Year 4 Autumn 1 Curriculum Information

Are you ready for a new year and lots of learning this half-term? We will be reading, the ‘The Wolf Wilder’ by Katherine Rundell, as our adventurous class story. We will delve into the novel, starting with Feodora and her mother who live in the snowbound wood of Russia, in a house full of food and fireplaces. But down the road, in a ruined chapel, lives a pack of wolves. We will learn later that Fedora’s mother is a wolf wilder, and Feo is in training to become one too. This means they teach tamed animals to be wild again – fighting, running, fending for themselves and being wary of humans. This thrilling tale will find Feo running for her life, trying to escape the Russian Army who threatens her very existence. What follows is a story of revolution and adventure, encouraging all to stand up for what you love and of course, wolves. Thus, encouraging compassion, teamwork, and acceptance of each other – which links in with our Personal, Social and health Education topic, ‘Being Me in My World’.

In English we shall be looking at the great myth ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’ – we will meet kings, a ravenous beast, and a brave boy. According to legend, King Minos ruled Athens and forced the people to deliver children every nine years to keep the beast’s hunger at bay. We will be unpicking the rich vocabulary from this novel to use in our narrative writing. Who will win, beast or boy? 

We are lucky enough to be going swimming this term as part of our PE curriculum, as well as developing fundamental skills such as agility, balance, coordination and speed.

In Geography, we will be learning about Spatial sense. We will be identifying and locating tropics on a globe, looking at scales and grid references to help us. We will also be using our map reading skills to identify where we live and look at our local area - perhaps you already know some famous facts about Melton Mowbray... cheese and pork pies come to my mind!

In Maths, we will continue developing our Times-Tables knowledge and focusing on place value and how this can aid our problem solving and reasoning skills. In addition to this, we will be developing our fluency with written Addition and Subtraction methods.

In Science, we will be learning about the classification of Plants and Animals, developing our grouping skills and looking at different classes of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

We will also be looking at Judaism in Religious Education, and thinking about beliefs and practices and the relationship Jews have with God. Meanwhile, in Computing we will be looking at collaborative learning using Google, where pupils will access their learning through laptops. Music this term will be looking at musical structures and listening to some fantastic tracks – we may even have a go at playing some of the pieces!

Please keep a look out on Class Dojo for photos of our learning, information, and updates. We have lots more exciting experiences planned for this half-term such as Roald Dahl Day, our curriculum Art Day and many more.