We enjoyed a fantastic science sleepover learning all about bats thanks to Worcestershire Bat Trust – we had an awful lot of questions about these amazing animals. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any bats on our walk through the woods in the dark (we did hear some owls though) but we hope WBT will come back in the summer for another night walk. We’ll certainly be looking at bats some more when we come to our habitats topic later in the year. 

Thank you to all the staff who looked after us!

We’ve been learning about melting and freezing by finding out about what ice cream actually is and then making our own in the classroom. Unfortunately, we then had to eat it but we did learn lots along the way including why it is really lucky that water does freeze.

I saw some super creative homework in 4SR this week based on their Roman  theme. These two caught my eye, a Colosseum cake and the Leaning Tower of Pisa – two lasting landmarks Harley and Niamh think you should visit.

Year 4 have been investigating whether all lights worked the same. We found that different voltage bulbs worked at different brightnesses. The LEDs were even stranger – the yellow one was yellow, but the red one flashed on and off and the white one was yellow or red depending on which way around the wires were connected!

Dear Parents/carers,

Welcome to Year 4 and our first theme of the year: ‘Who’s Marching into Britain?’ We will be learning about Iron Age Britain and the lasting impact of the Roman invasion of the country. Please find below details about what we will be covering in literacy, maths and theme lessons over the next half term. We always welcome parents input into our work in school so if you have any resources at home or you have an interest in the subjects we are covering then do please let us know.

Literacy 

The Romans will be inspiring our literacy work as the children explore punctuation, grammar and effective writing through Roman stories and myths. Year 4 will also be looking at William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar with a focus on writing plays and interpreting stories through drama. We will also be looking in more detail at describing characters and settings as well as the structure of stories.

Maths 

In maths we are extending our understanding of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication; developing more efficient written methods of calculation as well as mental approaches. We will be looking at the properties of 2D shapes, discovering ways of sorting them, as well as increasing our understanding of symmetry. Year 4 will also look at handling data, exploring different ways of presenting data as graphs in close connection with our science learning. We will also be looking at Roman numerals alongside our current theme.

Science 

This half term we are looking at the states of matter – solids, liquids and gases – and the changes from one state to another. We will be investigating melting, evaporation and other processes as well as learning about how thermometers work and using them to measure changes in temperature. In the second half of the term we will be exploring sound including how sounds are made and how we hear them.

Theme 

The focus this term will be on history as we investigate what Roman Britain was like and how it affected the people living there. We will be looking at what made the Roman army so successful and seeing what it is like to be archaeologists. We will learn more about life in Roman Britain, as well as exploring the Roman’s feats of construction and the legacy they left behind. We will also be doing lots of Art and Design based on the Romans, including making mosaics and interpreting Roman-inspired music.

Miss Hahlo and Mrs Ray.

Hello, welcome to our new webpage for Year 4 2018-19! We have already had an AMAZING start to Year 4, all our children have settled in brilliantly and we have really enjoyed getting to know our new classes and meeting many parents and carers. We feel very lucky to be once again working with such inspiring and hard-working children here at LHPSN.

We have had a fantastic start to exploring our fascinating new theme, The Romans, including using this as inspiration for writing about a Roman battle. Our current school value is Empathy, which children have already shown a strong understanding of through our PSHCE lessons.

All Home Learning and Spellings will be displayed on our class web pages – if you require a paper copy of either, please just ask. Please encourage your child to complete all Home Learning tasks and learn their Spellings to support their learning in the classroom. Both the weekly spelling test and times table club will be on Fridays this year. Reading books will also be coming home on a Friday.

Year 4 are lucky enough to participate in the FAME music programme. The children will this year be learning the flute and ukulele. Children will soon begin to bring their instruments home to practice with, please ensure children have their instrument back in school every Wednesday for their music lesson. A FAME concert will be held later this year, we will give details nearer the time.

PE lessons will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please ensure that PE kits are in school at all times during term time, this has been brilliant so far so thank you!

Year 4 is also the year in which we work our way towards a very exciting Pen License awarded for neat handwriting, so please feel free to do extra practice of this at home!

We always welcome parents’ input into our work in school so if you have any resources at home or you have an interest in the subjects we are covering, then do please let us know.

As always please feel free to contact us if you have any queries or concerns, we will be more than happy to help to ensure the whole of Year 4 feels safe and happy. We are both looking forward to an exciting year in Team 4, thank you to all parents and carers for your support already this year.

Mrs Ray and Miss Hahlo.

Throughout our writing work recently we have focused on Homer’s epic Legend; The Odyssey. Everyone has worked extremely hard to produce their own individual books inspired by the story. After finishing our own stories we got into groups of 7, with everyone writing one of their chapters. With us all showing amazing collaborative skills and teamwork we have now completed our group story posters. These pieces really showcase how everyone has really improved their writing from the start of the year. The standard of writing and presentation is way above the children’s years, so much so that when Mrs Ray came to look at our work she thought the work was done by Year 6! We hope you enjoy seeing our work! 

Prospective astronauts from Year 4 enjoyed a fantastic evening at Space Camp. Rain stopped us from stargazing but we made planispheres and constellation cards to help us find the stars whenever we want. The trainees also went through testing to analyse their communication and memory skills as well as measuring their pulse rates before and after exercise. 

After hot chocolate we then settled down to camp “out” in the hall in our tents. Everyone had a brilliant time and passed with flying colours.

In 4LH we had an AMAZING World Book Day, celebrating our love of reading through sharing the characters that inspire us and the many worlds that books can take us to. We each had a chance to ‘Voice the Value’; preparing a speech to explain how our chosen character reflects one of our school values at Lickey Hills. We also participated in a range of book-related activities, including artwork, competitions and quizzes… and best of all we each got to take home a book token, we can’t wait to explore all the new books we can buy! Happy reading everyone! 

This month at Lickey, we are lucky enough to have two exciting theme days – Reading and Science. Here are some excellent book ideas to engage your child in both of these exciting subjects.

We hope you enjoy these suggestions.