Year 5 News!

What a lovely start to our new half term!

In our English lessons this week, we have starting our new Talk for Writing unit. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to be learning how to write our own Poetry. We started the week with our 'Have a go write' based on poetry. After this, we listened to the Grotyln poem and considered our thoughts on this. We learnt that the Grotyln is a narrative poem which includes rhyming couplets at the end of each line. Throughout the week, the class have learnt about rhyming couplets, used them in their own poems, summarised the story of the Grotyln in less than 100 words and rehearsed the poem.

In our book club lessons this week, we have started our new reading programme. We have been learning the skills to answer questions based on a text. Our book this week was all about Whales. The children loved exploring this non-fiction text and learnt many new skills. We focused on skimming and scanning, retrieving information from the text, text marking (finding key words in the text) and exploring lots of new vocabulary. Our spelling focus this week was words with the 'ei' spellings.

In our Maths lessons this week, we have started our new unit on Multiplication and Division. The children have learnt about multiples and factors. Using their knowledge of multiplication and division, we were able to work out multiples and factors of different numbers. To find multiples, we also used 100 squares and multiplication grids. At the end of the week, we then completed an arithmetic quiz. I was so impressed with the skills you showed.

Our first Forest School session got off to a flying start. We explored various artefacts within Mr Hadfield's teepee. We were keen to find out about the animal skulls he had collected, ranging from a sheep, deer and a fox. It was interesting to learn about their characteristics to help us discover if the animals were herbivores or carnivores. We also loved seeing a reindeer's hide, and when Mr Hadfield explained it was from the Sami tribe in Sweden we were even more intrigued to learn about their lifestyle. One of our practical tasks was to create a settlement. Within a short space of time the site was transformed with a purpose-built shelter, fire pit, playground area and toilet area. This was all using the natural materials and lots of team work and determination. We then learnt all about the history of fire and practised our fire lighting skills. We did not give up even though it can be tricky to light the fires using fire steels.

In PE this week, we completed our learning on Hockey. The children used all of the skills that they have gained over the last term, to play a competitive game of Hockey. The children played games of 4-a-side with them taking on the roles of attackers and defenders.

In our Geography lesson this week, the children learnt about Fair Trade. At the beginning of the lesson, each table were given an item to explore. The children were required to explore whether the item they were given was Fair Trade or not. The children soon realised there was a particular logo which they were looking for. We then moved on to learn what Fair Trade meant and how people in developing countries benefit from this. The children completed a task which outlined the involvement of people in the process of this trade.

This week we started our new unit of Science. This term, Year 5 are learning about properties of materials. Firstly, the children started by exploring what the term 'Properties of Materials' meant. The children were then asked to explore what was inside a bag by describing it to the rest of the class. The children used words like rough, solid, hard and flexible to describe the items in the bag. The children then matched properties with their meanings. During this lesson, the children conducted an experiment to test out the properties of materials. We tested the flexibility, transparency, hardness, permeability and translucency. The children recorded the results that they found.

In RE, the children planned how the pictures on their shoeboxes will represent the story that they are using. They will show the story on the outside of the book and the hidden meaning inside the box. The children carefully considered how they would use pictures which would show what happened in the story. In Music this week, the children continued to learn how to play the Ukuleles to their tune.

During our mindfulness activity this week, the children considered what they liked about themselves, what made them individual and unique. The other children in class then shared what they liked about one another. This certainly put a smile on a lot of people's faces.

I look forward to seeing what next week has in store for us!

Miss Welch