Spring 2, Week 5

English: This week, we have finished ‘The Adventures of Odysseus’ and have allocated learning partners a chapter each to begin to playscript ready for a lollystick puppet show next week as well as our trip to Theatre Royal on Wednesday, which is World National Theatre Day.

At home: What kind of images would go on a back drop?

Maths: We have finished our learning on volume this week and have begun focusing on factors, multiples and primes.

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us find factors, multiples and primes.

Science: We finished off science week with a trip to Brighton Girls on Monday to take part in the fully funded science day. The children were able to enjoy the solar system and more in the Wonderdome, have a go at coding ‘Mars Rover buggies’ and enjoyed cookies and juice whilst watching an amazing video about space and a Brighton Girls Alum who now works for the European Space Agency.

          

               

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Spring 2, Week 4

English: This week, we have finished, edited and published our letters to Penelope explaining our (Odysseus’s) long journey home to Ithaca following the Trojan War. We have also re-started our play scripts unit in preparation for our celebratory puppet show at the end of this half term.

At home: What kind of images would go on a back drop?

Maths: We have been completing maths tests this week so will return to our regular maths lessons next week

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us find the volume of cubes and cuboids.

Science: It’s science week! The children have been designing farms of the future, coding on Scratch to become time travellers and have learnt about and attempted to use sun dials to tell the time, which hasn’t gone very well with out very British, cloudy week! We’ve also completed a mission to Mars using the Now press Play Headsets and are looking forwards to our space trip at Brighton Girls this coming Monday.

        

History: We’ve had Rainbow Theatre in to enrich our learning on Ancient Greece. All the children were involved in a drama production of the best myths and aspects of Ancient Greek history.

               

              

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Spring 2, Week 3

English: This week, we have been learning about and practising modal verbs before planning and beginning our letter to Penelope from Odysseus explaining why he has been away from home for so long following the victory at Troy.

At home: How would you use origami to make an envelope?

Maths: We have been started a new unit and have been learning about volume (finding the space taken up by a 3D shape).

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us find the volume of cubes and cuboids.

History: We learnt about the legacy of the Olympics this week and have had a visitor in to talk to the children about what the Olympics are like nowadays compared to what they were like in Ancient Greece.

              

  

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Spring 2, Week 2

English: This week, we have been drawing maps in groups to ensure we are confident in retelling Odysseus’s long journey home to Ithaca. We have been practising the skills needed to write an informal letter and will be planning and writing a letter to his wife Penelope next week.

At home: How would you use origami to make an envelope?

Maths: We have been continuing our learning on decimal fractions and have been looking at how dividing by 10 and 100 is the same and multiplying by 0.1 (a tenth) and 0.01 (a hundredth).

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us multiply and divide decimals.

RE: We are learning about the Easter story this half term in RE and the children have been watching videos, participating in NPP experiences and using bibles to compare different version of the same event.

                  

           

Spring 2, Week 1

English: This week, the children have been looking at formal and informal letters and comparing the differences between the types of language and sentences used.

At home: Can you find examples of formal and informal writing at home?

Maths: We have been continuing our learning looking at multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 but focusing on decimals.

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us multiply and divide decimals.

Science: We started our new unit on Earth and space this week and have learnt lots of facts about the planets and sun in our solar system and displayed them using salt dough. All children have been given a moon diary to complete over the next 4 weeks and it is due in on Monday 25th March.

 

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Spring 1, Week 6 

English: This week, the children have been looking at formal and informal letters and comparing the differences between the types of language and sentences used.

At home: Can you find examples of formal and informal writing at home?

Maths: We have been continuing our learning looking at multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 but focusing on decimals.

 

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using this knowledge to help us multiply and divide decimals.

Science: We started our new unit on Earth and space this week and have learnt lots of facts about the planets and sun in our solar system and displayed them using salt dough. All children have been given a moon diary to complete over the next 4 weeks and it is due in on Monday 25th March.

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Spring 1, week 5

DT: This week, we have been trying to protect the crown jewels by using Scratch and our homemade switches to code our Makey Makeys and create alarms.

English: This week, we have been continuing with list poetry and have been rehearsing all of the skills needed to write our own poems. The theme for these will be ‘your favourite place in the world’

At home: Think about where your favourite place in the world is – a holiday, your bed, a local place?

Maths: We have been continuing with our area and scaling unit. This week, we have been using our new knowledge of scaling to scale up ingredients for slime and then made a mess trying to make it!

