What makes our National Parks special?

Literacy

This half term, alongside writing linked to our geography and science work, we will be focusing on stories from different cultures that raise issues or dilemmas.  The books we will use are ‘Henry’s Freedom Box’ by Ellen Levine, ‘Journey to Jo’berg’ by Beverley Naidoo, and Fourteen Wolves by Catherine Barr.  Our class story will be ‘The Boy Who Biked the World’ by Alaistair Humphreys.  Our grammar work will focus particularly on main clauses, subordinate clauses, conjunctions and securing the use of commas. Daily reading and weekly VIPERS comprehension work will take place and there will be regular phonics and spelling ‘zappers’ tasks, with spelling assessments taking place on a Thursday.  Our weekly spellings will focus on consolidating words containing the ‘sc’, ‘que’, ‘ei’, ‘eigh’ and ‘ey’ patterns.  For our half-termly, Year 4 statutory word list, we will be revisiting the words from their previous individual lists that were misspelt throughout the year.  Please encourage your child to regularly work on daily reading and individual spellings at home.

Numeracy

We will be consolidating work on time and measurement, before moving on to learning about statistics, properties of shape and position / direction work. Throughout the half term, we will continue to reinforce the four written calculation methods and apply them to a range of problems and reasoning tasks. Mental maths ‘SMIRF’ facts will focus on units of measure and shape, alongside weekly SMIRFs assessments on a Tuesday.  Daily work on times tables will continue. Please encourage your child to regularly work on these at home, as it will greatly support their maths work in class, as well as their confidence with the National MTC which takes place this month. 

Science

This half term, we will be learning how the digestive system works. We will find out at how our food is digested and the simple functions of the basic parts of the human digestive system.  We will also construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.

Geography

We will be learning about the UK’s National Parks before focusing in on the Yorkshire Dales and then more closely on our local feature of Embsay Crag.  We will find out about the work of a National Park Ranger.  We will use OS maps to identify physical and human features and work with grid references. 

History

This was focused on last term.

Computing

We will be using data-loggers to take readings to monitor sound, temperature or light levels in our school environment.

DT

This was focused on last term.

Art/Design

Linking to our Geography topic of ‘National Parks’, we will be studying the paintings and techniques of David Hockney to create our own Hockney inspired landscape.

PE

PE will be on Mondays and Thursdays.  On Mondays, we will be practising rounders skills, whilst on Thursdays, Kanga will be teaching us ultimate Frisbee, as well as practising for our school’s sports day.  We will also be attending an athletics morning at Sandyland’s Sports Centre.  

RE

This half term, we will discuss the question : ‘If God is everywhere, why go to a place of worship?’  

French

Our topic will be ‘A la mode’, where we will be learning to talk about clothes and what people are wearing.  We will express our likes and dislikes. Using a model, we will write and understand a description.

PSHE

This half term, we will discuss our achievements and set goals for the future, considering the changes we have been through and how to manage changes that are ahead of us as we move into Year 5.