Year 4 Spring Term
Dear parents and carers,
Welcome back! We hope you had a Merry Christmas and are ready for the New Year! Below is
an overview of the forthcoming term. We hope that you find it useful. Please do come and
speak to us if you have any queries or questions.
Best wishes, Miss Brewster (Fir) and Miss Basnett (Spruce)
Topics: This term we will have one main topic:
How did the Egyptians live?
Trips: We are hoping to visit The British Museum for Egyptians and we will be going Skiing with
the Brentwood Ski Centre as part of our PE.
Literacy: We will be linking our topic to our Literacy and looking at a balance of Fiction and NonFiction writing. We will begin with explanation texts and stories set in imaginary worlds before
half term. After half term, we will be writing recounts and poetry. We will have Comprehension
lessons every week, and also grammar and spelling.
Maths: This term, our maths focuses will be position and direction, decimals, multiplication and
division, place value and addition and subtraction before half term. After half term, we will be
looking at multiplication and division involving place value, fractions, statistics, and measurement.
Olympic times tables tests will be done once a week, as well as mental maths 30 questions in 30
minutes.
Science: Our topic is named ‘In a State’ where we will be conducting experiments and
identifying the properties of solids, liquids and gases. We will be testing against different
hypotheses and making observations over time. Maths will link strongly as we will be creating
graphs and using our scientific evidence within these. We will study the water cycle, and
describe and evaluate findings from investigations.
PE: It is still the expectation to take part in 2 hours of PE a week and we will focus balancing
and dance during our indoor sessions, and netball and basketball during our outdoor sessions. In
Fir class, our PE days are every Monday and Friday and Spruce class will have PE on Tuesdays
and Thursdays. As usual, please ensure your child has a full PE kit in school with them for these
days.
Art/DT: To link with our topic of the Egyptians, we will be designing, planning and creating our
own mummy models, canopic jars and portraits of Tutankhamun. We will also learn about
Hieroglyphics and make our own using real parchment paper! We will also look at creating models
that can move with hinges for the Design Technology aspect of our art lessons.
RE: We will be focussing on religious symbols across a wide range of religions (Jews, Islam,
Christians). We will be looking at how light and dark can affect these religions and the
importance of religious stories.
Computing: Our computing topic is ‘We are meteorologists’ and we will be observing the weather
and creating our own Excel graphs and PowerPoint presentations based on these findings.
Music: In music we will be learning songs and adding in our own compositions using percussion
instruments. We will be learning to sing in different pitches and tunes, and comparing different
songs by the same artists. We will be improving our confidence, practising and learning the
words to songs in order to build up to a performance. We will also be learning how to read notes
and play these notes on musical instruments.
PHSE: We will begin by looking at how to deal with emotions and how to cope with a variety of
different emotions. We will learn about how we can seek support, additionally how we can be
supportive to others when they may need it. We will look at how we can tackle things that are
difficult, and how to problem solve and work as a team.
French: We will be elaborating on the French that we already know and learning how to
communicate in sentences with each other. We will learn new phrases including numbers, parts
of the body, family members, character descriptions, household items and prepositions.
Home expectations: With regard to reading, children need to be changing their own books at
school. The reading books may have reading comprehension activities to match, please encourage
your children to complete these activities and bring them into school, even if they are not
necessarily homework. Two pieces of homework will also be given out on a Friday: one maths
activity and one literacy activity to be returned by Tuesday. Homework will also be put onto
MyMaths and books on Bug Club for children to complete. Spelling words will be given out on
Mondays, and tested on Fridays. These will include some words related to the topic we are
learning about at the time.
CREATIVE PROJECTS: We encourage you to attempt at least two of them but please feel free
to do more! Last academic year we had some fantastic projects and these children got highly
recognised for the effort that they put into these, so thank you if you did help your children to
complete any projects. These are the projects we would like you to consider based on our topic.
If there are any more that you can think of, feel free to have a go!
How did the Egyptians live?
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Create your own Egyptian tomb. You could use junk modelling materials or make it out of whatever you wish! Could
you include Hieroglyphics onto the walls?
Make your own Mummy! You could use a doll that you have at home and cover it with material of your choice. You
could improve it by adding a sarcophagus (coffin) for your mummy to lay in!
Make an Egyptian armlet (bracelet) using paint to decorate your jewellery in an exciting way!
Use a different material like cloth to make an embroidered banner featuring Egyptian motifs. Look online for
some Egyptian patterns to make your banner attractive!
Make an Egyptian crown and pretend to be royalty! You could use card, cardboard, paper, and decorate it with
colouring pencils, paint or foil!
Be a chef and make Egyptian date candy! Look up the recipe online and bring it in for us all to taste! You may even
want to write some instructions about how you made them!
Do you like Lego? Why not build an Egyptian pyramid from Lego! Can you make the biggest one possible? If you
don’t have Lego, you can make a pyramid out of straws, match sticks and marshmallows to join them together.
Write a diary entry imagining you are an Egyptian. Make your own parchment paper by using a tea bag to make it
look authentic!
Design a map of Ancient Egypt, including some of the most important landmarks on there.
Create a Tutankhamun mask that you can wear. Think about how you can attach it to your face. Maybe cut out
holes for the eyes and fasten with a piece of string.