Science – Soluble vs Insoluble
This week, Year 5 were investigate the following enquiry question:
Which substances dissolve in water?
In science, we follow a three-step process: to plan; to do (and observe); and to evaluate.
In our planning process, we had to thing about which variables are going to stay the same (controlled) and which variables are going to change (independent).
Controlled variables (stay the same):
- amount of water
- amount of substance in each cup
- amount of stirs per substance
- temperature of water
- time limit
Independent variables (change)
- type of substance
Once we were all prepared, we made some predictions. The substances being tested were: salt, sugar, sand, rice, coffee, flour.
I don’t think rice will dissolve because we cook rice with hot water and it doesn’t disappear – Ethan
I think sugar is soluble because people drink tea which can have sugar in – Isla
Coffee is soluble because loads of adults drink it – Vinnie
Then it was time to conduct our experiment. The children worked really well in small groups and stayed safe throughout. Once finished, we discussed our findings and evaluated our results. Here is an example of our class evaluation:
Help at home
Maybe investigate one of our further suggestions at home?
Summer Learning Journey
After a well-deserved Easter break, the children have returned to school happy, healthy and well-rested. Here is a quick preview of Year 5 learning over the next five weeks!
Writing:
The children are currently working on how to punctuate speech correctly. This will lead nicely into writing our own short narratives with some character conversation. So far, we’ve look at punctuating speech with the reporting clause at the beginning, and at the end, of a sentence. Here’s some examples below:
“I really wish one of these paper planes would work properly,” Jack muttered.
Jack muttered, “I really wish one of these paper planes would work properly.”
Reading:
We’ve been reading a novel called The Explorer by Katherine Rundell – a story of four children lost in the Amazon Rainforest following a plane crash. So far, we’ve met Fred, Con, Lila and Max. We’ve realised that these characters (and the pilot) were the only ones on the six seater plane as it went down. In our reading lessons, we’ve been inferring more about our characters through the way they speak to each other and their actions. Fred is an older child who is inquisitive and looks after others. Con is witty and can come across as rude with her sarcastic tone. Lila is quiet and cares for her little brother, Max. Max is very young and doesn’t communicate much, but he is afraid of the situation they are in.
Maths:
We’ve started looking at calculating the volume of 3D shapes (cubes and cuboids). The volume is how much space a 3D shape occupies, in terms of it’s length, width and height. To calculate volume, we need to multiply:
length x width x height
Topic:
We are geographers this half term and we’ll be diving deeper into the Amazon Rainforest in South America. As we learn, we’ll look at similarities and differences of the Amazon compared to the UK.
Here are a few facts we’ve already learnt:
- Did you know the UK would fit inside Brazil approximately 35 times? (scale)
- There are 8 biomes that span across Earth.
- Tundra is the coldest biome
- A desert is hottest, driest biome.
- A tropical rainforest (like the Amazon) is the hottest, wettest biome.
- The UK falls within a temperate forest biome.
Science:
We are learning about chemistry this half term, looking at reversible and irreversible changes. So far, Year 5 have planned our experiment ready for next week; Which substances dissolve in water?
If our substance does dissolve, it is known as soluble and the outcome would be called a solution.
If our substance does not dissolve, it is known as insoluble and the outcome would be called a mixture.
Help at home:
Please talk with your child about our current learning.
- What are they particularly enjoying so far?
- Is there anything you can do at home together to support if they are struggling?
- How about an experiment of your own, or further reading about the Amazon Rainforest?
Reading Records
So far, Year 5 have been excellent at keeping up with regular reading record activities at home. I have seen improvements from lots of pupils who are reading a variety of books in their own time. I’d really like this to continue, so please try to encourage your child to read at home. This could be for 5 minutes a day, or a longer period, a few times a week. Children can read a variety of text types: fiction and non-fiction books; gaming reviews; newspaper articles; magazines; and anything else that may be of interest to them. Here is a great example of a reading activity by Kiara.
World Book Day
On Thursday, it was World Book Day. This was a huge success at St James, with children arriving in fantastic costumes and really showing their love for reading throughout the day.
Year 5 began by learning about our whole school book (How To Be A Lion). We uncovered the hidden messages in the book:
You can be friends with whoever you want – Honey
You don’t have to be the same as everyone else because you think that’s the right thing to do – Elara
Everyone is different and that’s ok – Kiara
The children then went on to do a variety of tasks, such as: creating their own lions to show their individuality; writing a poem about the friendship between the lion and the duck; and rewriting the book with a different, unlikely friendship between two different animals.
Then, we started our new class novel…
The Forest Of Doom!
