Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 5

Mrs Van Rooyen and Mrs Chahal warmly welcome you to Year 5.

The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Year 5, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.

We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.

November 2020

Computing

This term in computing we have been focusing on online safety and staying safe online. We discussed how to use the ‘SMART’ method to safe online; to stay safe, don’t meet up, accepting files, reliable and tell someone. We discussed how we can be ‘SMART’ on various different online platforms and use own initiative when making choices online. We created online safety posters to help remind us to stay safe online. We also created hypothetical situations about what we would do if we were faced with a difficult online situation.

DT

In DT this term we have begun a new topic on construction.

We have begun to research information about bridges across the world, but bridges with a mechanism. We looked at some swing bridges and found some images of those bridges and picked our two favourites and drew sketches of them. We also researched information and facts about bridges including information such as how much weight bridges can hold, what materials are used to create them and the sizes of different bridges. We will later begin to construct our own bridges in class using paper and masking tape which need to carry the weight of a brick!

English

Our topic for this term is rivers! We started our topic off with a novel by Eva Ibbotson: ‘The journey to the river sea.’ We have been learning about Maia, an orphan and Ms Minton, her governess. Maia is on her way to the river Amazon, to live with far distant family, who will care for her. We have been looking at our reading strategies: skim and scan to find answers to questions, such as retrieval questions. We have been building on our knowledge about descriptive writing by composing a piece of descriptive writing about Ms Minton and Maia’s twin cousins and about setting. We also made a comparison of what Maia thinks life at the family would be and then the actual hard reality she has to face. All the time we focus on our targets such as: fronted adverbials, sub-ordinate clauses and Alan Peat 2 pair rule where we use 2 pairs of adjectives to describe nouns. We are now in the process of planning our own exciting chapter to this amazing story, which has the Amazon Forest as a setting.

Geography

In Geography we have been learning about the water cycle and we also learnt that the same water we use today, has been around for billions of years! We also learnt about rivers and the river system. We learnt that the source of the river is always somewhere high in the mountains or hills and that all rivers eventually flow to the sea. We also looked at the stages of the river and made a comparison to humans! At the start of the river, the river is ‘young’ and therefore, fast and you will find rapids and waterfalls in this part. Then, when the river matures, it’s getting slower and all sorts of activities are taking place at this stage: e.g. recreational activities. Finally, the river is ‘old’ and it is very slow and flows into the ocean at the mouth of the river. Can you see how we used our bodies to depict the stages of the water cycle?

Maths

In Maths this term, we continued our learning about statistics and then we looked at prime numbers, square numbers and also cube numbers. Then we moved on to multiples and factors of numbers and we did some investigations. Then we completed work on multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1000. We learnt how the digits are actually moving when we multiply and divide whole numbers by 10, 100 and 1000. We realised soon that we need to know our times tables for everything!

Music

This month, the children have been listening and responding to music related to their topic of rivers. They listened to ‘The Blue Danube’ by Johann Strauss and reflected on some elements such as pitch, tempo, dynamics and instrumentation. Pitch means the highness or lowness of the sound, tempo means the fastness or slowness of the music and dynamics means the loudness or softness of the music. Some pieces need high sounds and some need low, deep sounds. In addition, they have begun to follow the music and play the Blue Danube theme on Glockenspiels and chime bars and sometimes we incorporated the drums too.

PE

In PE, we have been focusing on getting our fitness back with lots of exercise!  We have been working hard on improving our stamina by running, speed walking and skipping!

We have been taking part in the daily mile walk as well as participating in shuttle runs which have been designed to increase in difficulty from week to week. Skipping has fast become a very popular hobby at our school and for the last few weeks we have been trying to learn the Double Dutch.

PSHE

In PSHE we have been focussing on friendships. We looked at the qualities that make a good friend. We looked at our interests and hobbies and how this can be a discussion for us to make new friends based on common interests. We looked our likes and dislikes and also how these can also help us to make friends by comparing and contrasting things we like and dislike. We also look at what makes a good friend and realised there might be things we need to change to be a better friend! We also write some kind notes to our friends to fill up our friendship buckets in class!

Religious Education

In RE this term we have been learning about Hinduism. We focussed on why Hindus celebrate Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita. We also looked at the importance of different Hindu Gods and what they represent.

After this we moved onto our next topic which was Christianity. We looked at festivals that Christians celebrate and focussed on the story of Christmas. We learnt why Christmas is important and celebrated all around the world. We even compared this to the birth of Guru Nanak Dev Ji which we also celebrated this term.

Science

In Science, our topic is Animals, including humans. We have been learning about the lifecycles of birds, insects and mammals and we made some comparisons. Some of us didn’t know about the stages of an insect, which is: caterpillar, pupa, butterfly and then the egg! We have also been learning about the parts of a flower and we learnt lots of new words such as: stigma, style, ovary, ovules, stamen, anther, filament etc. We also conducted an experiment about flowers. We wanted to know what environment is the best for a plant to grow.

Sikh Studies

This month we have been learning about Gurdwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi and how it helped the poor people during the national lockdown in India. It was thanks to Bangla Sahib that so many of the hungry got fed who were unable to work or get food in India’s lockdown.

Children looked at news reports of what Bangla Sahib did during lockdown and then did a role play of how Bangla Sahib helped those poor people of Delhi. Then to understand about compassion and Seva, children wrote down how the different people in their role play were feeling, from those making the Langar to those receiving it.