Year 5
Welcome to Year 5
Welcome to the new academic year. It has been lovely settling back into school this week and I am glad you have all had a great summer. We will be starting learning straight away with a wonderful topic based on the book ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker. By now, you should have received your welcome pack into Year 5. I hope you find this useful and please let us know if you are unsure of anything. Please encourage your child to bring in a reusable water bottle that can be refilled when needed.
Homework
Your child will be given a number of options to choose from each half term and then return the completed homework to the class teacher every two weeks. We have endeavoured to make the homework as creative as possible and we have done this to encourage parental involvement to help support your child in their work at home. We look forward to celebrating the wonderful creations that your children have done at home.
Reading
Please ensure that your child reads four times a week at home during term-time, encourage them to read a variety of genres and comment upon your child’s progress in their reading diary. Each week, if your child reads at least 4 times, they will be rewarded with a mark on their pathway. At various points in the year, awards will be given for reaching key milestones so please encourage your child to read as much as possible!
Times tables
At home, you can help your child to practice their times tables by asking them to recall facts quickly. It is best, when practicing a certain times table, to ask them to recall the facts out of order. Discuss strategies with your child e.g. the 5 times tables can be worked out quickly by halving the 10 times tables. This will not only help children to recall quickly but will strengthen their understanding of number relationships.
Topics
An outline of our topics for this academic year is as follows:
Autumn Term 1 Journey by Aaron Becker / Our Fragile World
Autumn Term 2 Firework Maker’s Daughter
Spring Term 1 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory / The Mighty Mayans
Spring Term 2 Space
Summer Term 1 Titanic – the last voyage
Summer Term 2 Harry Potter
P.E and Swimming
PE – Monday and Friday
Swimming – Swimming will commence in the Spring term on a Friday.
If there is anything at all that we can do to help you here in Year 5, please don’t hesitate to ask!
Thank you in advance for your support this year,
Mr. Card, Mrs. Durose and Mrs. Goldstraw.
Autumn 1
We have made a fantastic, albeit busy, start to life in Year 5! Our Topics for this half-term have been ‘Journey’ and ‘Our Fragile World’.
In English, we looked at the wonderful, textless book of ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker and from this we created our own narrative, using drafts, editing and improving which culminated in us writing our amazing final drafts!
In PSHE, we have continued to use our HeartSmart and MindKind initiative, enhancing our abilities to always make the correct choices no matter what we do. We have also began our ‘Mental Health Champions’ training, which will enable us to help others in such an important area.
During the topic ‘Our Fragile World’ we thought about the world in which we live and how we can make positive changes, more specifically thinking about the issue of plastic pollution. We then wrote some phenomenal persuasive speeches which we performed to the rest of the class!
In Maths, we have discussed the main operations, place value, and have begun to challenge ourselves using multi-step problems using a range of operations.
Our Geography lessons have seen us use compass points, map reading and even plan a route using a compass!
Autumn 2
During Autumn 2 we have been reading the book “Firework Maker’s Daughter”. We have studied the main characters within the text and completed guided reading activities based on the events in the book. We completed a diary entry as a character from the text (Hamlet) and our Literacy lessons culminated in us creating our very own play script for one scene within the book – where we put our playwriting and acting skills to the test!
In our Maths lessons, we have been working with statistics – looking at a variety of graphs and interpreting them in lots of different ways. We also deepened our knowledge of measure; specifically area and perimeter of shapes. The highlight of our Maths this half-term was during Maths week where we created a Sea Life centre. We used our Mathematical knowledge such as times tables, measure and place value to design our very own centre.
During our Topic lessons, we have been learning all about Mountains. We have compared different locations, discussed the key vocabulary and created fact-files on various well-known mountains.
In the run up to Christmas, we had lots of fun creating decorations to sell as part of our Christmas markets and we completed this as part of our D and T project.
A huge part of our half-term has seen us become ‘Mental Health Champions’ which enabled us to understand more about our mental health and how we can help each other in such an important area.
Spring 1
Spring 1 has all been about ‘Chocolate’ in Year 5 as we studied Roald Dahl’s text, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ whilst also learning about the ancient Maya civilisation.
In English, we have studied the characters from the book, described contrasting settings and completed some excellent pieces of written work from first to final draft.
Our Maths focus has been ‘fractions’ and we have really pushed ourselves to deepen our knowledge of improper fractions, mixed numbers and common denominators – a challenge which we relished!
Whilst studying the Mayans, we found out all about their Gods, their fascinating number system, and we even had a go at creating our very own Maya mask!
In Science, we have been learning about forces, including gravity, air and water resistance. We completed many experiments over the term, including using our own shoes to see whose created the most friction.
In Computing, we have been editing images using apps on the iPads. We took photographs of the stunning nature surrounding us, and edited them with various effects. We also took part in learning about staying safe online as we held an internet safety workshop for children in years 5 and 6.
Another busy half-term in Year 5, but certainly an enjoyable one.
Spring 2
Spring 2 completed what has been a very busy term in Year 5 as we ‘launched’ into our Space topic. We have completed lots of research about space, learnt about the different phases of the moons, completed planet fact-files and we even know the names of some of the planets in Spanish!
Year 5 took part in the annual Dance Extravaganza at the Victoria Hall. This year’s theme was ‘The Future is in Our Hands’ and we chose to choreograph a robotic dance, followed by a Yoga section to emphasise the need to ‘relax’ every now and then.
Our creativity has also been demonstrated within our Art lessons where we have completed an amazing abstract piece of work based on Peter Thorpe’s techniques.
Our main Literacy focus has been non-fiction texts and we have written recounts, biographies and explanation texts based on our Space theme and have enjoyed learning facts about Space.
Year 5 went on a fascinating trip to The Open Centre in Derby, where we learnt about various religions and visited a mosque.
We also had the pleasure of helping Forsbrook Parish Council plant some new trees, linking with our school ethos of ‘sustainability’.
Finally, we welcomed our parents and grandparents back into school where we performed our class assembly for them, and the rest of KS2.
It’s been non-stop, but we’ve loved every second of it!
Summer 1
Once again, it has been an extremely busy half term in Year 5.
In our Topic lessons, we have been studying The Royal Family and the history surrounding our Royals. Within this topic, we have explored Henry VIII and of course Queen Elizabeth II.
Our English topic has been based around Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The children have loved watching the film and completing various Literacy activities including writing character descriptions and writing a letter in response to Hogwarts!
Our Maths has seen an introduction to Geometry and in particular using protractors to measure angles. Prior to this, we worked with decimals and enhanced our problem solving skills!
A highlight of this half term was undoubtedly our visit to London, where we visited the Science Museum, the Natural History museum and Warner Bros. studios for a tour of ‘Harry Potter world’. We also had the privilege of watching a West-End show – The Lion King.
Summer 2
The last leg of our Year 5 journey has been just as busy as the rest! We spent the half-term exploring the legendary ‘Titanic’ and in our History lessons we researched all the facts and details which led to her creation and unfortunate sinking. The children have been fascinated throughout this unit!
Our English topic has also been based around the Titanic. The children loved watching extracts of the film, completing literacy activities and artwork based on events of the event. Our persuasive leaflets for the Titanic were phenomenal! We read Kaspar, Prince of Cats in our Guided Reading – another text that the children were consumed by.
We spent lots of time enjoying the beautiful weather too, and the year came to a climax with our amazing Year 5/6 performance, where all the children played their part in an outstanding show from start to finish! It truly was a super end to our Year 5 journey.
