Wow! What a super first full week back we have had in Year 5! From forces to biographies, square numbers and hockey lessons, we have learned so much about our fun new topics for this term!
In Maths, we have been exploring multiples, factors, prime numbers and square numbers. It has been great to consolidate knowledge from previous learning and build on this further. From using manipulatives to creating arrays to prove our theories, we have worked really hard!
You can try the maths challenges here: Maths W2 sheets
Our English lessons we started to learn the features of biographies. We begun by researching the biographies of significant individuals. The end of the week saw us interview each other to find out all about their lives so that we could write biographies. From our biggest achievements to where we were born, we have identified the key features of a biography and begun to construct them about our learning partners.
In Guided Reading, we began looking at ‘The Honey Jar’ – our new text for this half term – and were drawn in by the tales it told. We will be continuing this next week, so if you would like to pre-read the text to become familiar with it, you can download it here: The Honey Jar text
Sikhism is our new religion focus in PRE and we started investigating how Sikh’s show their commitment to God. In outdoor PE, the children began hockey lessons and in indoor PE we have been working on our balancing and footwork skills! We have also enjoyed exploring our understanding of identity, starting with our own names, in our PSHCE lessons. In Art, we created layered masks in the style of Maya masks. They show the three stages of life: birth, adulthood and death.
Earlier today, we began our unit on Forces in STEM. The children had to undertake Forces training in order to show they have what it takes to join the Natural History Museum’s recovery team off to explore a meteorite which has landed on Earth! From gravity to air resistance, we have started to understand what keeps us from floating off into space but stops us from getting sucked to the center of the Earth – we have been so impressed by their learning already!
We have continued to explore the Maya for our new history project. Our enquiry question is: “What was unique about the Maya?”. If you are interested, have a look at this super introduction to the period on the bbc website, along with some more information about them. Check out the websites below if you have the chance:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zq6svcw
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/history-ks2-introducing-the-maya-civilisation/znk3cqt
Finally, our Times Table Rockstar competition has officially begun. The children are playing against other classes in Upper Key Stage 2 and are trying to beat their opponents by getting the best score on TTRS. As a result, we will add 15 minutes practice to the home learning tasks for this term.
Spellings
As part of our sounds write approach to spellings we start by saying a word to the children, for example accommodate. We ask them how many syllables they can hear (4). We then provide them with all the sounds required to build the word but mixed up (a mm cc o o a-e t d). We then identify the sounds in each syllable and build the word syllable by syllable: a / cc o / mm o/ d a-e t). We then identify any potential challenges with the spelling – for example the double mm and double cc in accommodate. The children then use their sounds to build the word – initially in syllables (a / cc o / mm o/ d a-e t) and then as a single word without any syllable spaces (accommodate).
Home learning:
Reading 30 minutes daily
Spelling practice of Year 5 common exception words Spellings Year 5 2022 A2 – Sp2 (1)
This week’s spellings to revise are below:
TTRS practice 15 minutes daily
Corbett Maths 5 a day https://corbettmaths.com/5-a-day/primary/
Next week:
PE for Year 5 takes place on a Wednesday and a Thursday. Please ensure that you have the correct PE kit on both days. Incorrect kit will result in a restart being issued.
Have a lovely weekend,
The Year 5 Team