Year 4 English
Choose the block you wish to teach
We’ve been busy spring cleaning our poetry blocks.
Our revised summer poetry blocks should be on the site in May, the autumn ones in July, and the spring ones in September.
Autumn Blocks
Read a range of fables (Rosen's Aesop's Fables) explore dialogue through drama, debate moral messages and write letters using extended sentences. Finally children write fables.
Traditional Tales and Fables: Aesop's Fables
Discuss inventions. Imagine the future using Was it Better Now? Explore biography (Genius of Leonardo) study verbs, perfect form, adverbs; write an autobiography.
Biographies: Inventors
Read the hilarious How to Train Your Dragon, exploring plot, character, setting & style. Study pronouns, dialogue punctuation and adverbials. Write a new chapter.
Fantasy: How to Train Your Dragon
Get creative with The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas, exploring instructions & explanations. Study possessive apostrophes and pronouns. Invent and introduce an art machine.
Instructions and Explanations: Art Ideas
Relish in a selection of outrageous Horrid Henry stories. Explore setting, character and plot. Study expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials. Write a new story.
Familiar Settings: Horrid Henry Stories
Amazing architecture, world landmarks and influential architects inspire this block. Using Cool Architecture (Simon Armstrong) as a starting point, read and write stimulating reports. Revise extending sentences with conjunctions and use apostrophes for possession.
Reports: Amazing Architecture
Using a text in which a child’s worries are encapsulated in a suitcase children express ideas through paper modelling, colours and painting, sculptures and dance, also responding to Save the Children’s global lockdown poem.
Wellbeing: Escapes and Dreams
Spring Blocks
Use versions of Princess and the Pea to explore, compare and write fairytales with a twisted point of view. Study dialogue, tense, pronouns. Role-play, write and perform playscripts.
Traditional Tales and Fables: Fairy Tales and Playscripts
Explore recounts through Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears (Emily Gravett), After the Fall (Dan Santat),The Dark (Lemony Snicket). Study adverbials and possessive apostrophes.
Recounts: Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears
Using rainforest stories, explore the issues confronting indigenous peoples and the environment. Create own stories and learn to correctly use the perfect form and paragraphs.
Stories that Raise Issues: Rainforest Stories
Read Wolves in the Walls (Gaiman) and Wolves (Gravett) for features of non-chronological reports. Use adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions of time/cause. Produce reports.
Reports: Wolves
Using captivating mythical stories of selkies and mermaids, children use higher level reading skills and write their own sea myths. Set out and punctuate dialogue and use paragraphs.
Myths and Legends: Legends of the Sea
Cherish rainforests, persuading others to do so too, with Where the Forest Meets the Sea and The Vanishing Rainforest. Expand noun phrases and revise possessive apostrophes.
Persuasive Writing: Save the Rainforests!
Summer Blocks
Immerse yourselves in wonderful stories from Africa. Read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, The Pot of Wisdom and African Tales. Write Ananse stories using extended sentences.
Stories on a Theme: Stories From Other Cultures
Explore issues around animals in captivity, reading texts including Zoo by Anthony Browne and Rainbow Bear by Michael Morpurgo. Study adverbials and expanded noun phrases.
Persuasive Writing: Animals in Captivity
Read The Butterfly Lion over the course of several days, using the opportunity to discuss, compare and analyse it. Perform role-play, write dialogue, use adverbials, and finally produce a new chapter for the book.
Fantasy: The Butterfly Lion
Explore recounts using biographies from the civil rights movement: Henry’s Freedom Box and the story of Rosa Parks' life. Use dialogue punctuation, apostrophes and paragraphs.
Reports: Narratives of Liberation
Using David Walliams’ Mr Stink, children read and write humorous stories with funny characters. They practise dialogue punctuation and using expanded noun phrases for impact.
Modern Fiction: Mr Stink by David Walliams
Using the inspirational Great Realisation and a short message broadcast in Lockdown, children explore any positives to come out of lockdown and think about things to remember. They use art, origami and planting sunflowers to cheer us onward.
Wellbeing: Positive Steps and Ways Forward
Two weeks’ work, focussed on key skills, NO printing required – all do-able by children at home with just a screen. Starts with a fun day; all you need if your class is self-isolating.
