Welcome to Year 5! It’s been wonderful to see the children catch up with each other after 6 weeks apart and to see so much excitement to return to school. Year 5 is definitely a step up from Year 4; there’s higher expectations, more independence and new routines (and teachers) and both Indigo and Royal are showing that they are willing, and excited, to get stuck in. Let’s have a look at what we’ve been doing this week!

English

In English this term we will be reading the story ‘Ice Trap’ by Meredith Hooper which tells the story of Ernest Shackleton’s expedition into Antarctica. Before reading it however, we have been learning all about Antarctica; where it is, what it’s like and what lives there. Did you know that the word arctic comes from the Greek word arktos, meaning bear and so Antarctica means ‘no bears’ as you won’t find any bears there?

Year 5 have been collecting vocabulary and writing some wonderful setting descriptions of the glaciers, icy cold waters and wildlife of Antarctica. Next week we will be researching the animals found in Antarctica and learning the skills needed to write a non-chronological report.

Maths

In maths this week, we have been looking at our knowledge of place value. We already knew about the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands column and so we have looked at the next column, ten thousands. Year 5 have really demonstrated their knowledge of numbers, understanding that no single column can have more than 9 in it. For instance, if you have 10 in your thousands column, you must exchange them for 1 ten thousand. We also discussed the difference between a number and a digit. If you’re not sure yourself, ask your child(ren).

Next week in maths, we will be ordering numbers up to 100,000 and rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000.

PSHE

This week in PSHE, we have been discussing the different forms courage can take. We asked questions like ‘Is doing the right thing always the brave thing?’ and ‘Is courage always visible?’. We learnt how being kind can inspire others to be kind but also causes chemical reactions in our brains. We later watched a short film called ‘The Silent Child’ which showed the struggle of a young girl name Libby who is deaf but had to be very brave as she was not getting the help she needed.

Next week we begin this term’s thematic topic ‘Across the Pond’ where will explore the history of North America and how it was ‘discovered’.

Love to Learn

Your love to learn this week is to decorate your Love to Learn book to reflect your amazing personalities. Please make sure, however you decorate it, that your name is very clear so that we can tell whose book it is!

Please bring them back in (whether you have completed the task or not) every Wednesday.

Spellings

Mr Oxley and Miss Isaac’s spellings:

Tomb   comb   bomb   climb   lamb   thumb   crumb  

Red words: accommodate   accompany     according

Challenge words: plumber    debt    catacombs

Mrs Mercer’s spellings:

Phone   home    rope    bone    rose    slope    nose  

Red words: move   prove    improve  

Challenge words:   alone   clone    saxophone   

Messages:

The password for all school logins such as TTRS and AR should now be update to Viking25 (note the capital V).

Dates to remember:

18th September – Meet and greet for years 5 and 6 from 8.45am-9am in your child’s classroom. This is an opportunity to meet your child’s teaching team and get to hear about what to expect in the year ahead

25th September – Chilton School’s 50th Birthday

26th September – Thrive coffee morning 9am-10.30am in the studio – a chance to meet our well-being team

9th October - 2.45pm Year 5 and 6 Harvest assembly (in school hall with families invited to watch)

17th October – Final day of term

 

We hope you have a lovely week!

Miss Isaac, Mr Oxley and Mrs Mercer