Year 5 - African folktales and really big numbers!

Year 5 children have made a wonderful start to the school year and are enjoying the increased independence that it brings. With more opportunity to make considered decisions has come the responsibility of organising their own belongings and equipment. Talking to many of them, they are enjoying the chance to move around school, as explained by one child, ‘It feels like Senior School’.

With more specialist classes, they are taught by many more teachers and are seen busily checking their timetables to get to the correct classroom.

The children enjoyed National Fitness Day this week and were busily engaged in a range of exercises. They were visibly energised as they progressed on to their next lesson. The benefits clearly stretched beyond the sports field!

In English, Year 5 have been exploring the culture of Africa through our focus on African folktales. So far, we have enjoyed reading a variety of traditional folktales and sharing these with each other to learn more about the traditional African culture and the morals these stories convey. Using these texts as inspiration, we have begun writing setting descriptions where we have focused on using the five senses to help add detail to our descriptions so that others can imagine the scene for themselves.

We have also started our key text ‘The White Giraffe’ which has hooked us from the beginning! We can’t wait to discover what adventures the main character Martine will face as she moves to Africa to live with her Grandmother.

Year 5 love big numbers! They love counting as high as they can and have been learning that place value helps us understand the magnitude of numbers and the structure of our number system. The endless nature of numbers is a fascinating concept, particularly when compared with numbers relating to Space and beyond.

The children have also thought about rounding and approximating as a means of checking answers to calculations: a useful tool when understanding the context of a worded problem.