Year 5 News 11.06.21

What a wonderful first week of our last half term in Year 5!

In our first book club session this week, the children listened to a poem from the book 'A Poem for every night of the year'. The poem we listened to was called 'The Wind and the Moon'. The children were asked to think about the question 'What is the poem about?'. Once we had explored key vocabulary in the text, we then wrote down our initial thought on the poem. I asked the children to think about what the poem was about, what they thought of it and whether they understood it. We then explored the structure to the poem -ABBBAA. We also learnt that the paragraphs or verses are known as stanzas. In our next book club session this week, we continued with the poem. The children practised reading this as a class. We then looked through the text to explore how we are able to visualise the poem through the words that the author uses. In their books, the children drew pictures to represent the stanzas as visuals. In our next book club session this week, the children continue with the same poem but this time we looked for key words within the text which told us how the wind was feeling. Using a drawing of the wind cloud, the children put key words they found from the text around the outside and words to describe the winds characteristics on the inside.

In our first Maths lesson this week, we recapped our understanding of thousandths from before half term. I asked the children to represent fractions with thousandths on place value grids using place value counters. We talked a lot about how we can simplify and find fractions equivalent to thousandths, hundredths and tenths. Then, we went on to learn about writing decimals as fractions. The children again used place value grids, counters and number lines to represent decimals. In this lesson, we also used different representations like part whole models. In our next maths lesson, we moved on to ordering and comparing decimals. For this, the children needed to be able to place decimals on a number line and use greater than and less than symbols to compare them. We explored how using place value grids and counters helped us to compare numbers with different values. The children spent two lessons learning about this. At the end of our week, the children completed an arithmetic test.

In our first English lesson this week, the children spent time editing their diaries from before half term. The children were asked to particularly focus on editing spellings and punctuation as well as responding to specific marking in their books. Then, in the second half of our lesson, the children produced their cold write for a play-script. We then moved on to write our cold write. This involved the children writing their own play scripts. Our next lesson was based on Greek theatres. Before we could learn about plays, we had to learn about how they started in Greece. The children wrote down notes about theatres in their books. We learnt about the structure of a Greek theatre, different types of plays and how they were performed. In our next lesson, we listened to the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops. The children were asked to work in teams to act out the story as a play script. We talked about using ideas from the story to improvise their ideas. Once the children had spent some time practising, they performed to the class. In our final lesson of English this week, the children were introduced to our model text. For this, the children were put in to teams. They were then asked to choose a character and act out our model text. In their books, the children summarised the model text.

In our PE lesson with sportscape, we learnt about American football. To warm up, we played a game which involved running to make groups of a number called out by the teacher. We learnt how to pass the ball to our peers and we learnt how to aim the ball accurately. Once we had learnt to pass the ball, we were taught how to kick you how to kick the ball in order to pass it. At the end of the lesson, we split into two groups. The teachers kicked a ball the first team to pitch it up and pass it to the finish line won. We also used tag rugby bands and if these were taken you had to pass the ball to the other team.

In our RE lesson this week, we have started our new unit 'The Holy Spirit'. The children were asked to think about a special celebration they have been to. They had a series of questions that they were asked to think about. The children were asked to write down their ideas to these questions on a large piece of paper. We then talked about the type of events the class had been to. Next, we talked about the type of celebrations Christians have such as weddings, christenings and baptisms. We talked about how Christians invite God to be a part of these celebrations. We will continue to explore this concept further in our next lesson.

Destination Greece was the main focus in our Geography lesson this week. We drew upon all our prior learning to create a travel brochure which highlighted the location, climate, and the key reasons to visit. We also enjoyed adding the finishing touches to our labelled map of Greece on Google My Maps. 

Well this week in music was brilliant! We spent the entire lesson perfecting our performance using our glockenspiels. We recapped which notes we had written and checked our work was as it should be before we began practicing. After a few run throughs, we cracked it! Mrs Chesters came to watch us too and she loved it! We can now sing and play our glockenspiels to our Greek song 'Have You Heard The Story?' song. Well done Year 5! 

This week, we have also continued to work on our studywork books. Preparing our pages and getting the elements for our Art page ready.

We have also celebrated our Greek theme day this week. Please take a look at our Year 5 Theme Day post to find out more.

Miss Welch