food before making it. The children ate their tarts and evaluated them. Miss Thompson enjoyed eating her jam tart with a nice cup of tea.

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Week 4 -

We have been learning to identify the function of banks and the relationship we have with them. In this lesson, children had ‘borrow’ and ‘lend’ cards. They had to find a partner who had the same matching amount of money. This led to a discussion on the problem of not knowing who has money to lend and who has money to borrow, and finding someone who has or needs the right amount of money. 

Thursday 16th November 2023 Week 3 -

This week, the children looked at some Victorian artefacts to explore and understand what life as a Victorian school child would have been like. Year 4 then experienced an actual day in the life of a Victorian school child coming into school dressed in period costumes. In Victorian times there was strict rules for children including boys and girls being separated whilst everyone faced the front of the class. Every child had to write with their right-hand using chalk and a blackboard. No left handers in 1870! Children learnt how to write using cursive letters, all sitting on the line perfectly whilst writing out poems such as Mary Had A Little Lamb. Times tables, The National Anthem, and the Lord’s Prayer were all learnt through chanting and repetition. Whilst enjoying the experience, the children quickly concluded that modern day learning is so much more fun.  

Friday 10th November 2023 Week 2 -

Making decorations for our Balksbury Federation Christmas Jingle

Friday 3rd November 2023 Week 1 -

Test tasting and evaluating  different jams in Design & Technology.

Friday 20th October 2023 Week 7 -

A patchwork of our memories inspired by the artist Faith Ringgold.

Tuesday 10th October 2023 Week 6 -

In maths we have been learning different ways to subtract numbers.

Friday 6th October 2023 Week 5 -

Our science learning journey this week. 

Friday 29th September 2023 Week 4 -

Writing information texts all about Greta Thunberg.

Friday 22nd September 2023 Week 3 -

Art, learning about scale and proportion.

Friday 22nd September 2023 Week 3 -

Focusing in on the detail with each draft we draw. 

Friday 15th September 2023 Week 2 -

In science we have been identifying and classifying insects.

Friday 8th September 2023 Week 1 -

Year 4 explore hand art!

Thursday 13th July 2023: Week 6

In Religious Education the children have been focusing on the key concept 'family'. They have explored how important it is to develop healthy relationships, forming firm family ties. These family ties were represented by making friendship bracelets with each other. 

Friday 7th July 2023: Week 5 Arts Week

The children had an amazing time focusing on the African artist Esther Mahlangu. She inspired the children to explore the history of the art work, including the colours and symmetry of each piece. They are very proud of the individual art work on their own T-shirts. 

Thursday 29th June 2023: Week 4

In geography this week, we compared old with new maps of Andover to see how much the town has changed over time. We also compared photographs of the school, looking closely at our school grounds and the surrounding area to see the changes over the years. Field work showed us how much of the school has been extended.   

Wednesday 21st June 2023: Week 3

Learning to understand how coherent paragraphs are in logical sequence.

Friday 16th June 2023: Week 2

Using a variety of sentence patterns.

Friday 9th June 2023: Week 1

Geography - Understanding grid references and features of map reading