          

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using multiplication and division to help us with scaling.

Geography: Last week, we have been comparing the physical (natural) geography of Greece to the UK and have been using salt dough to help us demonstrate the topography of both countries by creating 3D maps. This week, we are painting them and labelling both the human and physical geographical features to create a 3d infographic map.  

          

  

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Spring 1, Week 4

English: This week, we have finished and published our descriptive settings and have been reading lots of ‘The Adventures of Odysseus’. We are now pausing the book and carrying on with it after half term so we can focus on our new unit – list poetry.

At home: Think about where your favourite place in the world is – a holiday, your bed, a local place?

Maths: We have been continuing with our area and scaling unit. This week, we have been using our new knowledge of how to find the area of a square and rectangle to help us find the area of compound, rectilinear shapes (shapes that are made up of straight lines and either 90 or 270 degree angles).

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using multiplication to work out the area of rectilinear and compound shapes.

Geography: This week, we have been comparing the physical (natural) geography of Greece to the UK and have been using salt dough to help us demonstrate the topography of both countries by creating 3D maps.

   

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Spring 1, Week 3

English: This week, we have been continuing with our learning around descriptive settings. We have finished rehearsing all of the skills needed to create imagery and have begun writing and editing.

At home: Think about a room in your house. How would you describe it to your learning partner using your senses and figurative language?

Maths: We have started a new unit on area and scaling. First, we revised our year 4 learning around perimeter and have now introduced the first part of the unit: area. This week, we have been using squares to help us find the area of shapes and draw shapes with a set area of cm2.

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts as we are using multiplication to work out the area of squares and rectangles.

RE: This week we are comparing different creation stories and the children have been using drama to show what they’ve learnt.

        

  

 

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Spring 1, Week 2

English: This week, we have been continuing with our learning around descriptive settings. We have identified the steps to success for this genre and are now in our rehearsal stage of the writing process: revising expanded noun phrases and prepositional phrases.

At home: You could look at Where’s Wally pictures together and create descriptive phrases to support each other in finding the item or person you are describing.

Maths: We have been securing our knowledge of short division by re-capping diving 3-digit numbers by 1-digits numbers by solving problems and looking for patterns.

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts means we can really focus on securing the process of short division.

PSHE: This half term, we are learning about ‘Good To Be Me’, which is focusing on celebrating our identities – our heritage, likes and dislikes, hobbies etc.

DT: We are learning about complex switches using the Makey-Makeys this half-term. This week, the children have been getting to grips with how to program and use them through playing with them and Scratch.

                    

                   

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Spring 1, Week 1

English: This week, we have started our new class reader (The Adventure of Odysseus) and have been immersing ourselves in descriptive settings.

At home: You could watch Disney’s Hercules

Maths: We have been revising our short division and learning how to divide 3-digit numbers by 1-digit number looking at exchanging and remainders.

At home: Please continue to practise TTRockstars at home –knowing timestable facts and their related division facts means we can really focus on securing the process of short division.

PE: This half term, we are doing gymnastics and tennis. It is going to be particularly cold whilst outside doing tennis so please ensure your children wrap up warm (and for nature school too).

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Autumn 2, Week 7

English: This week, we have been writing our own non-chronological reports about the Normans and publishing them for a class book.

At home: You could read some information books.

Maths: We have been starting to learn short division, beginning with dividing 2 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers.

At home: You could practise the method. Also, you could practise your times tables on TTRS to help you.

Christmas: we enjoyed our Christmas lunch on Wednesday and loved taking part in Christmas activities including a silent disco and crafts.

 

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Autumn 2, Week 6

English: This week, we have been developing our skills in punctuation, using colons and parenthesis, and starting to plan our own non-chronological reports about the Normans.

At home: You could look for examples of colons, brackets, dashes and commas when you are reading.

Maths: We have been practising our short multiplication method and using it to solve problems.

At home: You could practise the method. Also, you could practise your times tables on TTRS to help you.

Music: We have performed our Christmas concert – thank you to all the families who were able to come and watch us!

DT: some classes have been creating structures using hacksaws and glue guns. Here are some of our creations!

   

 

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Autumn 2, Week 5

English: This week, we have been starting our learning about non-chronological reports. We have been exploring the key features and ‘speaking like an expert’ to develop our technical language skills.

At home: You could look at books or other texts at home to look for information texts on various subjects.

Maths: We have been learning to multiply one digit numbers by 2 or 3 digit numbers using short multiplication.

