Creative Curriculum
Creative Curriculum: Reading
WOW! Look at these FANTASTIC interactive books all to do with our Year 4 topics!!
You can read along with them or place it on mute and read at your own pace. Once you've finished pick your favourite one and write a fact file including everything (Ok- perhaps not everything but the most interesting things) you learnt!
Vikings: Kings
King Alfred the Great vs King Athelstan
Over the course of history there have been many great kings. However, there were two significant Anglo-Saxon kings during the Viking period. Read the PowerPoint below to learn about two kings who put up a fight against the Vikings. Find out what made them so great!
Your Task:
1) To use the 'Fact Sheet' below and decide if the statements are about King Alfred or King Athelstan.
2) Cut out the facts or copy them onto a correct poster. You don't have to use the posters below you can make your own!
3) Once all the facts are on each poster decorate them and add colour. Perhaps you could try drawing the kings on the poster.
4) Answer the question: Who do you think the greatest king was? Explain why.
Alfred the Great and King Athelstan. These are not photographs or paintings from when they were alive but secondary sources of information (What they COULD have looked like)
Rivers: British Isles Rivers
Task: Using an atlas(if you have one) or an online map. Identify each of the rivers marked on the map. The first one is done for you.
RIVERS
Our Geography topic in Y4 is Rivers across the world. Including looking at the physical features such as how they are formed and what makes a river.
A river is the path that water takes as it flows downhill towards the ocean. Rivers can be long or short, wide or narrow and they often join together on their way downstream to make bigger rivers. Lots of animals live in or by rivers and people often find them a good place to live too.
Rivers can be used for lots of good things, like sailing boats on them to trade goods with other towns on the river, and farming on land that has been made fertile by the river, but when there are heavy rains and the river is very full they can be dangerous; rivers do a lot of damage when they flood.
Here are 10 FUN FACTS about rivers.
- Rivers carry rainwater from hills downhill to other rivers, lakes or the ocean.
- The start of a river is called the source and the end is called the mouth.
- Many rivers and streams will join together before they reach the mouth of the river. The smaller rivers and streams are called tributaries.
- A fast flowing river will carry soil and dirt from its banks and bed downstream and drop them when it gets wider and slows down.
- When there is too much water in a river it floods and covers the area around it water. Sometimes this water is a deep as person or a house is tall.
- Floods cause a lot of damage but they also deposit nutrients from the water on the flooded land. This makes land that floods good for farming on.
- Rivers can be difficult and dangerous to cross. Towns often grow up where there are bridges or safe places to walk across.
- The longest river in the world is the Nile in Africa. It is 4,130 miles long.
- The longest rivers in Britain are the Severn (220 miles long) and the Thames (215 miles long).
- The river that carries the most water in the world is the Amazon in South America. The Amazon carries 210,000 cubic metres of water into the sea every second.
CLICK HERE for a video about rivers and the water cycle.
Rivers: Around the world
Use a map or atlas to find, locate and name some of the worlds most famous rivers.
Labelling Activity. Rivers across the world.
Rivers: Acrostic Poem
Try completing your own Acrostic Poem using river/water vocabulary.
Be creative as you can and decorate it with pictures and colour.
River: Art work
Where the river meets the sea, a lake or a larger waterway is called a MOUTH. Most rivers flow out into the sea, and this is where they end their journey. If a river has a wide mouth, this is called an estuary. An estuary has a mixture of salty and fresh water.
Try drawing, painting or even make a collage using old magazines of a rivers mouth.
Viking Gods
The Vikings were PAGANS which meant they believed in more than one god. Read the PowerPoint below all about the Gods the Vikings believed in. You might start to notice some similarities between the Anglo-Saxon gods.
Your task is to draw the gods and write about what you've learnt.
This could be in a form of a poster, leaflet or booklet! Its up to you how you want to present your work.
Reading all about the Vikings
Open the document below to read more about the vikings then try answering the questions about what you learnt.
Viking Ships: Dragon Eyes
Dragons were the most popular carved figureheads amongst the Vikings to have at the front of their ships (re-read below to recap what a figurehead is). Although they were carved out of wood they were sometimes painted in bright colours. We are going to look at the dragons in more detail.
Your task is to draw a DRAGONS EYE using the pictures above.
These are fantastic fun as there is so much detail to include in the scales and it's a great way to practice your blending of colours. Mr Evans will take you through a step by step guide on how to draw a dragons eye.
Use whatever medium you have at home for example paint, coloured crayons, watercolour, oil or chalk pastel. You could even do more than one using different techniques. If you don't have the colours in the pictures above change them and make it your own 
Viking Ships: Figurehead
CLICK HERE and HERE to watch two videos about Viking Boats.
A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration found at the prow (front) of a ship generally of a design related to the name or role of a ship. They have many other names such as a prow head, boat head and a figure head. There were lots of different styles and designs all carved out of wood which would have taken days to make. The most popular Viking figurehead was a Dragon. Vikings believed while they were sailing their ships at sea, there were lots of evil spirits which could harm them. They believed by putting a fierce figurehead at the front of their ship would protect them from harmful spirits and give them luck on their voyage.
Another reason, was to make their ship look powerful and fierce. If they encountered enemies at sea it would make their ship look strong to intimidate their rivals.
Try using your sketching skills to draw a figurehead from a viking boat.
Click on the images above to make them bigger.
Top Tips
- Have the correct pencil grip
- Keep your pencil sharp
- Use all of your paper not just a tiny corner (I only used half of mine - A4 size!)
- Try to avoid smudging. Try putting a piece of paper under your hand to stop this happening.
- Vary how hard you press with your pencil. To get darker press harder.
- Draw smooth lines (No Hairy Dog Lines!!!!!)
- It's OK to make mistakes!!
My sketching took me about 20 minutes. See the video below to watch me in action!
Viking Brooches
During our Anglo-Saxon theme earlier in the year, at school we made our very own Anglo- Saxon brooches out of clay!
Here are some pictures of your work!
Well guess what..
The Vikings wore brooches on their clothing too!!
Can you remember why the Anglo-Saxons wore brooches? Do you think the vikings wore them for the same reason? Do you think Saxon brooches looked the same to the vikings's brooches?
Be a top historian and research online 'Why did vikings wear brooches?' and write paragraph about what you learnt. 
Then, CLICK THIS LINK and follow the instructions to make your own Viking Brooch!
All you need is some cardboard, string, tin foil and a choice of coloured pens.
See pictures below.
Unfortunately, we have to press pause on our Creative Curriculum learning in the classroom however, that does mean you can carry on learning at home! We nearly came to the end of our Anglo-Saxon theme and due to the changes I think its best if you start to investigate and find out as much as possible about our next invaders and settlers in our British timeline...
...THE VIKINGS!!
Click the link below to find out more.
