Year 5 News 05.05.23

I am so proud of all of you for your hard work and progress in our classes this week. It was wonderful to see you engaging with the topics and actively participating in our lessons.

This week in our English lessons, we have been busy working on a variety of skills. Firstly, we continued to unpick our model text, which is a wishing tale. We analysed the structure and language used in the text to help us better understand how we can write our own wishing tale story. Next, we began to plan our own wishing tale. We used our creativity and imagination to come up with our own story ideas. We considered the characters, setting and plot of our story and used our knowledge of the story structure to ensure that our stories had a clear beginning, middle and end. In addition to this, we also reviewed our knowledge of possessive apostrophes. We learned how to use apostrophes to show possession or belonging. We practised identifying possessive apostrophes in sentences. Finally, we learnt about modal verbs. We learnt that modal verbs are used to indicate possibility. Overall, it has been a productive and engaging week in our English lessons, and we are looking forward writing our stories next week.

In Maths this week, the focus has been on decimals and percentages. We began by ordering decimals with two decimal places, using our knowledge of place value. We practiced comparing decimals and putting them in order from smallest to largest or vice versa. Next, we moved on to rounding decimals with two decimal places. We learned how to round to the nearest whole number and tenth. Finally, we explored percentages. We learnt that percentages can only be out of 100. We used bar modals and 100 squares to help use identify them too.

In our RE lessons this week, we continued learning about the Islamic faith. We began by recapping what we already knew about Islam. Then, we investigated the 5 pillars of Islam which are the five practices that shape the lives of Muslims. We discussed the importance of each pillar and what it entails. We also talked about how the 5 pillars of Islam link to the idea of umma which is the community of Muslims. We learnt that all Muslims are equal and part of the umma regardless of their race or ethnicity. The 5 pillars of Islam help to create a strong bond between Muslims all around the world and reinforce the importance of unity and equality.

In our PSHE lesson this week, we talked about the topic of feeling lonely. We discussed what it feels like to be lonely and shared our experiences with each other. We also talked about the difference between being lonely and being alone. We learned about different strategies we can use if we feel this way such as reaching out to others, finding new hobbies, or simply spending time in nature. We discussed the importance of seeking help if we feel lonely for an extended period of time. To reinforce our understanding, we wrote poems about all the wonderful things we can do. It was great to see everyone's creativity and positivity in their writing.

In our Science lesson this week, we started our new topic on separating materials. Our focus for this lesson was on the properties of materials. We discussed what properties are and how they help us to identify different materials. We also explored some of the different properties of materials, including their texture, colour, transparency, and conductivity.

We combined our computing and art lessons this week as we worked on digital artwork to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. We used the app Brush Redux to create portraits of the new monarch. As part of the lesson, we learnt how to add layers to develop detail and add colour. We enjoyed learning new skills, and it was exciting to see how we could use digital tools. Your creations are looking fantastic. We just need to finish them off next week ready to create our own portrait gallery.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

Miss Pennance