At home: You could practise the method. Also, you could practise your times tables on TTRS to help you.

Music: We have been continuing to learn songs for our Christmas concerts.

At home: learn the words for the concert which have been sent home this week.

Environment: we had a great visit from Sustrans who promote sustainable travel. They helped us to learn some new skills on our bikes.

DT: some classes have been creating structures using hacksaws and glue guns. Here are some of our creations!

   

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Autumn 2, Week 4

English: This week, we have been writing explanation texts about our designs which could attack a castle.

At home: You could look examine other explanation texts – where can you find them?

Maths: We have begun our unit about multiplication and have started to think about formal written methods.

At home: You could practise the method. Also, you could practise your times tables on TTRS to help you.

Music: We have been continuing to learn songs for our Christmas concerts.

At home: learn the words for the concert which have been sent home this week.

 

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Autumn 2, Week 3

English: This week, we have been finding out about explanation texts. We used junk modelling to create a machine which could attack a castle. Then, we gave oral presentations in the style of Dragon’s Den to explain how they worked. (See photos).

At home: You could look at books or other texts at home to look for explanation texts.

Maths: We have been continuing our learning about positive and negative numbers. We have found the difference between positive and negative numbers and solved lots of problems about them.

At home: You could talk to someone about positive and negative numbers in bank balances and what they mean.

Music: We have been starting to learn songs for our Christmas concerts.

At home: learn the words for the concert which have been sent home this week.

 

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Autumn 2, Week 2

English: This week, we have finished writing our narrative poems linked to our story about Sir Gawain. We will be performing these to our buddy classes in Year 2 next week.

At home: You could practise reading aloud with expression and intonation. You could use a poem to practise reading with rhythm.

Maths: We have been learning about positive and negative numbers. We have been learning to read these numbers, place them on a number line and calculate the interval between two numbers.

At home: You could investigate temperature in different parts of the world. What are the differences between two countries?

RE: We had a fantastic visit from one of our parents linked to our learning about Diwali in our unit on Hinduism. We found out what Diwali is and how it is celebrated.

     

     

 

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Autumn 2, Week 1

English: This week, we have finished writing our narrative poems linked to our story about Sir Gawain. We will be performing these to our buddy classes in Year 2 next week.

At home: You could practise reading aloud with expression and intonation. You could use a poem to practise reading with rhythm.

Maths: We have been learning about positive and negative numbers. We have been learning to read these numbers, place them on a number line and calculate the interval between two numbers.

At home: You could investigate temperature in different parts of the world. What are the differences between two countries?

RE: We had a fantastic visit from one of our parents linked to our learning about Diwali in our unit on Hinduism. We found out what Diwali is and how it is celebrated.

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Autumn 2, Week 1

English: This week, we listened to Mr Gunn perform a narrative poem about King Arthur. We have now started writing our own.

At home: You could investigate rhymes and other poems that have an ABCB rhyming pattern.

Maths: We have been applying our knowledge of decimals to add and subtract amounts of money using different methods. We have also worked out change using number lines and column addition and subtraction.

At home: You could look at different coins and set up your own shop to practise adding totals and working out change. You could also visit a real shop if you’re allowed.

Science: We started our new unit all about Forces. We experimented with levers and pulley in our lesson (see photos).

         

Environment: Ukraine had their first session of Nature School and had a brilliant time!

At home: find some more resources for our Nature School bag including conkers, acorns, pine cones, feathers and beech nuts.

 

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Autumn 1, Week 7

English: This week, we have completed, edited and published our recounts of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. You might have seen them at parents evening!

At home: You could investigate other legendary stories. Do you think that there might be some truth in them? Why or why not?

Maths: We have been applying our knowledge of decimals to add and subtract amounts of money using different methods. We have also solved problems with them.

At home: You could look at different coins and set up your own shop to practise adding totals and working out change. You could also visit a real shop if you’re allowed.

Science: We are finishing our unit on changing materials this week or next week, depending on the class. We looked at a variety of irreversible changes and why these cannot be changed back, including mixing lemon and bicarbonate of soda, mixing effervescent tablets with water and some classes have even been trying to burn cotton wool in the nature reserve by starting our own fires.Art: Ukraine class visited Preston Park as part of our unit about sketching. We loved having parents with us to join in with this learning.

Environment: We have had a fantastic visit from Sussex Underwater who talked to us about all of the creatures and plants which can be found off the Sussex coast and how this has changed over time.

At home: find out more about this brilliant organisation through Facebook and Instagram.

