Year 4 focus on solids, liquids and separating, keeping warm, moving and growing, habitats, friction and circuits & conductors.

Solids, liquids and separating
Most children will: describe the differences between solids and liquids; describe melting and dissolving and give everyday examples of each; name some materials that will and some that will not dissolve in water; explain why undissolved solids can be separated from a solution by filtering and show how to do this; recognise that although it is not possible to see a dissolved solid it remains in the solution.

Keeping warm
Most children will: recognise that temperature is a measure of how hot or cold objects are; identify some materials that are good thermal insulators and some everyday uses of these; recognise that the same materials keep cold objects cold as keep warm objects warm; use thermometers to measure temperatures; suggest how to investigate a question; construct tables for their results and offer simple explanations for results.

Moving and growing
Most children will: describe the main functions of their skeleton; describe observable characteristics of bones; recognise that their skeletons grow as they grow; state that movement depends on both skeleton and muscles; identify a question to be investigated and how to collect and interpret reliable evidence in order to answer the question.

Habitats
Most children will: identify some local habitats; name some of the organisms that live there; use simple keys to identify organisms; state the food source of some animals; distinguish between those which eat plants and those which eat other animals and plan how to investigate some of the preferences of small animals found in the habitat.

Friction
Most children will: describe some of the factors that increase friction between solid surfaces and increase air and water resistance; describe how to measure forces and describe how to investigate friction, explaining what their results show and relating what they found out to their everyday experience.

Circuits and conductors
Most children will: construct simple circuits and use them to test whether materials are electrical conductors or insulators and how switches work; relate knowledge about metals and non-metals to their use in electrical appliances and systematically investigate the effect of changing components in a circuit on the brightness of bulbs.