These emergency lesson plans for Year 4 Science are only to be used by supply teachers who are faced with no planning or easily accessible resources. Also to be used following the guidance notes here.
Lesson Plans for Year 4 Science
Topic | Lesson Plan |
Moving and growing | Work on how important it is to warm up muscles before exercise. Explain how muscles help us to move, then demonstrate a cold muscle (blue-tac, when cold it tears) and a warmed-up muscle using an elastic band. Children write up with illustrations in their books. Do some simple warm-up exercises with them in class. |
Habitats | Hazardous Habitats: Imagine animals in the wrong habitat, how long could they stay there for without doing serious damage to themselves/others in the environment? Elephant in a pond, human in the desert, fish in the jungle. |
Keeping warm | Survey of items in your house which help to keep things warm, keep things cool. Differences in your summer clothes and your winter clothes, look at head gear and what difference there is in the use of a cap and a wooly hat. |
Solids, liquids and how they can be separated | Adding solids to water: imagine! Give children a list of solids in a table and they have to decide whether or not the solid will sink/dissolve/be easy to extract/change and of it’s properties. E.g. custard powder, gravy granules (look at temperature of water, keep it a fair test!), soap (look at time in a fair test too), a stone, a coin, a tea bag, tea leaves (look at effect on the water with all.) |
Friction | Using friction: investigate ways in which we need to control the level of friction so that it is useful, think of tread on tyres, on shoes, playground slides, goal keeper’s gloves, shoe laces, ice-skating. |
Circuits and conductors | Where do we find electricity in the classroom? How are we insulated from it? What materials are used and why? What if the material was changed? Do you know what would happen if we used wool instead? There’s a very useful activity on BBC Science Clips (google it!) |
Return to Emergency Lesson Plans Index
Where next? There’s a great quick read here on Year 4 Resource-Free Lesson Plans. Check out our resources area here too.