Y5/6: Mrs Ashdown's Class 2021 - 2022

 We hope you had a fabulous half term break and are looking forward to getting festive as we head towards Christmas.

What’s happening this term...

During this Autumn term, our topic continues as ‘Fashion is the 20th Century'. During this exciting, new topic, you will be using enquiry skills to research and explain how a whole range of clothing (dating back from the middle ages all the way up to this modern day) builds up a picture of what life was like in many sectors of society and how advances in manufacturing has come about. Clothing from The Victorians, on board the Titanic, World War 2 and the past several decades will be focused upon and you will be designing and making your own clothing item to suit a given era. We can't wait to see what is produced :-)  

Science lessons will continue looking at Evolution and Inheritance. We will be finding out about Charles Darwin, his theory of natural selection and exploring fossils!  

Spellings will be focusing on specific patterns, words from the statutory spelling lists and also some WOW words to expand vocabulary. These will be introduced each week on a Monday and the children will be tested on a Friday. A letter containing the spellings for each half term will be sent home and a copy will be added to this page. 

A spelling test will be carried out on Fridays. 

Our Class Promise:

1. Always show respect eg. When somebody is talking or if you don’t agree with them.
2. Use our manners and do what is asked first time.
3. Include others.
4. Look after our things and help others too.
5. Talk to others if you are worried.
6. Remembering to social distance and to follow the new changes as best we can.
7. Keep hands to yourself.
8. Ask if you are unsure and encourage others around you.
9. Don’t worry about making mistakes AT ALL. It’s how we learn. Just try your best.
10. Speak positively to yourself.

Remember, all of these are about treating others how you want to be treated.

Is to be taken home on a Wednesday/Thursday and returned on Mondays.

In addition to spellings:

• Mental maths homework
• Vocabulary homework
• Reading is expected at least 3 times a week (one of which - at least - ideally to be read aloud with an adult for discussion purposes in addition to intonation practice). Any appropriate reading material (stories, information pages from e.g the internet, song lyrics, non-fiction books/info pages etc.) so long as it is enjoyable :-) 
• Timestable and division practise is to be completed weekly using Timestable Rockstars in order to maintain quickfire recall (which is essential for a whole range of numeracy topics such as fractions and measurements). 
• Sometimes children will also be given small tasks to complement their learning from that day in school.

Homework diaries are still required to be used and brought into school everyday.

At this time, every Friday all Year 5&6 pupils have the opportunity to change their book for home using our main library. Pupils will be able to access our class libraries during the week for independent reading as well as accessing lots of texts through lessons. 

The book we are currently studying for our Guided Reading sessions for Autumn 1 (and continued as our class read up until Christmas) is from the award winning Michael Morpurgo 'Kaspar Prince of Cats'.  This gripping, heart warming story immerses you into early 20th Century English life and - through its wonderful story telling - allows us to experience being on board the Titanic!

All children, no matter their age, benefit greatly from sharing a book with an adult (both accedmically and emotionally) and we are keen to encourage this outside of school as much as possible. If your child loves this book, we have a whole range of Michael Morpurgo in our library or S.F Said's 'Varjak Paw'.

For more book ideas for a range of ages / genres please take a look at https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/  where you can sample sizeable extracts. 

We are also excited to start reading Marcus Rashford's book daily with you all and sharing lots of inspiring, positive messages with you all.

Following a two week period of basic grammar skills (to recap the previous year's expectations), we will be using this emotional story set in Nazi occupied France to write a fictional story from another's perspective. From here, we will link our text with our Science Topic and using 'Island' which looks at evolution in The Galapagos Islands.

Year 5 will be covering: mental maths, timestables, multiplication, division and measurement.

Year 6 will be covering: mental maths, fractions and geometry.

PE will take place twice a week: on a Monday we have swimming and on a Thursday we will have House of Dance. 

Children will be expected to bring in their PE kit on a Monday morning and it will be taken home on a Friday to be washed.

As always, children not in the correct PE kit will not be allowed to take part in the lesson. Any children not taking part in PE for other reasons will need to bring a letter in from home - we cannot accept a verbal explanation from the children, nor should they be expected to give one.

Please ensure that children have appropriate clothes now that the colder weather is here. 

Useful websites

https://www.spellingshed.com/

https://ttrockstars.com/

https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/ 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/

https://www.ducksters.com/study.php