Year 5 - Friday 22nd April

Date: 22nd Apr 2022 @ 3:43pm

Welcome to this week’s Year 5 class blog

The children have settled back into the summer term and have been working hard this week.

This week in year 5

In Maths, we have been working on equivalent fractions, adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators and converting improper fractions into mixed numbers.  This is a difficult concept for some of the children and will require some practising at home.  We discussed the rules with equivalent fractions – we can only use divide and multiplication and whatever we do to the top we do to the bottom.  When adding and subtracting fractions the denominator needs to be the same and we only add the numerator NOT the denominator. 

In English we are getting towards the end of Adlophus Tips.  Things are now getting a little exciting.  We have been practising different openers this week for our writing.  We have planned an extended piece of writing today that we will develop, edit and complete next week.

In Science, we have started a new topic about living things and their habitat.  We started off looking at plants and how they reproduce.  We looked at botanical illustrations and discussed how these have help botanist understand plants and their reproduction and we were also able to dissect a number of flowers.  We looked inside the flowers and were able to find the male and female parts of the flower.  If you have any old tulips or daffodils that your children can dissect at home, you could ask your children to show you the different parts of the flower and how it reproduces.

In RE, we have started our new topic on transformation, around the feast of Pentecost.  The children first looked at energy and how this can be made and changed.  We then looked at scripture relating to Jesus appearing to the disciples and how this energy affected them.

In French, we started with a quiz. The children had to read some paragraphs in French, trying to get the gist rather than understanding every word, in order to answer some questions. It was tricky, but everything is first time!  Then we recapped some food vocabulary.

In PE, the children ran their orienteering course again, as a warm up and they were able to complete the course in a much better time, due to developing effective techniques.  They then went on to practise skills needed for cricket.  They practised over arm throwing at a target, they practised catching an over arm bowl and then they were able to practise batting, in teams of 4, with 1 being the bowler, 1 the batter, 1 the back stop and 1 the fielder.  They were able to shoe great promise. I hope to see some real skills emerging over the next few weeks.

 In Geography the children developed map reading skills.  They were asked to identify human and physical geographical features within the UK.  They used knowledge of counties and use of the index to find where these landmarks would be and plot a point on a map.  They were very good and worked well in groups to find many locations.

DON’T FORGET

Common exception words have been sent home and the final test for these will happen before the end of the summer term.

Home Practice all relates to this week's learning - These are the tasks to be completed.

Reading - You all have a Home Reading book for year 5 so reading every night for 15-20 mins is essential. You also have a Reading Journal/Diary that must be completed and signed. Some children had a break from reading over the holidays but please ensure this is made a priority now that we are back at school.  Practise is vital to improve in all areas of English.

You can change your reading book on any school day (book bags to be left on Mrs Mulgrew's desk)

Maths – please ask your child what their times tables target is and help them practise this in order for them to progress.

I’d also encourage you to do a daily count with your child.  This week they can count up in 6s and 0.6s. Give the children a number to start from and they must continue to count from that number in 6s or 0.6s, either forwards or backwards.  A strategy we use is bridging e.g. if the number is 45 and we are adding 6 we would use 5 to bridge it to the next 10 first – 50 and then add the remaining 1.  If subtracting we would again subtract to the nearest 10 – this time subtracting 5 to get to 40 and then subtracting the leftover 1.

Spellings words Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer. We will look at these in more detail in school next week, they should be practised at home, ready for the test on Friday. 

referring preferred transferring reference referee preference transference difference inference conferring offering conference preferable different transferred

Don’t forget the children have a big list of Common Exception words to learn, these can be practised each week to push your child further.  You should all have received a second sheet with these words on by now, I have highlighted the words that your child wrote correct in a spelling test before Easter. This will give you an indication of how well they are remembering these spellings. We will be assessing the children on these words before summer.

Sumdog challenges

PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO COMPLETE THE SUMDOG CHALLENGES, MANY CHILDREN ARE STILL NOT ACCESSING SUMDOG.

Please encourage your child to complete the Maths and Spelling Training.  As you know, we set weekly challenges that are linked to the learning that takes place in school.  As an extra feature, the maths and spelling training sections will provide a tailored challenge for your child to practise skills, facts and words they find difficult.  Once the diagnostic challenges have been completed Sumdog will set challenges to aid improvement and development in the appropriate areas for your child.  Once you have completed the class challenges, please use this feature for extra challenge in both maths and spelling.  Many children have still not completed the diagnostic section.

Times tables have been set to reflect class targets

Maths the children have been set activities relating to fractions and mixed numbers

Spellings words adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer

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