Year 5 Weekly News 15.09.23

Happy Friday Year 5. We have completed our first full week together, and I am so proud of how hard you have been working in your English and Maths lessons. You are superstars.

In Maths this week, we continued exploring the intricacies of five and six-digit numbers. We delved deep into understanding the value of each digit within these numbers, a fundamental skill that empowers us to read, write, and manipulate them with ease. Throughout our lessons, we honed our ability to correctly position the commas, ensuring that our numbers were accurately represented. This foundational knowledge forms the bedrock of our mathematical prowess, setting the stage for more complex mathematical adventures in the future.

In our English adventures, we kicked off with an exhilarating start by immersing ourselves in the historic moment of the first moon landing. This awe-inspiring event serves as the backdrop for our upcoming narrative recount, where we'll transport our readers to the lunar surface and provide a first-hand account of what it's like to set foot on the moon. Drawing inspiration from the captivating book 'Where we once stood,' we delved into its rich vocabulary, unearthing gems like "paraphernalia," "ingenuity," and "endeavour" to enrich our own storytelling. To sharpen our language skills, we have learnt about modal verbs and adverbs of possibility; these are word classes that will serve as the secret ingredients in our writing alchemy.

In Reading, we have been investigating non-fiction texts. We have been delving into DK Witness's Victorians book to determine whether Queen Victoria was a 'symbol of British greatness'. After investigating the text, we felt she was.

During our afternoons, we have been focusing on History, Computing, Science, Art, P.E, Music, RE and PHSE. Gosh, we've been busy.

At the start of the week, Computing was our focus. During the lesson, we dived into the cool world of systems. We wanted to understand how things take inputs and turn them into outputs. To make it fun and relatable, we looked at bicycles. They're like a bunch of separate pieces that all team up to make the bike move . . . which means it has lots of different systems! But it didn't stop there. We also talked about digital systems, like computers and gadgets. And guess what? We even got to design our own digital teddy bear! We brainstormed what could go in (the inputs) and what our digital teddy would do (the output). It's like giving our teddies some super cool superpowers!

In RE, we began by naming the sacred texts of the world. Our focus zeroed in on the Bible. We discovered that the Bible is a multifaceted treasure trove, comprised of two major sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament with a total of 66 books; we realised that the Bible is like a library full of different genres. Our curious minds bubbled with questions, and we eagerly noted them down, poised to unravel the answers in the forthcoming lessons.

In History, we explored the British Empire! Imagine, at one point, it was the ruler of a whopping one-third of the world's countries. That's a lot, right? We talked about how it changed over time, and it got us thinking--was the British Empire a good thing or a not-so-good thing? Our lessons in the coming weeks will hopefully help us answer this.

Our music lesson also linked with our history topic. We brainstormed important words and names to be able to create a table rhythm. We had the choice of copying rhythms, creating our own, or using one that were listed. In table groups, we used body percussion to bring alive our topic words. Queen Victoria was a very popular choice

In Science, you continued learning about forces. We recapped the important vocabulary we are going to need and began to plan our own investigations.

In Forest School this week, it was time for shelter building! We had great fun using the different materials to build our own little homes. It was lovely watching you work together in teams. You listened to each other and helped each other. Well done, Year 5.

Finally, on Friday. PSHE and PE were our focus. In PHSE, we began our new unit. This unit is all about how to get 'HeartSmart'. We discussed what we thought it meant to look after our own hearts, and how we can look after others. This links beautifully to the bible reference: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.Proverbs 4:23. In PE, we continued to practice our football skills. We focused on dribbling and passing. It was great to see you all taking on board the new learning. Well done, team.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Pennance