Mrs Pinkerton with Miss Bohdjalian and Mrs O'Neill
It seems unreal that we are over halfway through Year 5! The time has flown and the children have learnt so much already. This term sees our residential and I have added a sub-page below (under Curriculum) where you will find the information presentation and other materials.
Please can you also ensure your children return to school after Easter with the correct stationary, in particular a number of children don't have a glue stick, whiteboard pen and blue handwriting pen.
PE will be Monday and Wednesday for the Summer term.
Our values this term are justice and responsibility under the umbrella of respect.
In English, we will continue the mystery novel Secret of the Night Train before researching plastic pollution in order to write a persuasive letter. In Maths, we will be learning about percentages, position and direction, and shape. Our science topic in the Summer term is life cycles and we explore both animal and plant examples. We will continue to look at the Maya civilisation in History and, in Geography, will discover how our coasts are formed (including our residential trip) and look at tourism and migration in Spain. Please see the curriculum page for more information on our learning this term.
Our P.E. days for the Spring term will be Mondays (cricket with Magpies) and Wednesday (athletics). P.E. kit can be worn on P.E days. If you are attending a lunchtime or after-school sports club on a non-PE day, please wear your normal school uniform and bring a change of clothes for your club.
Many thanks
Mrs Pinkerton
Information for Parents
Homework
Maths and English homework will be handed out on Wednesdays for return the following Monday. On occasion, the children may also receive a piece of homework related to one of our other topics in Geography, History, Science or RE.
Spellings will be studied and handed out on a Tuesday and tested the following Tuesday in our spelling lesson.
General Reminders
Absolutely NO NUTS in school please.
Useful Documents and Links
Reading
Please try to hear your child read every day, just for 10 minutes. It really does make a difference! We read our reading scheme books in class each day so the children can choose whether to read their coloured band books or another text at home. The key is talking about the book and for the adult to ask lots of questions about the text and any unfamiliar vocabulary. Example reading questions can be found below.
I would like to challenge the children to read as many books from the suggested reading list as possible. It really does make a difference! They will be celebrated in the classroom so please let me know once they've completed a book and email a photograph of them with the book. They can read the books themselves or have them read to them. We have a class library, which they can borrow most of the books from.
Writing
Spelling
English Websites
Maths Websites
Recently, we have explored a new Maths game which the children can play at home to practise their Maths skills. It is a BBC Bitesize game called Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica. A link is below. Please note that you will need a BBC account to save progress.
In Year 5, we sometimes have fun challenging ourselves to solve Countdown style maths puzzles. The children are shown a set of number cards and a target number and had to solve it using their knowledge of the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and their times tables.
It is a great way to improve fluency and practice calculations (even if you don't end up with the target answer). I join in with the children and sometimes they see the answer before me! Ask them to explain their method as mistakes are made.
The website we use is called NRich and is available here: https://nrich.maths.org/countdown/main.html We use level 2 and level 3 - the level can be selected under the settings icon in the top right corner.
Other Useful Websites