Year 5 Weekly News

Happy Friday, Y5. We have had another brilliant week. Thank you for all working so hard.

In Maths, the fascinating world of numbers continued to unfold as you delved into the realm of six-digit numbers, specifically honing your skills in the art of rounding. This week's mission involved mastering the art of rounding six-digit numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 10,000, and even 100,000. By Wednesday, we had finished our two units on place value which meant that Thursday saw us start our new unit on addition and subtraction. So far, we have looked at mental strategies.

In English, we embarked on the exciting journey of composing our first-person exploration narratives. It has been heartening to see how hard you have all worked on them. Every one of you has tried your best. Reading through your narratives has been so enjoyable, and you should be very proud of your work. This week, we have written the first three paragraphs, and I can't wait to see how your stories finish when we write paragraph 4 and 5 next week.

In our Reading sessions, we continued to refine our skimming and scanning abilities. We delved into non-fiction texts that shed light on how the Victorians spent their leisure time, skilfully extracting facts to compose informative letters.

On Monday afternoon, we enjoyed our first courageous advocacy session. We recapped what courageous advocacy is, and we learnt that our focus for the year is going to be conservation. We considered what conservation means and learnt that our local environment – Wybunbury Moss – is home to a very special insect. This insect is the Wybunbury beetle. We considered why conservation is important and what would happen to creatures like the Wybunbury beetle if their habitat was destroyed. After courageous advocacy, it was time for RE. In our R.E lesson, we dived into the fascinating world of the Bible Society and their remarkable efforts in translating the Bible into various languages, ensuring people worldwide can access its wisdom. This journey naturally led us to explore the history of the Bible's creation, and we pieced together a timeline of its key moments. Did you know that during the medieval era, it was unlawful to have the Bible written in English? It sounds quite unbelievable today!

On Tuesday, it was time for French and Music. In French, you continued your unit 'Around the Town.' This was week we talked about the things that we would and wouldn't find in the towns around us. We learnt some new French vocabulary and noticed that some words sounded very similar in French and English for example museum/musee. We wrote some sentences and practiced saying them to our partners. 'A Wybunbury, il y a une ecole,' 'a Wybunbury, il n' y a pas de boulangerie.' In music, you learnt a new song. Your new song in was called 'Lively.' We had varied thoughts on this song. We could tell by the structure bar that there were no lyrics. This piece reminded of music from Disneyland films or The Snowman. We could also see how this piece could be used at ceremonial events. We also identified parts where the instruments were played to create an air of tension. We discussed the different textures throughout this piece. The layers were created by 6 instruments; also know as a sextet. We learnt a Harmon mute was used to lower the tone quality (also known as timbre). This can be used when playing the trumpet.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed forest schools this week, we enjoyed building shelters. These shelters weren't for us though, they were for different action figures that Mr Hadfield brought in. You had fun creating the shelters, building fences and creating kitchens and much more. For the end of the session, we practised our fire building skills and enjoyed toasting a marshmellow.

On Thursday, you enjoyed PE with Coach James and computing. Our Computing lesson took us on a journey through the fascinating history of the internet and the essential role that search engines play in navigating this vast digital realm. We discovered that these search engines function by meticulously indexing the words found on web pages. To better understand this process, we tried our hand at creating our own indexes. As a grand finale, we ventured into the world of search engines, putting our newfound knowledge into practice.

On Friday, it was time for PSHE and Science. In PHSE, we learnt about what it meant to have a brave heart, and what can make our hearts feel smart and safe. This included talking about looking after the hearts of others, and also looking after our own heart. This reminded us of the bible quote: Being respected is more important than having great riches. To be well thought of is better than owning silver or gold. Proverbs 22:1 

In Science, we continued our unit on Living Things and their habitats (we have been doing part of the unit in our forest school sessions). In this lesson, we have been learning about life cycles and we learnt about the life cycle of a human.

Finally, we welcomed Miss Griffiths to our classroom. She will be joining us throughout the autumn term to learn all about teaching. She has already told me how much she is looking forward to being in our classroom, and I can't blame her because you are an amazing class.

I hope you have an amazing weekend,

Miss Pennance