Year 4 Curriculum Newsletter Spring Term 2009

Literacy – The topics we will be covering in literacy this term are;

·Looking at stories and their settings and use this to help the children write their own detailed setting.

· Writing for a particular audience. This topic will link in with the children’s ICT work. They will look at how books are written and designed to appeal to a particular audience.

· Classic and modern poetry. Describing and understanding figurative language.

· Notes and information. Looking at scanning texts and making short notes.

·Explanation texts. Looking at the layout of texts and the reasoning for its layout.

· Notes and information – making short notes and scanning texts for information.

Numeracy- This term the children will be focusing on using < , > and = symbols correctly. They will work on recognizing fractions as several parts of a whole and mixed numbers. They will also be introduced to decimals. The children will use known number facts and place value to add or subtract mentally. This term they will also start to try and find remainders in division sums. They will be looking at classifying shapes using given criteria and look at both analogue and digital clocks to read time.

Science – This term we will be looking at Friction and Separating Solids and Liquids. We will be investigating the uses of friction and exploring how to separate certain solids and liquids.

Geography - In Geography we will be looking at St. Lucia as an underdeveloped community and the similar/different ways of life between our community and theirs.

History –Children will be looking at Henry Vlll and why he married six times. They will learn about his life and how he married for political reasons for a lot of his wives.

Art – The topic the children will be focusing on will be sculpture. They will be designing and making chairs out of pegs.

P.E. – The children will be learning and improving their gymnastic skills through out this term. They will be focusing on balance and travel. They will also be doing tennis skills and games after the half term.

Music – This term the music focus will be on creating sounds for pictures.

ICT – This term the children will be looking at collecting and presenting information. They will analyse a variety of graphs and charts to see which type of chart best fits particular information. They will learn how to input data into excel and create graphs and charts of their own.

D.T – The children will be making pop up books.

Modern Foreign Languages – The children will be continuing with their Spanish, learning expressions and numbers.

R.E. – The R.E topics we will be covering this term will be Journeys, Communion and Growing.

Journeys-In this topic, children will explore their experience of journeying through a calendar year and a school year. They hear about the journey of a local church through the Sundays and special days each year, remembering and celebrating the life journey of Jesus.

Communion-In this topic the children explore the ‘give and take’, the giving and receiving, which being a member of any group or community demands. The learn about the Eucharist challenging and enabling people to ‘give and take’, to give and receive.

Growing-In this topic the children explore the need for discipline in order to grow. They learn about Lent as a time for self-discipline and Easter as a celebration of growth into new life.