Netherfield CE Primary School

Let’s travel back 5000 years to ancient Egypt, cruising along the Nile and entering a world of mysteries, curses and mummies!

During the summer term, we are going to learn first-hand about the gruesome, yet fascinating, process of mummification. We’ll learn about Howard Carter’s famous discovery and use different sources to research Tutankhamun’s tomb. We’ll also consider whether it was right to open Tutankhamun’s tomb, or whether it should have been left as it was. Our work will inspire us to write some exciting Egyptian portal stories and look at non-fiction books and the internet will provide us with information to make fact files. We’ll draw Egyptian artefacts in detail, focusing on symbols and design features. Studying historical sources will help us learn more about the Pharaohs, the Egyptian gods and ancient religious beliefs.

At the end of the topic, we’ll think about how the ancient Egyptians contributed to world history, then create and present a guide about ancient Egyptian sites.

Please find the knowledge organiser, glossary of terms, word mat, and home learning ideas for this project saved at the bottom of this class page, which you can download if you would like to.

Throughout the term, we will be learning how to write for different genres, including fiction and non-fiction.

(Summer 1) Firstly, will be learning the features of and writing a fictional portal story. The children will write about being transported back to the Ancient Egyptian times through a portal, such as touching an artefact in a museum. We will then conclude the term by writing a non-fiction Newspaper report about the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. 

After half term (Summer 2) we will be learning about instructional writing and writing a set of instructions for mummifying an orange. We will end the term by writing a rags to riches fictional story based on the book ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’ by Shirley Climo. 

In reading lessons, we will be reading the book ‘The Ancient Egyptian Sleepover’ by Stephen Davies. This book is based on the story of Mo who has won a very special prize, an Ancient Egyptian sleepover in a museum. He has no clue how dangerous this will turn out to be as there is a mystery to solve, codes to crack and priceless treasure to save. We will also be exploring some non-fiction books to find out more about the process of mummification and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb to support us further with our writing units.

•    Spellings:  Weekly – Children are given their spellings on a Monday and tested on these spellings on a Friday. Please practice these at home and ensure the children bring their spellings books in on these days in their reading folders.
•    Children to read at home daily and please can you write a comment in their reading records when they have done so. These will be checked daily and children will be given a Class Dojo point for each read.
•    Pupils to practice their times tables on Times Tables Rockstars website as much as possible.
•    Children’s school computer login and Times Table Rockstars logins will be stuck in the front of their reading records.

We use PurpleMash to enrich our Computing curriculum, allowing children to explore key software in a safe, controlled environment. PurpleMash has programmes that allow the children to learn to touch type, word process, code, input data in spreadsheets, create basic video games, email, work on collaborative documents, and much more! Please email if you would like any more information, or click on the link below to explore the PurpleMash site. Your children have their own logins for this website as well.