In Septemeber, our key text was the narrative Jim and the Beanstalk.
Our hook into this text was a crime scene in the classroom. The children enjoyed trying to solve the mystery of who broke in by searching for clues.
During this topic we sequenced the story and then developed our writing skills by identifying nouns, verbs and adjectives, writing expanded noun phrases and using question marks. We then applied these skills to retell the story.
We then moved on to our new text Into the Forest. In this story Sylvain meets various fairy tale characters on his journey through the woods, including Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk.
Whilst focusing on this text, we focused upon past tense verbs and further developed our knowledge of expanded noun phrases. Then, using the skills we have developed over the half term we wrote a diary entry from the main character’s perspective and as our final piece of work we wrote a letter to Sylvain from Jack persuading him to visit the forest again.
Maths
We started the half term by looking at place value and developing our skills to solve problems. We then moved on to addition and subtraction, using concrete and pictorial methods to add and subtract 1 digit and 2 digit numbers.
We then moved on to shape, looking at 2D and 3D shapes. We explored the vertices, edges and faces of a range of shapes. Class 5 found this quite tricky and we will be coming back to this later in the year.
Next in maths was time. We successfully learnt how to read a clock, particularly looking at o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to the hour but found drawing the clocks quite challenging.
Finally, we looked at money, exploring the values of coins and notes. We ordered coins, compared their values and added them together to make amounts.
The children have made Mrs Short and Mrs Eagle so proud this half with their math's work. You're all super mathematicians!
Lira
In Lira we started off the half term by looking at Jack and the Beanstalk and looked closely at the actions of the characters in the story. We then compared Jack and the Beanstalk to our literacy text Jim and the Beanstalk.
We looked at another story with a similar theme called Trust Me! Jack’s Beanstalk Stinks. The children were able to discuss the differences between the texts and clearly articulate which Giant they preferred using evidence from the text.
We then moved onto a non-fiction text linked to our Geography topic. The children were able to identify features of fiction and non-fiction texts and could retrieve information from the text to answer questions.
We then practised our scanning skills by looking for key words from the text in a word search. We then developed our scanning skills by looking for key words in a dictionary.
Topic
This half term our curriculum driver was Geography .
Our focus has been exploring our school and the local Mapplewell area. We have been out on numerous walks, identifying human physical features in Mapplewell and developing our map skills.
We used all the skills we had developed during this topic to draw a sketch map of Mapplewell with a key showing the main features.
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Science
In science we began by looking at the seasons and seasonal change before moving on to our main focus which has been plants. We have developed our scientific skills of observation. We have also looked at common trees and plants, native plants and explored which trees are evergreen or deciduous.
We have also been looking at the structure of a plant and will be delving into this further next half term.
RE
In RE we have been looking at the key questions 'Why are words special?'
To start of the half term we looked at Hinduism. We learnt about the Vedas and one of the key stories from it. We re-enacted the story of Rama and Sita and the children were ale to explain the moral of the story.
We then looked at Sikhism and their holy book which is the Guru Granth Sahib. The children learn lots of ways that Sikhs show respect to the Guru Granth Sahib and were able to answer true and false questions about it with ease.
To finish off the half term we looked at Buddhism. The children explored meditation and re-told one of the stories from the Tripitaka.
To end the half term the children has an RE quiz to test all of the key facts from the half term. The children did amazingly, the key knowledge they could remember was outstanding!
Celebrations
During this half we have had lots of children show the school values and were awarded certificate!
Make sure you continue to share your celebrations from home with us by either bringing things into school, on Twitter or on Seesaw - we love to see them!
What a wonderful way to end the half term! It was fantastic to see everyone having a great time at the Halloween disco.
Next half term we will be learning ...
Have a lovely break!
Stay safe and we look forward to welcoming you back in a weeks time.