Squirrel Class (Year 5) 2023 - 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Squirrel Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 5. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you

Autumn 1 

Our English text for Autumn 1 is 'Queen of the Falls'. This book is about a nineteenth century, retired charm school intructor named Annie Edson Taylor, who seeking fame and fortune, decided to do something that no one in the world had ever done before - she would go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel! 

Whilst exploring the book, we will be completing a range of written pieces such as diary enteries, letters and first person reccounts. This will allow us to consolidate previously learnt writing skills and develop new ones.

Mastery Keys:

• Identify the audience for and purpose of writing.
• Organise paragraphs around a theme with a focus on more complex narrative structure. 
• Use commas after fronted adverbials.
• Use commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity in writing. 

During our shared reading lessons, we will be focusing on the book 'Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls' by Eleni Favilli and Francesca Cavallo. This is such an interesting book which we will use to help us develop all the reading skills listed below. Each week, the children will become more confident with applying these skills to different pieces of text. The VIPER skills are listed and explained below.

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to improve our understanding of what we read.'

'Reading for Pleasure' has great amounts of benefits for your child. In Year 5, we ensure your child has time to read for pleasure and we set time aside to read our class book. 

Benefits of 'reading for pleasure':

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

Read with your child every day even if it is just 2 minutes- this can make all the difference. 
Record in their reading diaries to ensure that your child is receiving their stamp for their book from the vending machine, or reading buddy. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

During Autumn 1, in maths, our topics will be place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Times Tables knowledge is so important! They are used in all areas of maths so if your child can rapidly recall them then this will support them when solving challenging maths fluency and problem solving questions. 

Children will have ongoing access to their TT Rockstars logins at home.Please ensure that your child is practising them at home as it is very beneficial for their learning.

If you have misplaced your child's login, please drop me a message on Class Dojo and I will resend for you.

This half term in science, we are going to be delving into the topic of 'Materials'. Throughout this topic, we will build on our learning from previous year groups which will allow us to develop our understanding further. 

Both properties and change of materials will be a focus. To ensure a clear understanding of these areas, children will complete practical, hands-on investigations and observations allowing them to develop their understanding of different concepts with increased confidence.

In French, the children will be focusing on the topic 'Shopping in France'. Throughout the topic, the children will learn to read, write and say key vocabulary. Once this knowledge is secure, the children will learn to include the vocab within sentences, asking and answering questions linked to shopping. Role play will be used so the children can practise using the language in a 'real life' context. 

In History this half term, we are learning all about the Titanic!  

Your child will have a music lesson each week where they will learn to play and explore their musical abilities.

During Autumn 1, the children will focus on the topic 'Our Community' where they will work towards performing a piece linked to this topic.

Your child will have 2 PE lessons each week. Their days this half term are Thursday and Friday. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be focusing on developing our skills and understanding of basketball. 

 Mondays- Each Monday, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week. They will complete a spelling test each Friday, and, if they receive a mark of 10/10,  they will get a Dojo point. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings each morning in class, however, extra practice at home is essential.

Thursdays- Each Thursday, your child will be given either maths or English homework (alternating weeks). Homework is expected to be in the following Tuesday via the portfolio section of our class Dojo page. Children who have completed their homework on time will be given a Dojo point. 

Every day- Your child should read as often as possible when not in school and this should be logged via the Go-Read app, if you can not access this, simply write on a scarp piece of paper the name of the book your child has read aand the pages they have read and we can log this for you. 

Please note: I will often upload additional activities and links for your child to support their learning at home, however this is not specific homework, this is just a little extra for them. For example, I may upload interactive links to games that I know they will like. 

Other useful links:

Please see below links to useful websites for your child to use when they are at home. I will be adding to the list throughout the course of the year so please make sure you check for updated links.

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.