English
In English lessons we have been learning about poetry. We started by creating poetry paper chains and experimenting with acrostic poems and syllables. We explored lots of different poems and how poets use figurative language to help convey meaning and create rhythm when the poems are performed aloud. The children created similes, metaphors and personification which were then used in their poems about a topic of their choice. The children blew us away with all their amazing poems and the creative language they included.
Check out some of our fantastic poems below!


We have just started a topic on characterisation. We started of the topic by having a range of items in a bag; the children then had to describe the item using adjectives and the rest of the group had to draw the item. Next we will use expanded noun phrases, commas for clarity and pronouns to help build cohesion.
We have recently started using authors chairs to share our work. The children love sitting in the chair, reading out their work and asking their class for feedback. Have a look at some pictures of our authors chairs!



Reading
In Reading, we started by exploring a book called âThe Promiseâ by Nicola Davies. It is a picture book which focuses on imagery and has a deep moral story regarding the stewardship of the earth and its environment. It focused on the community and being a positive force for change. Within this unit, children learnt some of the following skills:
- Responding to illustrations
- Making predictions
- Visualising
- Reading with fluency and expression
- Exploring characters
- Hot seating in the role of the character and freeze framing
- Conscience alley
- Retrieval practice
- Writing in role as the character
- Exploring theme
The next book we will be exploring is called âCosmicâ by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. It tells the incredible story of how Liam told some fibs, won a trip to a theme park and ended up in space by accident.




Maths
In maths this term, we started with a multiplication and division unit. We looked at how to multiply two digit numbers with up to four digit numbers. The topic started with us learning how to use the column method and we applied our new learning to solve multi-step problems. We then learnt how to effectively divide numbers up to four digits. We are now currently on our second unit of fractions. We have started using fractions as operators and we are learning how to find a fraction of a quantity. Children have really enjoyed representing numbers in different ways and learning how to simplify fractions to make the questions easier to understand.

In our next unit we will be exploring decimals and percentages.
Science
In science, we have been learning about materials. We have explored the properties of materials and learnt the terms translucent, transparent and opaque among others. We have also used magnets, testing if different materials around the classroom are magnetic.
Following on, we explored which materials were soluble. We had 5 different materials (coffee, sugar, salt, rice and flour) which we added to water and recorded if they were soluble or insoluble. Our most recent experiment led us to discover what variable we could change to affect the speed in which a solute dissolve.




Next half term we will be continuing to explore the topic of materials.
Topic
In Geography, we are exploring Asia. We started off by investigating the physical features of Asia (volcanoes, mountains, oceans) and then moved onto the human features of Asia (capital cities, population and languages). We then explored the natural borders across Asia and have started to explore tectonic plates. We learnt what tectonic plates are, continental drift and how earthquakes and volcanoes can occur.
Using biscuits and jam the children got to explore the different tectonic plates (constructive, conservative and destructive) and how they can cause earthquakes and volcanoes



We will continue learning about Asia next half term.
From the Year 5 Team đ