Class 4 – Summer Term

Summer Term in Year 4

Europe

English:

This term begins with a launch into our Europe topic taking inspiration from the text ‘Miranda the Explorer’ and the children will write a ‘losing tale’. The children will build on their descriptive writing, using fronted adverbials, broadening their use of punctuation and varying their vocabulary by using thesauruses. For our non-fiction units we will move onto non fiction texts on advertisments about Europe to link to our topic and create News Reports about Miranda’s journey. Our final fiction written work will be a wishing tale, building on suspense. 

Through our punctuation and grammar sessions, the children will know and use apostrophes correctly for possession, ensuring they write in Standard English, writing noun phrases with modifying adjectives, nouns and prepositional phrases. 

Through our Pathways to Reading sessions, we will discuss and record words and phrases that the author uses to engage and impact on the reader, make predictions based on details and information that the children have deduced, and identify where the author has made precise word choices for impact and effect. 

Maths: 

This term we will be looking at The unit we will cover will be fractions. The children will learn about tenths, hundredths, equivalent fractions and how to simplify fractions to make them easier to work with. 

 Following fractions the children we move onto decimals, the children will understand how to divide 1 digit and 2 digit numbers by 10 and 100 and complete calculations resulting in a decimal answer. 

We will then move onto the unit ‘Area’; the children will understand what area is and how to calculate the area of different shapes.

The children will finish the year by covering topics such as money, time, statistics and geometry with a key focus on angles and 2D shapes. 

The children will continue to develop their ability to quickly recall and derive times table facts for all of the tables up to 12 x 12. This will help with the Multiplication check that all of the year 4 children will undertake during this term. 

Science:

At the start of our Summer Term we will continue with our electricity topic. The children will be able to construct a simple circuit, identify whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit and what elements it needs. The children will also recognise that a switch opens and closes a circuit and will associate this with common appliances. 

The second part of the term we will move onto sound. The children will explore making sounds with a range of objects, explore how string telephones work and explore how you can alter the pitch or volume of objects. The children will measure sounds over different distances and measure sounds through different insulation materials. 

Music:

The children have been making great progress with their music lessons with Love Music Trust; they are fantastic with their instruments and keen musicians. This term, the children will develop their ability to read standard notation and play with greater clarity and expression. The children will have the opportunity to play at the Halle. Please remember that they need to have their instrument in school each Thursday.

Art/Design and Technology:

There will be a focus on creating pieces linked to our topic, exploring and investigating the world’s most famous buildings, thinking about what makes a building aesthetically pleasing and how architectural styles change over time. There will be plenty of hands –on and creative activities for the children to do too and the opportunity to recreate famous buildings in a variety of ways. The children will look at key designers such as Sir Christopher Wren. 

Topic:

This term our topic is Europe which is more Geography based. We will use the text ‘Miranda the Explorer’ as a hook for our topic and we will begin with the UK, looking at how Great Britain is formed, the British Isles and name and locate some of the main islands that surround the UK. We will then move onto the broader world and locate the world’s continents, with a key focus on Europe; this will include learning about climate zones, biomes, vegetation bells, rivers and mountains. We will move onto comparing counties in Europe and learning about the flags of different countries. 

Computing:

The children will cover two units this term in Computing following the scheme of work called ‘Kapow’. At first, the children will use coding through scratch for a range of purposes as well as comuptational thinking.

PSHE:

We will continue to learn alongside My Happy Minds and Skills Builder developing our essential skills, which will not only influence our choices within lessons but also with life out of school. The children will learn about making informed decisions where money is concerned, how to maintain a balanced lifestyle and caring for themselves as they continue to grow and develop. 


World Religions:

During our final topics for the year the children will be learning about what it means to be ‘good’ as well as how being good can help others around us. As an extenstion on how to help other we will expand our understanding on how to help the planet.


P.E:

Our PE day this term will be swimming lessons at Biddulph Pool supported by Mr Rowe and Mrs Milroy. Please send your children into school dressed beach ready and in their school tracksuit should they have one. School kits are a Marlfields name tracksuit or Marlfields named logo t-shirt, black shorts and sensible footwear. In some weeks a further lesson may be given in PE but we will let you know if this is happening. 

Homework:

Spellings and times tables should be practiced daily for 10 minutes. Spellings will be set online via Google Classroom every Friday ready to be practiced over the weekend in preparation for the following week. Maths and English homework will be set on Friday with the expectation that it will be completed by the following Thursday. English/topic themed homework will be set via Google Classroom, please let me know if you need any help logging in. Maths homework will continue to be set on My Maths. Times tables will be tested regularly.  The children are expected to complete their weekly Times Table Rock stars practice sessions.