Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope those of you affected by the loss of water on Monday are now all sorted. While the water may have been lacking, the educational experience of the children certainly hasn’t been!

The children are very much enjoying reading Street Child, and the story took yet another dramatic turn this week as Jim – albeit without his friend Tip – successfully escaped the workhouse and began his journey to find his long lost sisters, all whilst trying to avoid the police and anyone else who may return to him to the workhouse. The children’s diary entries, written as if they were Jim himself, focussed on using the past tense and first person writing, as well as including conjunctions for cause, effect and time (words and phrases such as ‘since’ or ‘so that,’ for example) and adjectives to describe Jim’s feelings. The story continues next week, where the classes will work on gathering information from a text and creating story maps based on what they have read so far.

In Maths, the children have made a good start to their studying of equivalent fractions, using their times tables skills and shading in bar models to help them understand what makes two fractions equivalent or not. Next week, we will move on to the more challenging topics of improper fractions and mixed numbers, with a particular focus on converting one into the other.

The afternoons have also been packed with their usual variety of activities. The children have begun to use a program called SketchUp to gradually enhance their house designs in Computing, they have learnt about metamorphosis in Science, and have also discovered the brutal range of punishments and regimented style of learning that took place in Victorian schools. We have also used some of this time to prepare for the upcoming Christmas events by creating our Christmas hoop design – which you will see at the Christmas Fair – and practising our Christmas Concert song, the ever popular I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard.

On a final note, we will begin making our Victorian cam toys on Wednesday next week. If you could please send in any cardboard from Monday, that would be really helpful!

Thanks in advance, and have a good weekend.

The Y5 Team