Autumn Term Highlights from Year 5

This term has been very busy with lots of engaging activities and new learning. We had lots of fun participating in a football festival, which got everyone involved and Year 5 showed fantastic team spirit! Everyone took part with enthusiasm, and we scored some fantastic goals and saves.

In Mathematics, we have been working extremely hard on fractions. This is no easy topic, but Year 5 tackled it with confidence, even when things are getting challenging! We have been learning how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers. On top of that, we have been finding equivalent fractions so that we can order them from smallest to largest and vice versa. Also, we have been hard at work on our times tables and looking at how they can help us in our maths work.

In English, we have written a detailed scientific report using lots of new and technical vocabulary. We hypothesized what we thought was going to happen, wrote our own methods, explaining exactly how we would do the experiment and then we performed our experiment. After collecting our results, we drew a graph to represent our data and wrote up a conclusion to explain what we found and justify why we got those results. Year 5 proved to be fantastic scientists able to clearly articulate their investigations.

In Geography, we travelled to South America, investigating the different climates and even making our own rainforest climate dioramas, labelling them with all our key vocabulary we learnt. It was amazing how the climate changed from country to country. We looked at what the different countries grew and how they traded it with each other and the rest of the world. We liked the sound of all the cocoa beans that got made into chocolate!

In Science, we have loved learning about Earth and Space this term, especially what a year is, how night and day happens and comparing the other planets in the solar system to our own! Everyone is now an expert on our solar system. We have made a fantastic class model of a solar system for all to see. Not only have I been impressed with the effort everyone has been putting in but also the curious questions that Year 5 have been coming up with which has extended their learning.

Earlier in the term, we were learning about Christianity in R.E. We learnt about different symbols that are significant to Christians and what we might find inside a church. We made our own stained- glass crosses which shone beautifully in our classroom. We also all enjoyed acting out the nativity and re-telling it in a storyboard.

In History this term we have been learning about the vicious Vikings! We have discovered how they came over to England from Scandinavia in long boats. We learnt that they faced some resistance from the people of England but the Vikings were better fighters. Year 5 have been very good at extracting information from a range of sources to inform their work. I have been impressed with how well they have taken on the information and been able to recall it each lesson as we dive deeper into Viking life.

Overall, I have been unbelievably proud of how Year 5 have taken to the new challenges of this year.

From Miss Prior, Year 5 Class Teacher