Year 4 – Mrs Haden-Brown, Miss Butler & Mrs Simpson

3D render of a centaur, a creature from Greek mythology that is half human and half horse.

Are you familiar with the centaur? Half horse and half man, this magnificent beast has stalked through time all the way from Ancient Greek tales and stories.

If you could create a mythical creature that was a cross between two real species, what would you choose?

The first topic that Year 4 have chosen is ‘Mythical Creatures’. We will be using our English sessions to study the Michael Morpurgo version of Beowulf before writing our own description of Grendel and then devising an information sheet to help Beowulf defeat this beastly creature. We will also be creating our own, ‘Prefabulous Animile’ after reading The Hippocrump by James Reeves.

To complement the fact that the original Beowulf dates back to Anglo-Saxon literature, we will be exploring the key question of Did the Anglo Saxons ruin Britain? within our History sessions. The Anglo-Saxon age in Britain was from around AD410 to 1066. We will be putting our historian skills into practice to learn about their arrival and impact upon Britain.

After considering how to keep ourselves safe in Computer Science, we will be learning about where electricity comes from; how switches work; which materials allow electricity to flow through them and which items use electricity to work. Using this learning, in D.T, we will design and make our very own Beowulf themed buzzer game!

In Art we will be expanding our knowledge of famous sculptors such as Jacob Epstein before developing our own skills to produce a bust of Grendel. This learning will link with digital literacy which we will use to make a background for our busts.

As well as our French topic, ‘Welcome to school, Super Learners’, we will be learning some Italian vocabulary in music. Identifying the rhythm, beat and time signature of Peer Gynt, The Hall of The Mountain King and learning how to read and write traditional music notation will help us to compose a short piece of music to accompany our ‘Prefabulous Animile’ poems.

All of this is on top of our daily guided reading and numeracy sessions as well as daily spelling and times table practice.

Friday is our P.E. day. For safety, please ensure earrings are removed and long hair is tied back.

Homework runs from Monday to Monday.

Mrs. Haden-Brown, Miss Butler and Mrs. Simpson