We are now settling into our routines and expectations in Year 5 now and, it’s safe to safe, the children are noticing the step up in standards that are required this year. Tough though it may be, Year 5 have not shyed away from the work and are determined to do their very best and give everything a go which is exactly the attitude they’ll need to succeed! We’re very proud of them! Let’s see what we’ve been up to this week.

English

For the next couple of weeks, we are learning to write non-chronological reports. We are creating a report about the animals of Antarctica and have begun with penguins. We have practiced effectively reading and noting down key information from a text before organizing that information and rewriting it all more concisely and in our own words. The children then had to repeat that process, more independently, to research and write about seals. We have made sure to pick out expert language and use it in our own writing and have been introduced to relative clauses which are a great way to add information to our writing. For instance, we could write:

Seals eat fish, squid and crustaceans to survive.

Or we could add in a relative clause:

Seals, which are carnivores, eat fish, squid and crustaceans to survive.

Next week we will continue researching Antarctic creatures even more independently and then finish it up by ‘publishing’ our work in groups.

Maths

This week in Maths we have been ordering and rounding numbers up to 100,000. Rounding numbers can sometimes be a tricky concept, particularly as we are introduced to more and more digits. We stripped it back to recap rounding 2 digit numbers before working our way up to our new 5 digit numbers. Take a look below at how we do it. If you are still struggling the best thing to do is keep practicing at it. At first, get an adult to come up with 3-digits numbers to the nearest hundred, 4-digit numbers to round to the nearest thousand and then 5-digit numbers to round to the nearest 10,000. Practice makes perfect!

Next week we will be learning to use colons in lists.

 

Thematic

This week in thematic we began our topic ‘Across the Pond’. We began by identifying where the continent of North America is on a map and what countries it consists of. We then looked into how our knowledge of the continent has developed since it was first ‘discovered’ and who some of the key players were in it’s discovery and colonisation. We learned how Christopher Columbus is often credited with discovering America but he was not the first to know of it’s existence, he wasn’t even the first European. Around 500 years earlier Leif Erikson had landed in Canada after being blown off course when returning to Greenland from Norway. To finish off, we explored the question of whether a country can actually be ‘discovered’ when there were already native people living there.

Next week we will look at how Europeans settled in America and became the U.S.A.

Spellings

We will be continuing with our spelling words from last week:

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   

 

Love to learn

For your love to learn task this week, we would like you to recreate one of the flags we will be looking at in thematic. You can choose from the flags of Mexico, U.S.A, Canada or the United Kingdom. How you make this flag is up to you. You can draw it with pencils, make a chigiri or mosaic collage, go all ‘Art Attack’ on it and make it out of clothes on the floor and photograph it  (with parent’s permission of course). You do not have to complete it in your Love to Learn books if you come up with a better way to pull this off so get creative.

Here's a clip from Art attack to inspire you!

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/JsHuNuoAfV0?playlist=JsHuNuoAfV0&autoplay=1&iv_load_policy=3&loop=1&start=

 

Messages:

It’s that exciting time of year again when our Year 5 and 6 pupils can apply to become Thrive Ambassadors.

This year, we’ll be selecting a smaller group so that we can provide more in-depth training with our Thrive practitioners. As a Thrive Ambassador, you will play a very special role in our school community, offering support to others, being a friendly face in the playground, and giving advice and comfort to children who may need someone to turn to.

We are looking for candidates who:

• Show excellent behaviour

• Care deeply about others

• Have good attendance

• Want to make a positive difference to our school

If you would like to apply, please write a letter to Mrs Winchcombe, explaining why you would make the perfect Thrive Ambassador - Please hand these into your teachers, who will pass them on to her. 

Deadline: Friday 19th September

Good luck – we can’t wait to hear from you!

 

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