Welcome to Year 5 2022-23!

In Year 5, we have lots of happy, hard-working children who are kind and caring.

We enjoy learning about lots of different things and like to share our ideas with each other.

We have many talents which we like to use to help other people and to make the world a better place.

To help us with our work, Miss Grant is our class teacher and Miss Walker is our teaching assistants.

We hope you enjoy reading about our work in Year 5.

Curriculum Evening Presentation

Autumn 2

RE

Our RE topic this half term was “God’s Covenants”. In this unit, we started by looking at the meaning of the word ‘covenant’ and revisited our understanding of God’s covenant with Noah. We then looked at the covenant God made with Moses and the Ten Commandments. Finally, we looked at God’s new covenant by making links to the birth of Jesus and the covenants in the Old Testament.

Maths

We began this half term by looking at multiples and factors, Identifying the common multiples and factors of different numbers

Our next focus was fractions. Finding equivalent fractions to unit and non unit fractions. As well as this, the children spent learned how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers.

English

To link with our History topic this half term we focused on the Greek myth of ‘Pandora’s Box’. We spent time focusing on reported speech, where the children enjoyed creating their own interviews between Pandora and eyewitnesses of the events that happened after the box was opened. From this the children had a go a writing their own newspaper articles reporting on this event.

SCIENCE

In Science this half term, we learnt about the properties of materials. During this topic, we investigated different materials and thought about what materials would make good thermal insulators.

HISTORY

Our focus this half term was about the “Ancient Greeks”. We looked at different sources to find out about life in Ancient Greece; compared Sparta to Athens; used the Greek alphabet and compared the Ancient Olympic Games to the Modern Games.

DT

In DT, this half term our focus was bridges. The children have spent time looking at the different structures of a bridge and what designs offer the best support. We carried out an activity where the children created cross sections and a deck of a bridge out of paper and tested which was the strongest. To end this topic the children worked in pairs to make their own bridges using spaghetti and masking tape.

PE

We have been very lucky to have Miss Jones from Prince Henry’s Grammar School teach us badminton this half term. We have loved learning the skills and rules of badminton and then applying them in different games.

Christmas Activities

Autumn 1

RE

This half term, we have been leaning about God’s Creation. We started by reading the Creation Story in the book of Genesis and then we created our own pictures. After this, we looked at scientific theories about the creation of the world such as the Big Bang Theory and Evolution; we then discussed how the Biblical story and the scientific theories can fit together. Next, we learnt about how God called us to be stewards of the Earth and discussed what this means. Following this, we thought about how we can use our gifts to make the the world a better place. Finally, we discussed the problem of suffering in the world.

OUR CLASS SAINT FEAST DAY

Year 5’s class saint is Saint Francis of Assisi. We celebrated his feast day at the start of October by: coming to school dressed as various animals; decorating biscuits as animals and created PowerPoints that described key points of Saint Francis’s life.

MATHS

This half term, we have been focusing on Place Value as well as Addition and Subtraction. In Place Value, we have been practising reading, writing, rounding and comparing 6-digit numbers. We have also been using Roman Numerals to write numbers. In Addition and Subtraction, we have been using column written methods to complete these calculations and bar models to help compare calculations and find missing numbers in a calculation. As well as this, we have been using Times Table Rockstars to improve our Times Table knowledge and speed.

ENGLISH

For the first few weeks of this half term , we studied a book and film called, “The Lost Thing” which the children really enjoyed. It gave us lots of inspiration and imagination to write our own story of a Lost Thing where we tried to use all the grammar and punctuation that we had learnt such as: subordinating clauses, fronted adverbials, adjectives, relative clauses and commas.

At the end of this half term, we started our next book, “Hidden Figures” which is about the true story of the lives of four black women and the space race. Our focus when we read this book, was to write an informal letter. We also looked closely into the life of Katherine Johnson, who was one of the mathematicians who worked for NASA, as our inspirational person for black history month. The children thoroughly enjoyed learning about this topic and the lives of other individuals.

SCIENCE

Our topic for Science this half term is Space. We have found out about movement of the Earth and other planets in relation to the sun. We have also learnt how day and night are created.

ART

Our topic this half term was Chinese art. The children looked at how different brush strokes could be used to create different pictures. We spent time focusing on the four gentlemen and how these pieces of art depict the four seasons. The children created their own plum blossom pieces of artwork, using different brush stroke techniques.

Geography

North America has been our focus of our Geography topic. We have used Atlases to locate where North America is and have labelled some of the different countries and cities. We then turned our attention to what the difference is between human geography and physical geography.

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