In Year 4, our children enjoy hands-on, practical Science learning and we focus on the following working scientifically skills:
- asking relevant questions and using different types of scientific enquiries to answer them
- setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests
- making systematic and careful observations and taking accurate measurements
- gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data in a variety of ways
- recording findings using simple scientific language, drawings, labelled diagrams, keys, bar charts, and tables
- reporting on findings from enquiries
- using results to draw simple conclusions and make predictions
- identify differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes
- using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions
States of matter
Intended outcomes for this unit:
- Children will be able to compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases.
- The will be able to observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius (°C).
- Children will identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature.
Electricity
Intended outcomes for this unit:
- Children will be able to identify common appliances that run on electricity.
- They will be able to construct a simple series electrical circuit, identifying and naming its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers.
- Children will identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery.
- They will recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and associate this with whether or not a lamp lights in a simple series circuit.
- Children will be able to recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors
Sound
Intended outcomes for this unit:
- Children will be able to identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating.
- They will recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear.
- Children will be able to find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it.
- They will find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.
- Children will be able to recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.
Living things and their habitats
Intended outcomes for this unit:
- Children will be able to recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways.
- They will explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment.
- Children will be able to recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.
Teeth and digestion
Intended outcomes for this unit:
- Children will be able to describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans.
- They will be able to identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.
- Children will learn to construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.