Friday 25^th January

Welcome to this week’s blog from Year 5F. We have had another busy week.

Maths – This week the children have continued investigating square numbers and then moved onto cubed numbers. A square number is a number that has been multiplied by itself. A cubed number is a number which has been multiplied by itself, and then by itself again. We use the ² symbol when we are going to square a number ³ symbol when we are going to cube a number.

This BBC Bitesize page helps to explain square and cube numbers further…

English – This week the children have been writing a ‘cold task’. This involves them writing completely independently. They have used the story of Cinderella as a stimulus. Over the next three weeks, we will look at the story in more depth, learn all the different parts of story and act it out in class using role play and hot-seating (where someone pretends to be the character and answers questions about their feelings). We will also be thinking about the characters and setting and how to describe them, the structure of the story (needs a beginning, middle and end) and the problems the characters encounter and how they will solve them. After all their hard work, the children will then write the story again and will be able to compare how much their writing has improved.

After reading a good model of the Cinderella story called ‘Rags to Riches’ the children have all created a map of the story using pictures and symbols to help them remember the sequence of events. Enjoy looking at these photographs of them mapping the story for themselves…

Science - The children have been thinking about what happens in the elderly stage of the human life cycle. They were given statements to discuss in groups and then decide whether they were true or false about people who are elderly.

Topic – The children have learned a mnemonic to help them remember the order of the planets from the sun. (My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets). This helps us to remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (which is now down-graded to a dwarf planet). Also, in Computing, they have been creating a database about all the planets using the headings…

• Name of planet

• Distance from the Sun

• Number of Moons

• Number of Rings

• Length of Year (in Earth days)

As part of our Topic lessons, the children are visiting Jodrell Bank on Wednesday 6^th February. They are becoming quite excited now, as the date draws nearer! Thank you for all the permission slips that have already been returned to school.

Well done to our HANDWRITING COMPETITION winner for the Autumn term. He won for his much improved handwriting in the first term of Year 5.

Here is our certificate winner this week. He won for ticking ALL the boxes! He is a superb role model, a fantastic school councillor and a fabulous e-cadet who makes his teachers smile each and every day!! A true pleasure to teach. WOW! A big WELL DONE from all of us in Year 5F. He went on to be chosen as the UPPER PHASE PUPIL OF THE WEEK so can take the trophy home for the week.

All that remains to say is have a great weekend and we will see you all again on Monday.