Year 4 - Jungle Book & Northern Lights
THE JUNGLE BOOKS & NORTHERN LIGHTS CLASSES
CURRICULUM FOR Autumn 1
Welcome to Wonderland!
As Readers
This half term will be jumping back in time with the Victorian classic, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll. We hope to mix equal parts creativity, bewilderment, and complete nonsense for an immersive reading experience! On a day that begins like any other, Alice notices a rabbit—a rabbit with a pocket watch. She chases after it and stumbles down a hole… and keeps falling and falling and falling. That’s when things start to get weird. She encounters a bizarre cast of characters — the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, a pipe-smoking caterpillar, the Pigeon, a Duchess, the Cook, and the decapitation-happy Queen of Hearts. It’s an adventure of completely intolerable logic, as witty as it is completely insane.
Our whole class reading sessions will be linked to the geography topic, ‘Europe’. In particular, France. We will be looking at non-fiction, whilst focussing on the key skills of: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieval and summarising.
Key Vocabulary: Europe, Paris, capital, revolution, revolt, icon, Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe
As writers
As writers we will be looking in depth at the characters and setting in our story, to produce descriptive pieces. In addition, we shall create shape poems linked to these characters. The children will be taught thesaurus and dictionary skills to enhance their writing, as well as creating word banks. Towards the end of the term, the children will draw upon their knowledge of Europe, to produce a non-fiction balanced argument. There will be a strong focus on presentation and letter formation, as we hope to issue children with their pen licences.
Key Vocabulary: punctuation, synonym, adjective, noun, verb, adverb, rhyme, visualisation, conjunctions
As Mathematicians
In this unit, children will recognise the place value of each digit in a four-digit number and continue to order and compare numbers up to 10,000 using mathematical vocabulary and symbols. They will identify, represent and estimate numbers using different representations and will round numbers to the nearest 100 and 1000. Children will focus on counting from 0 in multiples of 6, 7, 9, 25 and 1000; count backwards through zero to include negative numbers; and find 1000 more or less than a given number. They will begin to read Roman numerals up to 100. Finally, children will have the opportunity to use all their number and place value skills to solve a range of problems
.Key Vocabulary: whole, part, place holder, hundreds, tens, thousands, ones, partitioning, flexible, dienes, intervals, estimate, mid-point, column, rounding.
As Scientists
As scientists we will be diving into the animal kingdom. In this unit about Animals Including Humans, our children will expand on their learning from year 3 about how animals, including humans, need to get nutrition from what they eat. They will explore the different organs of the digestive system in humans and the functions of teeth in both humans and animals. We will learn about the different types of teeth and the importance of good dental hygiene, before planning and carrying out an investigation into tooth decay using an egg as a model tooth. learn about the parts and functions of individual organs of the human digestive system and carry out our own scientific demonstration of the process using everyday household items. After, we will investigate herbivores, carnivores and omnivores in the context of teeth, digestion and food chains. Finally, they will extend their understanding of food chains from key stage 1 to include more complex chains, using the terms ‘consumers’ and ‘producers’ and compare food chains in different habitats.
Key Vocabulary: oesophagus, canine, molar, incisor, intestines, anus, classify, group, observe, key, compare, differences, similarities, producer, habitat, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, environmental
As Geographers
This half term we will be interacting with our European neighbours. The children will identify the seven continents of the world before looking more closely at a map of Europe. They will compare Europe with other continents in terms of its size and features, and identify the seas and oceans surrounding Europe. Children will recap the location of a variety of European countries. They will then explore some human features of different European countries, including flags, currencies and governments.
Key Vocabulary: Continent, capital city, compare, contrast, currency, atlas, map, features, human, physical.
As Artists
This half term Year 4 will be exploring artists that have created illustrations/images linked to Alice! These will include John Tenniel, Leonard Weisgard and Salvador Dali. As part of this we shall be recreating their artwork, using a range of skills such as: sketching, shading, collage, water colour
Key Vocabulary: Compare, contrast, primary, secondary, shade, blend
Home Learning
In Year 4, pupils will be given a list of 10 spellings from the statutory spelling list each week, which they are expected to learn in preparation for a spelling test every Friday. Pupils are expected to demonstrate learning using Ed-Shed or, if this cannot be accessed at home, by asking their class teacher for an alternative.
Furthermore, we ask that you encourage your child to learn their multiplication tables up to 12. This is an ongoing expectation until your child can confidently recall them in a mixed order and using inverse operations. Times Tables Rock Stars should be accessed to help them.
Please continue to read regularly with your child at home, as reading regularly will help your child’s vocabulary knowledge, spelling and writing skills. Each week they will bring home a text to read to you. They are then required to answer the VIPERS questions on the back.
Any homework sent home on a Friday, must be completed and returned by Wednesday (the latest) the following week.