Year 5 Newsletter

November 2015
Welcome back! I hope you have had a relaxing half term break. I really enjoyed
getting to know all of you last half term and I hope you enjoyed learning all the
new topics we looked at. I hope to be continuing to get to know you more as we
continue towards Christmas and we have lots of fun and exciting subjects and
activities planned to look forward to.

Literacy
This half-term we will begin by exploring dilemma stories and understanding
how morals can be conveyed through a story. We will then move onto writing
first person recounts relating to our Peru topic in Geography where will be
visiting a carnival and writing to convey emotion and embed description.
Furthermore, we will then progress onto newspaper article writing and continue
to relate this to our Peru topic and our Earth and Space topic in science. Finally, we will end the
half term writing Christmas poems.
Ways to help
In lessons, there will be a key focus on writing to engage the reader and convey a specific
emotion within a piece of writing. In reading we will continue to locate answers within the text
and work on exploring the authors use of specific vocabulary. Any additional work
that can be completed on these areas would be very helpful and please communicate
any problems, struggles or achievements with your child so these observations can
be used to benefit their daily learning.

Maths
We will be starting this half term learning mental multiplication and division strategies and exploring
multiples, factors and prime numbers. We will then progress onto learning
written multiplication and division strategies and then solve single and multistep problems using these strategies. Following this we will progress onto
learning about comparing fractions, equivalent fractions and ordering
fractions and calculating area and measures using multiplication to calculate.
Finally, we will end the term learning about statistics, noticing patterns
within statistics and measuring across time.
Ways to help
Practice instant recall of all multiplication tables. Use the vocabulary of multiples, factors and
prime numbers to support these terms. To ensure they have a good basic understanding of digital
and analogue times.

Science Earth and Space

In science, we will be learning and comparing the sizes of the planets to begin
with so they are able to understand and visualise the size of different planets
when comparing them. We will focus on day and night and explore practical
alternative methods for judging times throughout a day when we will measure
and investigate length and movement of shadows. We will investigate the moon
and how and eclipses happen. We will begin to explore the Sun as a star in the
galaxy called the Milky Way and begin to recognise and describe common
constellations.
Ways to help
Explore non-fiction texts relating to space and learn the order of the planets to support your
child with the understanding of the distances between the planets and discuss the sizes of them
in relation to everyday objects.

Creative Curriculum
Geography - Peru
Computing Coding
RE Sikhism
Art and Design Chris Dyer Peruvian artist
PE- Gymastics. PE lessons will take place on a Thursday afternoon.
French Planets
Music Recorders with Mrs Holt on a Tuesday afternoon.
PSHE Relationships friends and family.

Homework
In year 5 there are two pieces of homework per week. One piece is set on a Tuesday and due in on
Thursday and another piece will be set on the Friday and due in on the Monday. Spellings and
times tables will be set on a Friday for a test the following Friday.

Thank-you for your support, please do not hesitate to contact me if there is something you wish to
discuss either in person, by phone or via email at s.murray@harris.lancs.sch.uk
Regards
Miss Murray