Year 5 News!

These weeks just continue to whizz by!

Talk for Writing has been amazing this week! After learning the story of clock close, the children went on to plan their own imitation of our class story. By changing a few aspects – the road name and time-slip location, the children were able to choose their own aspects to their plans. We then moved on to write our own narratives. I modelled another text to the class which was based on 'Workhouse Way'. Using the skills we discussed, the children have constructed their writing a paragraph at a time.

We have had two focuses in our spellings this week. On Monday we started with a lesson which focused on words using the 'ough' sound. The children needed to identify whether the sound within the word was a 'u', 'uff', 'off' or 'or'. Then we went on to use the words within sentences. Our main spelling focus this week has been ...

In SPaG we recapped our learning about verbs and extended our understanding of modal verbs. It was great to see you appraise two learning videos and apply this to your own work.

Place value has continued to be our focus in Maths this week! This week, we have compared and ordered numbers to 1,000,000, rounded numbers to 1,000,000, learnt about negative numbers, how to count in 10s, 100s, 1000s and 10,000s and then learnt about number sequences. We used place value grids to understand how to count in 10s, 100s, 1000s and 10,000s and we were able to add or remove counters as we needed. We were amazing at finding sequences in numbers even when we were working with 5-digit numbers and only given the 1st and 5th number in a sequence. We are also now becoming really confident when rounding – you all know the method well. Next week, we are moving on to our addition and subtraction unit of work.

In our History lessons this week, Year 5 have learnt about life in a Workhouse. We explored the phrase "Prisons of the Poor" and considered what this may have meant. Using a clip from Oliver we explored what Workhouses looked like in the Victorian times. We then explored different aspects of life in a Workhouse. Each table was given an aspect to explore like food, clothing, routines etc and then they shared what they found with the rest of the class. The children explored many different primary and secondary sources from records of meals served to statements from inmates of the Workhouse.

In our Computing lesson this week, we worked through unit 7 on Code Studio with the theme of programming loops into our codes. Once the children have completed this level, they tested their skills on the 'hour of code' aspect of the app. The children love this as they can play games using the skills that they have learnt of programme characters to move to music.

In our PE lesson this week, we continued to develop our Hockey skills. In Hockey so far, we have learnt how to dribble in three different ways – straight dribble, loose dribble and Indian dribble. We have also learnt how to successfully execute a push pass and have now learnt how to intercept using a jab tackle. The children continue to work well as a team and show great sportsmanship.

This week, we started our unit of Art. Over the term, we are exploring the work of William Morris. He had a huge impact in the Arts and Craft movement during the Victorian era and is very well known for his tapestry design. In our lessons this week, we have learnt about William Morris and his life.

In our music lessons this week, we listened Rocketman by Elton John and We Will Rock You by Queen to explore the artists of the month. We discussed our thoughts on the songs and explored the instruments we could hear within the music.

In PSHE, we discussed an app we would create linked to how to stay safe online. In our mindfulness activities this week, we discussed and considered self-esteem.

During our RE lessons, we have learnt about the life of Nehemiah. Although Nehemiah is not a prophet, he lives a similar life to Daniel and was also spoken to by God. We read his story from the Bible and explored how he would have felt throughout the story. We then compared the lives of Nehemiah and Daniel to see how they were similar and different. The children shared a poem version of the story and had to reorder it to show what happened throughout Nehemiah's life.

Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Welch