Year 5 Weekly News 02.05.25

In our math lessons, we delved into the fascinating world of geometry. First of all, we reviewed our knowledge of clockwise and anticlockwise turned. We then moved onto recapping what acute and obtuse angles are. After that, we explored the skill of measuring angles using a protractor which allowed us to develop our ability to accurately determine the size of acute and obtuse angles. Gosh, we have learnt so much this week!

This week, we were excited to explore a new book in English. The book is called: 'Lost Book of Adventure'. It is a fantastic book with so many beautiful pictures. As part of our lessons, we explored the illustrations and used them as inspiration to create our own words and phrases. Finally, on Friday, we worked together to write a class poem that linked to one of the illustrations, an illustration of the Amazon rainforest!

In our spelling lessons this week, we've been exploring words ending in 'ant', 'ance', and 'ancy'. We looked at patterns to help us remember when to use each ending, and practised spelling tricky words like brilliant, importance, and elegancy. We're getting really good at spotting the rules!

In RE, we carried on with learning about Pentecost. In this lesson, we learnt about St Paul. Did you know that St Paul was originally called Saul, a man who persecuted Christians! After God spoke to him, his heart changed, and he became fundamental in helping found the Christian church. We learnt that he did this by preaching, travelling around the Mediterranean and writing letters. Did you know that you can still read Pauls letters today? You can find them in the bible!

In PSHE, we continued exploring our 'Fake Is A Mistake' unit. We talked about how it's fun to pretend sometimes--like when we're playing games--but when it comes to friendships, it's really important that people know the real you. We learned that strong friendships are built on trust, and trust grows when we're honest about what we think and feel, both in person and online. We remembered the Bible verse: "Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices over the truth." (1 Corinthians 13:6). In our next lesson, we looked at how sometimes we might feel like hiding our true feelings. We learned some helpful steps: spot how we're feeling, reach out to someone we trust, and talk about what we need. We thought about how following these steps can help us feel supported and confident. We also talked about the Bible verse: "Nothing can separate us from God's love." (Romans 8:38), reminding us that it's always okay to be honest and ask for help.

This week in French, we had lots of fun learning how to follow and give instructions using movement and body part vocabulary. We sang Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in French to warm up and then learned new words like le bras (arm), la jambe (leg), and le coude (elbow). We used verbs such as sautez (jump), pliez (bend), and tendez (stretch) to create movement sequences. Working in pairs, we built and performed short routines, saying the French phrases as we moved. It was so much fun combining music, movement, and language--and we're getting really good at giving instructions in French!

This week, in our PE lesson with Mrs Whittingham, we have been working on our backhand serve. Again, we needed a light grip on the racket and the shuttlecock held closely to the racket (gripped by the feathers and the cork tilting in towards the racket). It took a lot of practice, so everyone was given plenty of time to work on their serve in pairs, then we used the nets and continued to practice, but this time trying to return a serve from our opponents too. In our lesson with Coach Beth, we continued with athletics and this time our focus was field events. We practiced and developed our throwing skills to help us with events like javelin.

In music this week, we began to plan our choice of beatboxing scene. To help us with this, we listened to different sounds effects and practised using them. We chose three we wanted to challenge ourselves to use in our scene. The building blocks have begun to be put together and we will build on this over the next few weeks; whilst continuing to ensure we communicate effectively and listen to everyone's ideas.

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, magnetism and transparency.

In Geography, we began our new unit to learn about the Amazon. We explored our prior knowledge to know that it describes a river and a rainforest. We then used atlases to see that it also describes the Amazon river basin and the Amazon region. We used Digimaps software to identify the Amazon river and traced the path of the river from the source to the mouth. We were then able to identify nine countries and locate each country on a blank map of South America.

In Computing, we finished our work on Flat File Databases. We applied our knowledge to real-life situations, like finding flights online. We practised filtering and sorting information and then used what we found to create a PowerPoint presentation. It was great to see how our computing skills can be useful in everyday life!

I hope you have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Pennance