Year 5 - Marvellous Mayans

The theme of chocolate has brought great joy over the last fortnight! Two weeks ago, Year 5 children went on an extremely exciting adventure to Cadbury World!

The children have been learning all about the Maya civilisation in Humanities and their trip to Cadbury’s linked perfectly with their studies. Pupils have been learning about everyday life, religion, beliefs and diet of the Maya people and were intrigued to know they were one of the earliest civilisations to discover chocolate! On arrival at the chocolate factory, the smell of delicious Cadburys chocolate immediately made our tummies rumble. The first activity of the day was a workshop all about The Maya civilisation and their discovery of chocolate. Our activity leader was extremely engaging and had many props/artefacts for us to have a look at including; real cocoa beans (which smelt divine!) a cactus, a Maya Gods headdress and a copy of a codices which was nearly the length of the room!

After this we looked at the history of Cadbury World, went to a 4D cinema experience and had the opportunity to ask questions and learn all about the wonders of chocolate. During the tour of the factory we were able to do some chocolate writing and even got given a cup of melted chocolate to enjoy!

To follow on from our wonderful trip, we are now designing our own Maya themed chocolate bars in Humanities. Pupils have an opportunity to invent their own chocolate using flavours and infusions which would have been available to the people at the time. We can’t wait to see the finished creations next week! The end of term marks the end of our study of the Ancient Maya. We have been impressed with the pupils interest and engagement in the topic and look forward to starting our new topic next term.

In Maths our topic of fractions has provided lots of useful links to different areas within Mathematics and children have explored decimal and percentage equivalences too. So why study fractions, decimals and percentages? Imagine shopping where the sign reads ‘All items are currently 75% off. This sounds like great news, but without doing some maths, there's no way to know if you have enough money. Knowing that 75% is ¾ off the cost of each item is the best way to get started! Similar applications have been seen when looking at adapting a recipe, finding proportions of money, profit and loss etc. The uses are endless and developed the children’s division skills. They have particularly enjoyed exploring recurrence when representing fractions as decimals. It seems that we have an innate curiosity to explore patterns and generalise what we see and this inclination has been seen throughout this term!