Medium-term planning: What are the cycles of our Solar System?
Use this planning to explore the wonders of our planet and its neighbours with Year 4 students.
The world beyond our planet is both awe-inspiring and beautiful, and we see the same principles at work there as we see here on Earth.
This planning maps out National Curriculum-linked content for a half-term’s enquiry of learning focused on the cycles of our Solar System, which asks: What are the cycles of our Solar System?. Linked to the principle of the Cycle, this enquiry offers children and their teachers opportunities to learn about the cycles of day and night on Earth, the lunar cycle, the cycle of our seasons and the cycles of other planets in our Solar System.
In science, they learn about the rotation of the Earth, the effects of gravity and the orbit of the Earth and Moon, and of other planets, around the Sun. Meanwhile, in a series of maths investigations they explore the number of minutes in a day and the change in temperature through the seasons before using their knowledge of measure and temperature to make comparisons between the features of different planets.
In English, the children write contrasting descriptions of day and night, create stories and diary entries inspired by space travel and develop fact files about one of the planets in our Solar System.