The children have absolutely loved diving into this fighting fantasy adventure, where we are the heroes and we decide our own journey through the book (whether that be good or bad we’re yet to see). We’re going to travel into the forest once a day for our class novel time, so parents be ready to hear about the monsters we’ve faced!
Finally, we practised our poem to perform in collective worship (Railway Carriage) and enjoyed reading books in our school library.
RE
Year 5 and 6 have been learning how to find readings in the Bible. We learnt that the Bible is made up of many different books (66 in total) and is divided into two main parts: the Old Testament (stories from before Jesus was born) and the New Testament (the life of Jesus and the early church).
We used the contents page at the front (Old Testament) or the end (New Testament) of the Bible to find the page for that specific book. Then, to find a certain section of that book we use the chapters (big numbers) and verses (small numbers).
I was very impressed with how quickly children learnt this new skill.
Help at home – why not have a practice at home? Can your child remember how to find various Bible readings.
Topic – Computing
Year 5 began our new topic last week – computing. We started by looking at our new vocabulary and talking about how confident we felt about each word. We then began to learn about search engines and how they work. The children were introduced to the idea that search engines use web crawlers to locate webpages with relevant information on. They then store these in an index, which is a huge database. When you search something online, it searches the index for relevant webpages and an algorithm ranks them in order of relevance. Who knew all this went on in the background when you quickly search on the internet for something?! We were surprised to hear this long process happens in less than 1.2 seconds (from pressing ‘enter’ to seeing the results)!
Here is the vocabulary we are using this term.
Help at home:
Can you help your child learn the vocabulary? Maybe play a game of Pictionary.
Reading: Oracy (Railway Carriage)
In reading this week, the children are learning about, and performing, the poem ‘Railway Carriage’ by Robert Louis Stevenson written in 1885.
We recapped our oracy targets from this year and identified which ones would be relevant when performing a poem aloud to peers.
Help at home: Can your child learn this poem off by heart?
Internet Safety Day
Today is Internet Safety Day. Year 5 have been learning all about how to stay safe online and be critical users of the internet, especially with the rapid advances in computing technology (AI, for example).
The children began by looking at three concepts – misinformation, disinformation and hoaxes.
Misinformation is the sharing of false information by accident (not knowing what you’re sharing is false).
Disinformation is the sharing of false information on purpose.
Hoaxes are false information/claims that are created for effect/impact.
We had a look at some fake website articles (hoaxes) and discussed some top tips to look out for when reading online. When sharing these stories to friends without being critical of what we’re sharing, we may be sharing misinformation.
We’ve learnt all about what personal information is and why it’s important to keep it private, especially when online. The article below gives more info on personal information.
If you’d like to read more from this article with your child, please click the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zwbq7ty
Help at home:
Help your child at home to be critical thinkers online. Check websites for…
- padlocks
- http// www.
- known pages
- spam/clickbait adverts (phishing)
Maths (area)
In maths, Year 5 are learning all about area.
Perimeter is the distance all the way around the outside of a shape.
Area is the amount of space inside a shape.
We usually measure area in square units, like square centimetres or square metres. The children have started off strongly – they’ve been working out the area of shapes by counting all squares inside each shape. More recently, we have started to notice that the area of rectangles and squares can be calculated by:
length x width
width x length
Multiplication is commutative, so no matter which factor we put first, the product (or area in this case) will be the same result.
Year 5 were tasked with designing a floor plan for a school hall. We pretended that our current PE equipment had been removed and we decided to buy some new stuff! Our job was to fit the equipment in the hall effectively. To do this, we had to think about:
- the area of each piece of equipment
- where to place it in the hall
- where the entrance to the hall would be
- not cramping/squashing equipment together
The children loved this task and did really well! Here are some examples of work from Emily, Emily and Elara.
Attendance, Reading Records and Packed Lunches
A quick snapshot of some big wins and quick prompts for Year 5…
I want to express how pleased I am with Year 5’s attendance over the last few weeks. A massive well done to everyone for arriving to school at the correct time – we even managed to win the school attendance award last week!
A reminder for reading records…
Year 5 weekly reading record checks have been high in quantity on average this year. This is just a quick reminder to keep bringing them in once per week, signed by an adult. The children are doing really well with their home tasks and it really helps us out at school (e.g. finding new vocabulary for our writing). Well done to those who always bring in their reading records – I love seeing them!
Packed Lunches
I have noticed a few packed lunches (and playtime snacks) that don’t follow our packed lunch policies. I appreciate that children have specific likes to foods and drinks, so I’ve attached the packed lunch guidance below to help mix and match lots of food groups. Please make sure that children have water in their water bottles.
Thanks everyone for your continued support.