Week 1

Firstly, welcome to the Class 5 page! 

This week has brought lots of fun and exciting activities to start off the new academic year.

Literacy - Setting Descriptions (The Spiderwick Chronicles)

This week we have commenced our class reader for this term. First we predicted what we thought the book would be about before reading the first chapter. We then developed an understanding of how authors use vocabulary for effect. We will then use that skill in our own writing later in this topic. 

Maths - Place value

This week we have investigated the value of integers! We discovered what a million representation would look like made out of dienes. Then we found out the value of representations, writing numbers up to ten million in both words and numbers. Next we discovered how the population of cities differ, placing them in ascending and descending order. We also revisited the < (less than) and > (greater than) symbol. Finally we rounded 7-digit numbers to 10, 100, 1 000 and 10 000.

Creative arts afternoons - Friedensreich Hundertwasser

This week we started to learn about our return to school artist - Friedensreich Hundertwasser. First we investigated the man behind the bright and colour art. We found him to be an extremely interesting man who was inspired by bright colours, wildlife and the environment around him. Next week we look forward to sharing you a sample of our work! 

Week 2

Literacy

This week we have investigated how authors create powerful sentences that describe the setting in a story, studying an extract from J.R.R.Tolkin - The Hobbit. We found out that authors use a range of techniques to grab the readers attention including: extended noun phrases, adverbials, similes, metaphors and personification. We then applied this to our own sentence structure as we begin to build up a bank of "perfect sentences" we can magpie for our own independent write.

Maths

We investigated a wide range of approaches to solving addition and subtraction problems. We quickly found out that sometimes we don't have to use column methods of problem solving and rounding, partitioning numbers or using known number facts can be far quicker and easier!

Topic

This week has brought an end to our artist study. We have thoroughly enjoyed his creative and interpretive style of artwork. We hope you enjoy looking at it as much as we have creating it! 

Week 3

Literacy 

This week we created our very own setting description of the Spiderwick Estate. We used powerful language to set the mood of the description, making the readers of our writing intrigued to found out more about what lurks inside the house! Check back next week to see examples of independent writing.

Maths 

This week commenced our learning on decimals and number values. We enjoyed investigating factors and prime numbers as well as understanding methods of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.

Topic 

On Thursday we began to explore our term enquiry question - Should we carry on living our lives like those from the past? This term we develop our historical skills by exploring and understanding the lives of Ancient Egyptians and those who lived in Baghdad 900AD. In our first lesson we explored how some items we take for granted today were actually invented thousands of years ago by ground breaking scientists and investors!

Week 4

Literacy  - This week we have embarked on our adventure of exploring poetry, concentrating on the poem, "The Listeners by Walter De La Mare." We quickly learned how poetry is a form of theatre built upon figurative language used by the poet to let our imaginations run wild! By the end of the week we had all made our own judgement of who we think the traveller was and why he was knocking on the door of the house in the woods. 

Maths -This week we have focused on using formal written methods of multiplication that include decimals. Next week we will apply this knowledge in order to problem solve. 

Topic - We have all created a quiz designed to test peoples understanding of how technology has changed over a period of time. In coding we used a timer to enhance our algorithm. Finally in PE we carried out the role of a personal trainer, enhancing the muscular endurance of our athlete! 

Week 5

Literacy - This week we have continued to explore poets figurative language and how they use onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyme and repetition for effect. We then implemented this in drafting a poem during independent write. Next week we shall share with you our, "Posh copies!"

Maths - Finally we finished off our series of lessons exploring multiplication. We learned how to multiply a 3-digit number by a 2-digit number before exploring worded problems (see the picture below). On Wednesday and Thursday we explored division using our known facts and reviewed short division. 

If we know that 7 x 8 = 56, we know 70 x 8 = 560, we know 700 x 8 = 5,600, we know 7,000 x 8 = 560,000

Topic - History involves understanding where key events happen throughout different periods. We investigated where both Ancient Egypt and Baghdad 900AD fit chronologically in our lives than that of others. Quiet quickly it was evident to see that the term Ancient Egypt lasted for over 3,070 years!! This makes the amount of time between Jesus' birth and us being alive seem short!

In science we planned an investigation to find out if the length of a wire affects how components in a circuit work (see the picture below).

Week 6

Literacy - This week we performed our poems before moving onto our next unit of writing; persuasive letters. By the end of the unit we will write a letter to the psychologists from the story book Spiderwick Chronicles persuading them to release Aunt Lucinda from the hospital. 

Maths - Long division. We have worked hard on using long division effectively to solve division problems. Please take a look at the video clip below if you would like to see the method we use in Class 5.

Topic - This week we investigated artefacts from both Ancient Egypt and Baghdad 900AD. Quickly we discovered that we owe lots to them for the tools and technology in our lives today. Did you know that the very first from of refrigerator and toilet came from over 5000 years ago! During our lesson we had a go at creating our very own artefact, a candle holder modelled on the design of that found in Baghdad in 2001. Next week we will paint of models using evidence from found artefacts to create our very own museum entries.

Week 7

Literacy - This week we have investigated techniques writers use when trying to persuade others. We looked at both formal and informal language used in letters and how each type of letter can be appropriate for its purpose. We applied our knowledge of commands, statements, exclamation and rhetorical questions whilst writing a response to Aunt Lucinda from the Spiderwick Chronicles. Towards the end of the week we investigated how subjunctive mood can be a powerful technique in persuading others!

Maths - This week we have learned about the priority of order. Key concepts we have taken away from this week include:

- plus and minus have equal priority 

- multiply and divide have equal priority over each other 

- multiply and divide have priority over addition and subtraction and should be solved first

- questions with brackets: the sum in the bracket must be solved first 

Other areas of the curriculum

- We painted our Ancient Civilisation inspired oil lamps

- We carried out our investigation related to the length of wires in a circuit

- We completed scripture artwork