  

         

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Autumn 1, Week 6

English: This week, we have been hearing the last part of our story about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We have started writing a recount of the final section, imagining that we are Sir Gawain telling the story to the knights of the round table.

At home: You could investigate other stories told about King Arthur and his knights. Do you think they are true? Why or why not?

Maths: We have been revising number, looking at rounding to tenths and wholes using numbers with two decimal places (hundredths). We have also began working with numbers to 3dp and looking at ordering these.

At home: You could look at rounding decimals that you can find around the house (meters, measurements, temperatures etc).

Science: We are finishing our unit on changing materials this week or next week, depending on the class. We looked at a variety of irreversible changes and why these cannot be changed back, including mixing lemon and bicarbonate of soda, mixing effervescent tablets with water and some classes have even been trying to burn cotton wool in the nature reserve by starting our own fires.

Art: Uruguay and UK class visited Preston Park this week to create sketches of the clock tower as part of  our drawing unit. Ukraine class will visit next week when the weather is more favourable.

Environment: We have been in the nature reserve attempting to start fires to learn about irreversible changes. In geography, we have also been learning about how the coastline changes through physical and human impact.

At home: if you’re near the beach, you could look at the waves and the impact they have on our coast. Can you find any evidence of what helps to prevent out shoreline from being destroyed by waves?

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Autumn 1, Week 5

English: We have been editing and publishing our diary entries in role as Gawain from our text ‘Gawain and the Green Knight’. We have read further in the text and made predictions about what will happen next.

• At home: You could explain the plot of the book to your family and tell them your prediction.

Maths: We have been working with hundredths. We have added and subtracted them using the column method and solved some word problems.

• At home: You could look add or subtract 2 amounts of money e.g. £7.99-£4.25 =

Environment: We have been finding out about important features of our coastline and how the sea deposits them to create beaches, spits and lagoons. We learnt about longshore drift and tried to create this effect using sand and water in trays as well as drawing it on the playground. (See photos).

• At home: you could visit the beach and look at how the waves move and the effect on sand and shingle.

                                            

 

                                            

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Autumn 1, Week 4

English: We have been writing diary entries including description of setting and character from the perspectives of Sir Gawain from our book ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’.

• At home: You could write your own diary entry about your day.

Maths: We have been revising number, looking at hundredths as a fraction and a decimal. We have been partitioning decimals in different ways.

• At home: You could look at how we use hundredths when we talk about money e.g. £3.25 and make the amounts using coins.

Environment: We have been doing a science experiment where we thought about how to separate materials that had been mixed together with water, using different equipment (see photos). We thought about why water is dirty for so much of the global population and how it could be made clean.

• At home: you could find out about charities that support people who do not have clean water to drink.

      

         

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Autumn 1, Week 3

English: We have continued reading ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’ We wrote a character description of the Green Knight. Then we created maps of his journey (see photos).

         

• At home: You could use a thesaurus to look at new vocabulary to describe characters or settings.

Maths: We have been adding and subtracting decimals using the column method. We have also been rounding decimals to the nearest whole number.

• At home: You could practise adding numbers in columns e.g. 4.5+3.6

Environment: We have started to learn about our coastline in Geography lessons.

• At home: you could visit the beach and see what features of the coast you can see.

 

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Autumn 1, Week 2

English: We have been reading the start of our new text, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ by Michael Morpurgo. We drew pictures of the knight from the description.

• At home: You could explain what the Green Knight looks like to someone at home.

Maths: We have been revising numbers, looking at tenths as a fraction and a decimal

• At home: You could ask for a number and then attempt to divide it by ten to find a tenth.

Environment: We have had our WOW start to our coasts topic in geography with a social responsibility day about the ocean. We have learnt about how the sea helps us and the development of sea kelp along the Sussex coast.

• At home: You could investigate the sea kelp forest along the Sussex coast and see how you could support it from charities such as Sussex Seabed Restoration Project.

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Autumn 1, Week 1

It has been such a lovely start to year 5. The children have come back and really settled into their routines.

English: We have been revising what a basic sentence needs as well as looking at how to use adverbs to make our writing more interesting.

At home: You could look at any writing and think about the choice of adjectives and adverbs – could you find a better synonym (word)?

Maths: We have been revising number, looking at place value and rounding.

At home: You could identify the value of each digit in a number and round it to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000.

Environment: We have been learning how to use treasury tags in our books at school so that we don’t need to use glue sticks.

At home: What small changes could you make at home to help the environment?