Autumn Term 2 - Week 1 - Wild and Windy start!

English

In English, we have started our poetry learning journey. Over the next few weeks, the children will be exploring the poem ‘The Tyger’ by William Blake. The children will have the opportunity to investigate poetic devices, generate vocabulary and investigate figurative language. At the end of the journey, the children will perform their own classic poems based on an animal of their choice to our Nursery learning buddies. This week in particular, the children have dissected the poem, looking closely at the archaic language and even had a go at writing their own stanza based on the inferences they have made. This is only a two-week journey, so the next week the children will begin to plan and write their own class poems!

Maths

In Maths, the children continued their multiplication learning journey. At the start of the week, the children played a skilled game of snakes and ladders, identifying all of the prime and square numbers. Next, the children looked at factors, creating lots of fact bugs – this further linked to their understanding of prime and square numbers. Throughout the week, the children flicked back to their number squares from Monday’s lesson, adding in more prime and square numbers that they revealed throughout their journey. Towards the end of the week, the children then learnt about cubed numbers and how to find them! Next week, we will be coming to the end of the first part of the multiplication journey and will complete their end of unit assessment.

Wider Curriculum

In wider curriculum, the children became Geographers; we looked at what it means to be a geographer and the skills and knowledge needed to be a ‘good’ geographer. We then put their knowledge to the test when we explored six figure grid references. The children entered a virtual geography trip in London to a history museum, where they used references to locate land marks. They then deepened their understanding using another type of map to locate Egyptian Gods on an Egyptian map. In the second lesson, the children used a range of maps and atlases to compare the similarities and differences between the UK and Egypt, focussing on the physical features.

PE

This term we are extremely lucky to have DT Sports. Across the term, the children will develop their knowledge and skills through a variety of sports. This week, the children played tag rugby! For the other part of the PE lesson, the children will be with myself or Mrs Callister doing Gymnastics.

Other information:

·      Parents evening – 15^th & 16^th November 2023 – Please head to Arbor to book your slots. If there are no longer appointments, please contact your child’s teacher.

·      Mrs Lee – Elkins has now sent our importance CHRISTMAS dates. Please continue to monitor these and we will update our blogs accordingly.

·      This term, we will also have our Egyptian Assembly. WATCH THIS SPACE for dates to be confirmed.

·      Swimming has now ended.

Have a wonderful weekend as always,

Best wishes,

End of Autumn Term 1

Well we completed the first term of Year 5! Firstly, we want to say how proud we are of all of the children. Already we have seen some fantastic progress both in their learning and their attitudes towards their learning.

We have had some incredible pieces of work that has been produced in both classes and each child should be proud of themselves for all they have achieved this half term.

We look forward to continuing this journey with them and can’t wait to see what they achieve next term.

Over the half term, continue to read lots, access TTRS but most importantly have fun!

Best wishes,

Autumn Term 1 - Week 6 - Show us, don't tell us! 

English

This week in English, we are carrying on with our film narrative learning journey. At the start of the week, the children looked back on prior learning and used prepositional phrases to add detail. The children also looked at time adverbials to build tension and selected a part of the film to sequence. All this language that is being built is then going to go towards their final piece. We also, this week, we introduced the concept of ‘Show, don’t tell’; the children looked at the characters emotions and had a go a writing a paragraph describing their emotions without explicitly labelling what the emotion was. Some of the language the children came up with was incredibly sophisticated and we can wait to see their final pieces next week.  

Maths

In Maths, we carried on with our addition and subtraction learning journey. The children looked at the inverse and unpicked the steps to success to help them in their process. The children at times found this tricky, but we continued to explore these themes within our morning work. We then looked at comparing calculations, the children had multiple step problems and were excellent ‘A’ve a go Alexanders’! To end the week, we completed our end of unit assessment. The children then had the chance to look back through their assessments and address any misconceptions with adult support.

Wider Curriculum

The children carried on their journey of being historians, in the first lesson, the children learnt all about Tutankhamun; they learnt about the archaeologist’s discoveries and wrote a monologue recalling their findings. We then looked deeper into primary and secondary sources and entered a for and against argument. Next lesson the children explored the importance of the River Nile, in pairs, they designed posters giving evidence to the statement ‘Ancient Egypt couldn’t live without the River Nile’ – The children provided information, answering questions before giving their own reasoning's/thoughts in their books.   

RE

In RE, the children completed their Kosher menus. Their menus sounded absolutely delicious and there were some children who were keen to make the meals. It was lovely to see their ideas for celebrating Shabbat also!

Other information:

·      Tuesday – Swimming – 5B 12:30 – 1:30pm / 5W 1:30 – 2:30 pm

·      Bake off on Monday after school! See letter for more information.

Have a lovely weekend,

Best Wishes,

Autumn 1 - Week 5 -Travelling through time! 

English

This week, we started our new learning journey based on a Film narrative. The film is based around Ancient Egypt where a professor who discovers an Egyptian rock in a museum is ‘sucked’ back through time. To begin the journey the children made inferences on how the character might be feeling when they first explored the rock. Using their knowledge of what they could see and what they already knew, they wrote down the characters thoughts and asked questions from the perspective of the traveller. Next, the children wrote diary entries as the traveller, recalling key events that happened and the traveller's experience in the portal. The children explored a range of interesting vocabulary and used this within their pieces. Next week, the children will start to explore ad, same ad sentences and the skill of using ‘show, don’t tell’ to demonstrate emotions.

Maths

In Maths, the children began their new learning journey on addition and subtraction. They began the week, learning how to use mental strategies to add and subtract before moving on to adding and subtracting numbers with 4 or more digits. This required the children to use their knowledge of place value and ensure they were using this accurately in their books. All children were able to see the links and the foundational knowledge from previous years of ‘Biggest number goes first, layer it up like a cake, begin with the ones.’ Finally, the children used their rounding knowledge from their place value journey to round in order to check their answers. We will continue to explore this in our morning work.

Wider Curriculum

During our Wider Curriculum lessons, the children were historians. They began to explore the validity of different sources and how historians use artefacts to explore the past. We played around with the concept ‘What’s in our bin?’ – The children looked at 3 items from our class bin and discussed what that told us about our day. The children identified that whilst it might tell us that ‘We like chocolate, we did spellings, we wrap our food in plastic’ is does not tell us everything about our day/time period. The children then linked this idea back to their sources, identifying that whilst artefacts are a first-hand source, they might not have the date they were made, who made them etc. and therefore secondary sources might give us more information BUT is it all true? The conversations throughout the lesson were fantastic and posed a great argument, leaving the classroom split.  

RE

In RE this week, the children looked at Kosher food. They discussed what Jews believe you are and are not allowed to have. The children then looked at Shabbat as a celebration and began to plan their own Kosher menus for a Jewish friend on Shabbat. Next week, they will finish off designing their Kosher menus.

Other information:

·        Tuesday – Swimming – 5B 12:30 – 1:30pm / 5W 1:30 – 2:30 pm

Have a lovely weekend,

Best Wishes,

Autumn Term 1 - Week 3 - Getting creative! 

English

In English this week, the children have been nearing their planning/innovation part of their learning journey. To begin the week, we started off with looking at adverbs – Whilst this is a Year 2 objective, we thought it would allow the children to explore a range of interesting vocabulary and figurative language. They wrote detailed descriptions about when Lucy enters the wardrobe and used the 5 senses at their stimulus.

We were so impressed with the writing they produced and can’t wait to see what creativity flows through their final pieces.

On Tuesday, the children had to retrieve their knowledge of speech and how to write a direct conversation between two characters. After speaking to their Year Four teachers, we noticed that they found the punctuation of speech tricky. Therefore, we honed in on this skill and provided them with new knowledge to plug the gaps in their learning.

Finally, to end the week, we created story maps using a WAGOLL. The children then had to be innovators and come up with an alternative ending to the story. It is safe to say that Mrs Callister and I had a bit of a giggle at each other’s drawings!

Next week, the children will come to the end of their learning journey where they will write their final pieces, edit, draft and improve. To celebrate the end of the journey the children will share their pieces with their learning buddies in Year Four.

Maths

In Maths this week, the children look at placing numbers to 1,000,000 on a number line. We discussed intervals and explored division by 10, 5, 4, & 2. The children also looked at comparing numbers to 1,00,000 and used mathematical language to explain whether it is greater than, less than or equal too. On Friday, we had our arithmetic carousel – here the children had the opportunity to go onto TTRS as well as completing arithmetic questions. We then marked in small groups, identifying misconceptions and being ‘Team work Turtles’ to explore the methods used.

Wider Curriculum

This week, we have reached the end of our Art learning journey. The children culminated their journey by piecing together all of the skills and knowledge they had learnt. It has been lovely to see the progress of their work across the weeks and can’t wait to get them up on display. WATCH THIS SPACE – We’ll be posting pictures of the final pieces soon.

RE
In RE this week, the children have been looking at 'What Jewish people believe about god?' - The children looked closer at the Shema and created an information poster explaining why it is important to Jewish people. 

French
In French this week, the children have been learning numbers to 31 - Please feel free to test your children at home and let them show off their super counting!

Other information

Autumn Term 1 - Week 2 - Mixing things up! 

English

In English this week, we have carried on with our learning journey based on the text ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ – At the start of the week, the children began exploring the emotions of the characters and unpicking how language can affect mood. The children then spent two days looking closely at emotive language and using this to write a persuasive letter. During these lessons, the children discovered a range of key features and were ‘A’ve a go Alexanders’ by applying the skills and knowledge to their own letters. The letters were written from the Queens perspective convincing Edmund's siblings to visit Narnia. Mrs Callister and I were so impressed with the children’s writing, the language and vocabulary selected was incredible! There was a definite ‘buzz’ in the classrooms this week. We are so proud of our Year 5’s!

Maths

In Maths this week, the children continued their place value learning journey. We explored more or less, working with number to 1,000,000. As well as looking at the power of 10, before ending our week with a little Arithmetic test. The test’s give us teachers an insight to what the children already know and this will feed into what we complete during our carousel sessions on a Friday! Children also still have access to their TTRS accounts, please do continue to access these at home. Over the next few weeks, we will put some focus on this and see if we can get a whole school competition going!!

Wider Curriculum

In Wider Curriculum, the children had the opportunity to work back into their Art work from last week. We focused on the ability to add annotations and how to make these more sophisticated now the children are in year 5… We then introduced the medium of Collage. The children explored a range of media to create pieces for their collage experiment. They had a go at printing, rubbing with crayons, using wax and brusho and then a mix of materials. It was lovely to see the children explore freely, making conscious decisions about the mediums they selected and why. All this will then feed into their final piece which they will create next week.

Other information

·      On Monday, Y5 and Y6 have a visit from the Sea Cadets – They will talk to the children and give them information about how they can join.

·      We’ve had a great start to the golden tickets with some having more than one this week!! WELL DONE!!

Another fantastic week for our wonderful Year 5’s,

Have a lovely weekend,

Best Wishes,