Our Autumn Term

Writing

Our first piece of writing was focused on a video from The Literacy Shed called ‘Ruin’. This linked with our Geography topic. Children created a Diary Entry from the main character’s point of view.

We then worked on creating an Information Text based on the countries of Europe. Children were assigned countries of Europe and they had to research all the information about their given country.

Our third piece of writing was based on a video clip called 'The Lighthouse', children had a create a diary entry based on this story. They were challenged to remember all we had learnt from 'Ruin' and to use the techniques and skills to write a new Independent Diary Entry Sticky Write.

The fourth piece of writing was a Persuasive Text, based on enticing tourists to visit the country they had used in the information text. As the children had already done so much fantastic research for the information texts, it was exciting to see if they could convince people to visit their chosen country.

As we began Autumn 2 half term, we used a video called 'The Ridge' to hook the children's interest in being able to write a Setting Description. The language and vocabulary focus allowed the children to draft, edit and up-level by reading and rereading their work. We also used peer assessment to see what else could be added to make the setting descriptions even better.

The Magic Map Creative Writing competition was the sixth piece of writing so far in Y5 and the children were able to write about any place, any time, any narrative, and characters they so wished. The only constraint was that the children had to keep their writing to exactly 100-words in length. Once written these pieces will be sent off and some may well be chosen to be published in a real-life book (www.youngwriters.co.uk).

The final piece of writing for the Autumn Term will be based on 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas' and will be an Instructional Text.

Geography

In Year 5 we learn new Physical and Human geographical vocabulary and features. Our focus is on the continent we live in – Europe. We will use our knowledge to find countries on a map and to identify capital cities of Europe. We will understand how mountain ranges are formed and can identify the tallest mountains in Europe – and compare them to other mountains around the world. We will build on our knowledge of rivers and compare the rivers of the UK with the ones of the continent. 

Maths

We will build our knowledge of Place Value, the four operations of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division.

Using 'Power Maths' we will find out about Square Numbers, Cubed Numbers, Prime Numbers, Fractions, Improper Fractions, Mixed Numbers, Multiplying and Dividing by 10, 100, and 1,000, the language of mathematics (numerator, denominator, prime, odd, even, factors, multiples, integers, decimal etc.)

Science

We will be working on forces (push and pull, friction, air-resistance, water resistance), and we will be exploring the Science of our Solar System.

We will be learning through lots of investigations and experiments.