Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 4

Mr Sussmann and Mrs Thamu warmly welcome you to Year 4.

The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Year 4, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.

We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.

October 2021

Art

In Art this term the artist we are studying is Ai Weiwei.  We looked in great detail at his work especially the exhibition at the Tate Modern from October 2010 to May 2011 – Sunflower Seeds.  The work consisted of one hundred million individually made sunflower seeds filling the entire Turbine Hall to a depth of ten centimetres.  We discussed what these seeds represented and what Ai Weiwei was trying to illustrate. Using this as our inspiration our project is to use clay to create uniquely sized and decorated ‘sunflower seeds’ to represent all at Khalsa Primary School.

English

In our English this term we have been reviewing some of our learning for last year and looking at how to use expanded noun phrases and ambitious vocabulary effectively to engage and inform a reader. We have looked at several examples of travel guides and identified good phrases which we can use to improve our writing. We have been drafting travel guides to help persuade our classmates to Visit the fascinating country of China.

Geography

Our Topic this term is China. We looked at where China is in relation to the UK. We found the capital and then began to look at surrounding countries and their capitals. We also looked at how the countries were separated. We looked at the climate, food, language and clothes and how that compares to the UK. We also looked at in great detail the Great Wall of China and The Terracotta Army, Black Dragon pool Park, the Yangtze River, Mount Everest and K2. We also discussed how many items around us were ‘made in China’.

Maths

We have been focusing on place value this month and looking at numbers up to 10,000. The children have been looking at number lines and rounding to the nearest, 10, 100 and 1000. This is one of the basic building blocks of problem solving in maths and only with a firm understanding of place value can children begin to tackle more advanced methods for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.   Both classes do a ‘fluent in five’ during which they have begun to build familiarity with mathematical language as well as speed in solving simple problems. This familiarity will help them when they tackle more complex problems

Panjabi

In Year 4 children have been learning 4 sets of Panjabi letters. Children are reading and writing words by using these letters. This month they have also been learning how to make simple sentences in Panjabi like and some children have been using adjectives in their sentences. Some children were working on their Mukta word sheets with the help of an alphabet sheet. For speaking and listening, our topic this term has been Different foods and how to say their quantities in Panjabi. This month children are learning names of different fruits and vegetables. This term children have been learning the story of Bandi shorr and shabads related to this day.

PE

Children this term took part in a Diwali Dance workshop!  The children learnt about the story of Rama and Sita through a story book which was animated.  They then had to pick a picture out of the book and make it come to life through dance!  The children worked in groups and then came together to practice and perform a routine in front of their class mates.  Dance is an important aspect of PE as it helps children with coordination, balance and teamwork.

PSHE

In PSHE we have been looking at Mental Health. We have been using our senses to appreciate our surroundings and how this appreciation can help with our mental wellbeing.  We looked at clouds and used our imaginations to see what story they were telling. We also hugged trees and smiled at the comfort we received.

Bullying is another topic we have discussed.  We have talked about what bullying is and what we should do if we see anyone being bullied.  We have also looked at feelings and how the person being bullied feels and what being bullied could do to them.

We have also looked at NSPCC have looked at PANTS and what this acronym stands for and how important it is.

Religious Education

In RE we have been looking at the Jewish High holy days.  We have examined the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New year.  We learnt that the Jewish year is 5782 and that Jews eat apples and honey during the celebrations to bring in a sweet new year.  We also heard the sound of the Shofar and some of us where able to try making a sound ourselves.  We have also learnt about Yom Kippur, the day of repentance and that Jews fast for 25 hours during this holiday, that they can not eat or drink water during the whole time and usually spend the whole day in the synagogue praying.  We thought about some of the things we might have done wrong during the past year and said a prayer to forgive ourselves and do better in the year ahead.

Science

We have been learning about states of matter in Science this term.  We learnt that materials can exist in three states of matter; Solid, liquid and gas. We have done some role play to try to understand how particles interact with each other when they are in solid, liquid and gaseous states.  We investigated how we can classify different materials as solids and liquids and discovered that certain materials like jelly are difficult to classify as either liquid or solid and that other materials, like glass are actually extremely viscous liquids.  We have looked at evaporation and begun to learn about how we work with variables within a scientific experiment in order to run a fair test.