Year 5: Kamkwamba
Class teacher: Mrs Thomas / Mrs Browning
Class teaching assistant: Miss Hughes
Kamkwamba class
Welcome to Kamkwamba class! Here you will find our newsletters, photos of our topic work and any important information about our class. Our class is taught by Mrs Thomas Monday to Thursday and Mrs Browning on a Friday. Please pop back here (as well as having a look at our class photos tab) to see what we have been getting up to during the year.
It's going to be a busy term! In the first week, we will kickstart the year with some activities based around the inspiration for our class name - William Kamkwamba. Keep checking our class photos tab to see what we have been doing.
Following this, we will launch into our first main topic of the year: The Angry Aztecs. Primarily a history based topic, we will compare aspects of Aztec life with our own through using a range of primary and secondary sources. We will also be using grid references to locate places on a variety of maps in geography and designing and making sculptures out of clay in art.
Maths
In maths this term, our main focus is place value, where we will be ordering and comparing numbers up to and beyond 1 million as well as numbers to three decimal places. The children will learn to round numbers (including decimals) to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000, explore negative numbers and increase their knowledge of Roman numerals. This will then be followed by addition and subtraction.
English
In guided reading, our learning is based around the book "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba.
In writing, we will be learning and practising skills such as: compound sentences, ISPACE sentence starters, subordinating conjunctions, relative clauses and paragraphing. We will explore these skills through a range of different texts, including instruction writing and chronological reports.
Important Class Information:
PE Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays. Children need to come to school wearing their PE kit.
Reading Books: reading books will be changed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Homework: A homework grid for this term is attached below.
Reading: Please continue to listen to your child read daily, even for 10 minutes, and encourage them to complete the reading task in the reading journal. Books should be changed regularly. Comprehension texts will continue to be set for the children to complete regularly on Rockerbox at home.
Times Tables: It is important all pupils are learning (and continue to practice) the timetables up to the 12 times table. These should be known by the end of year 4 but it is essential that the children continue to practice and recall these facts.
Regular practise on Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) helps pupils to retain knowledge and helps them to utilise these facts in other mathematical learning. Please encourage your child to log in regularly - even if only for a few minutes each time.
Useful websites for times table practise:
Thank you for your continued support. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.
Key Dates: