Summer 2

What a busy final few weeks before Early Risers!

The half term began with an immersion in mystery story openings. Children looked at a range of ways to hook the reader, such as 'dialogue', 'character description' or 'action' and practised using a range of these. They then planned and wrote some truly fantastic story openings of their own. 

WE ARE Product Designers

In our 'WE ARE Product Designers' project the children really did become exactly that. They had a clear design brief to design a healthy snack that would appeal to parents and children. They innovated on a simple recipe to incorporate textures and flavours that they thought would be appealing. They then learnt about marketing and sales and applied these to set their company strategy. They used their maths skills to work out the cost of making each snack bar and then used this to decide an appropriate price. Next, it was all hands on deck to create a sample. The learning they completed during English lessons on advertising helped ensure they used a wide range of persuasive techniques in their final adverts - as well as incorporating these in posters and other advertising. This culminated in a pitch to a panel of dragons. The teams worked really hard to rehearse a slick pitch and used all their persuasive know-how to encourage the dragons to invest in their company.

During the project the children reflected on the skills they were developing in each session: problem solving; aiming high; leading; working in a team; sharing ideas; using imagination; staying positive; listening carefully.

This also enabled them to decide on an area for development for the next session. It was great to see the children developing a clear understanding of how these skills are important to a successful company and product.

As well as budgeting, the children consolidated their prior learning in maths throughout the half term. They also worked on a stand-alone 'Finance Friday' project bringing together the skills they've developed in this area to work out a budget based on their choice of job, car, rent and other expenses. I am sure these real life skills will help them in the future.

In Guided Reading, children finished Michael Morpurgo's Kensuke's Kingdom. They have identified how effectively Morpurgo builds suspense and develops characters.

In RE, children have consolidated their learning of the five main religions by writing beautifully presented and highly detailed guides.

In PE, children have been developing their dance and athletics skills including how to start a race and relays.

Summer 

WE ARE Astronauts

This half term our writing and project have been completely interlinked. First, we became experts in newspapers. Then, after developing in-depth knowledge of the first Moon, we wrote about this historical moment as journalists. After that, we worked in groups to become experts in the Sun or one of the planets, and then used this to write non-chronological reports. During this project we have also been developing our working scientifically skills such as to investigate the link between shadows and the Earth’s rotation. All of this learning has informed our final project end outcome: a model of the solar system. We have even been using the Solar System to support our French learning of phrases such as far/near/next/last as well as consolidating our use of descriptive language such as colours. 

Our text this half term in Guided Reading has been Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. We have enjoyed unpicking and analysing the fantastic vocabulary as well as reflecting on whether or not we would like to undertake an adventure such as Michael’s with our own families! 

In Maths this half term we have been consolidating lots of learning from earlier in the year as we start to get ready for Y6 - such as dividing, multiplying and applying this to solve problems. We constructed our own cuboid robots and then, in order to find out how much foil we would need to cover them, we calculated their surface areas. Then, we calculated their volume in order to find out how much fuel it would take to fill them. We’ve been measuring lots of items in and out of the classroom and have really improved at making sensible estimates such as how much liquid a container can hold. This led on to practising converting between different units of measure. Finally, we have been developing the time-keeping skills we will need as we become increasingly more independent – such as walking home alone in Y6, getting to the right lesson at the right time in Y7. We have even started being able to understand complex timetables so we are ready for an adventure like Michael takes in Kensuke’s Kingdom - if we get the chance.

In RE we have learnt about the 5 pillars of Islam and how Muslims around the world perform them accordingly. Islam is an Arabic word meaning submission and obedience. It comes from a word meaning peace. Like Christians and Jews, Muslims are monotheistic which means they only believe in one God, who they call Allah.

We had a great time at the picnic for the Queen’s Jubilee.

Spring 

What a great start to 2022 for Year 5 pupils! In English we learnt about myths, legends and folktales from other cultures through exploring the book “Seasons of Splendour” by Madhur Jaffrey. We thoroughly enjoyed this book as it took us on a journey of rich and colourful folklores. These stories, told by parents to their children for many generations, make a rich and dazzling collection of mythological tales drawn from a great heritage of Hindi epics as well as a host of other magical and spectacular creatures. We loved reading every word!

In Maths, we practised and consolidated techniques to work out fractions of amounts and percentages. We also become experts in telling time and calculating durations in timetables because knowing how to tell time is very important skill. We understood it can help us to work out whether we are running late or have plenty of time to spare. Such skills can also help us to catch a train, bus, or plane on time, and allows us to know if we are going to make it to a celebration or not.

Project Based Learning (PBL) took us on a learning journey across the globe. We used our Geography skills to become experts in countries from the Western to Eastern Hemisphere. We choose our own countries, worked out longitudes and latitudes as well as their physical and human features. We learnt some super exciting things that we did not know before. One class shared their knowledge through a holiday cruise video around the Eastern hemisphere while the other class will share their expertise using a video file.

Autumn 2

WOW!

Another term just flew by and we didn’t even notice. In Year 5 we have become young documentarians by producing a documentary on The Maya Civilisation.  We are now experts in how Maya people created the calendar, the writing and the first signs of Maths. Gods and Goddesses and their first ball games have also been studied in detail to better understand how Maya people kept themselves entertained.   

In English, Year 5 have studied “The Adventure of Odysseus”: we analysed the text, learnt new vocabulary and differentiated between the features of Myths and Legends. We wrote our own play scripts about how Odysseus and his team successfully (in some ways) escaped the vengeful Cyclops.

In Maths, Year 5 have covered subjects like; converting lengths, intervals when reading scales, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers and shapes. In our Finance Friday sessions we looked at working within a budget, how adverts persuade us to spend our money and what items are better value for money.

We can’t wait to come back and have another blast of a term!

Keep a look out for the Documentary, coming soon to this page!