Reading Adventures:

'In Charles Dickens’ story we meet Scrooge, a penny-pinching, greedy old man. When confronted by three ghosts who show him the past, present and future, Scrooge soon learns he must mend his ways’.

We are getting into the Christmas spirit during our Reading Adventure lessons by studying the classic story 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens (one of my favourites!). Children will continue to practise and develop their reading fluency with a focus on expression, pace and intonation during 'read aloud' lessons. We will also be using the reading skills inference, prediction and retrieval to strengthen and develop our understanding of character, setting and plot. This story will provide a wonderful opportunity for children to read as writers, analysing Charles Dickens' carefully crafted sentences and vocabulary choices and considering how they impact the reader.

Writing:

Year Five will be transported to the depths of the forest as we begin to explore the story 'Fox' by Maragret Wild and Ron Brooks. Children will begin by making their own predictions based on the colours and pictures on the front cover, as well as the title. They will be debating the importance of blurbs on books and will create their very own, thinking carefully about the features they choose. As we read through this exciting story, we will explore and analyse the language and grammatical features used (such as prepositional phrases, time adverbials, metaphorical language, similes) and have a go at creating our own versions! Children will be working towards writing a re-telling or continuation of the story from different characters points of view.

Mathematics:

During this half term, we will continue our focus on the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). Children will be learning about common multiples and factors, as well as square, cube and prime numbers. We will also be revising multiplying and dividing by 10,100 and 1000. We will end the term by learning about fractions which will include recognising equivalent fractions, converting between mixed and improper fractions and comparing fractions less and greater than 1.

Religious Education:

This half term we are exploring the question: Was Jesus the Messiah?

This unit will give the children the opportunity to explain the place of Incarnation and Messiah within the ‘big story’ of the bible whilst identifying Gospel and prophecy texts, using technical terms. They will explain connections between biblical texts, Incarnation and Messiah, using theological terms and show how Christians put their beliefs about Jesus’ incarnation into practice in different ways in celebrating Christmas. As a class we will comment on how the idea that Jesus is the Messiah makes sense in the wider story of the bible and weigh up how far the idea that Jesus is the Messiah—a Saviour from God—is important in the world today and, if it is true, what difference that might make in people’s lives.

Computing:

In this unit, the class will find out that vector images are made up of shapes. They will learn how to use the different drawing tools and how images are created in layers. They will explore the ways in which images can be grouped and duplicated to support them in creating more complex pieces of work. This unit is planned using the Google Drawings app.

Physical Education:  

Get your dancing shoes on Year Five as this term we have a focus on Dance! Children will be learning the following:

-Perform a basic cha cha step and salsa step.

-Perform a basic hand jive.

-With a partner, create a short dance to include canon, unison and gesture.

-Choose two contrasting dance types from around the world and link them into a dance performed by a small group

-Compose and perform a short dance around a theme of your choice. Explain and cite evidence for your choice of actions and movement adaptations.

-Modify actions using spatial aspects

-In a small group, create a dance. As a group, suggest an area of the dance which could be enhanced and refine it

Science:

May the force be with you for this unit, Year Five! This half term we will be tackling the following objectives within our Forces unit:

-Understand and explain what a force is

-Observe and describe the effect of the force of gravity

-Interpret data about the rate that different materials fall towards Earth

-Observe and describe the effect of air resistance

-Observe and describe the effect of water resistance

-Observe and describe the effect of friction

Children will be developing their ability to work scientifically by planning and carrying out scientific investigations linking to the above objectives.

Music:

Get those singing voices ready as we head into our 'What a Performance!' unit. This term we will be learning two very special Christmas songs for our Christmas performance. Through these songs we will be learning how to:

-Demonstrate awareness of the need for good posture, breathing and diction whilst singing in order to maintain a pleasing sound

-Sing and play with an understanding of how the interrelated dimensions of music affect the performance and its impact on the audience

-Understand and respond to visual cues for starting and stopping and/or fading away, tempi, dynamics and articulation

-Direct others to start and stop using gestures or counting in, setting tempi and dynamics

-Work independently within a group composition showing thought in selection of instruments and playing techniques

-Begin to compose using conventional notation for rhythms and/or pitch

Art:

Our Art unit this half term is all about Cultural Traditions. Through this unit we will discover what folk art is, what may inspire a folk artist to produce their artwork and how folk artists develop their artistic talent. Children will have the opportunity to summarise the reasons why folk artists are inspired to create their art and use their findings to explain what is meant by ‘self-expression’. The class will also be describing the features of Indian folk art, how an older piece of Indian folk art was typically produced and experimenting with the materials used by Ancient Indian folk artists to create their own piece of art in the style of Madhubani art. The children will also have the opportunity to produce their own coloured repeating pattern in a piece of art and  copy the style of a Madiba shirt to sketch their own coloured batik clothing design.

Geography:

This half term, we are practising our map skills and learning about different biomes. We will be looking at various features of different types of maps, have a go at reading and interpreting maps and even draw our own maps. We will look at four and six-figure grid references and apply our knowledge of these to locate local places. We will also be investigating ocean currents, gyres and the northern and southern hemispheres. The children will also be describing the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' and exploring plastic pollution.