October Learning in 5RD

As the night’s draw in, October – and our first half term – also comes to a close.
It has been a positive start to the school year and 5RD have been working harder than ever. Take a closer look at our learning…

English

As a class, we have read Part One of The Last Chance Hotel and things aren’t looking good for Seth Seppi. The children have been participating in dramatic readings and developing their understanding of the characters – and suspects – in the story.

We have been learning more about using expanded noun phrases in our writing, especially to create a character description of the main character, Seth. Below is a mix of our shared learning around a character description, as well as some independent learning:

The children have begun looking at features of a newspaper as they prepare to write their very own newspaper article to report the suspicious, unexpected murder of Dr Thallomius. Keep an eye out for these reports in next month’s blog report!

Throughout the first half term, the class have worked really hard to improve their vocabulary and discover new words, such as ‘vigorously’, ‘malnourished’ and ‘hysterical’. It has been great to see the children so enthusiastic about using new vocabulary in their own learning!

“[Our English lessons are] interesting because we get to write what we think about the story.”

“I like the book because when they tell you the recipe they use good vocabulary and use good expressions.”

“I think The Last Chance Hotel is a really fun and interesting book. It’s a book that makes you shocked, happy and sad too!”

“I like our English learning because we have to look for parts in the book to find answers to our learning.”

Maths

Since the beginning of the year, we have completed a times table test every week. Miss Dolman is so impressed with the progress that the class has made this month! A few children are now scoring 100/100 every time and are now working on improving their time, while others are within ten points of getting full marks!

This month, we have revisited addition and subtraction, using larger numbers (up to 1,000,000!) within our calculations. The class are gaining confidence with the column method, particularly when having to rename!

Science

Our first science topic has seen Year 5 focus on ‘Earth and Space’. We all enjoyed creating mnemonics to remember the order of the planets in our solar system. We have learned more about the phases of the moon and how the Earth’s rotation/orbit affect things such as day and night and the four seasons.

Take a look at the fantastic home learning we have been doing linked to our science topic:

Creative Curriculum – Building Empires

Following on from our predictions and initial exploration of our first topic – the Victorian times – the children have conducted thorough research into the life of Queen Victoria. Check out some of these fantastic reports below:

We have also learned about the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. Everyone had great fun creating mini books about different Victorian inventions, such as the telephone, x-ray and the sewing machine.