Happy New Year!

What a wonderful start to the new year we have had! We would like to wish all of you a very happy and healthy new year.

This term, we are focusing on the text 'The Last Bear'. The children have immersed themselves into this book by creating predictions of the story, researching the setting in the Arctic Circle and considering how we can use figurative language to describe this. They wrote some fantastic setting descriptions based on 'Bear Island' and really immersed themselves in their writing! Please look at some examples below.

In maths we have starting the exciting topic of fractions! We have used a range of manipulative to explore the value of different fractions and how we can represent these. We have also explored how to calculate equivalent fractions and compare and order fractions with different denominators. The children have done a fantastic job at verbally explaining their reasoning to a variety of questions in our 'guided practice' section of our lessons.

This week also marks the beginning of our science and humanities topics! In Humanities we are learning about the Ancient Greeks in our 'Gods and Mortals' topic. We have delved into the topic by exploring some artefacts and secondary sources for the Ancient Greek period. The children were able to infer a range of information from the artifacts to find out some more information on this era. In science, we have started our 'Material World' topic. We have grouped and classified different properties of materials. We have extended this learning by looking at different thermal insulators and conductors, considering which material would be the best to keep our belongings cool!

This week marks 'World Religion Day'! To celebrate this, we looked at the religion Taoism. Taoists often use meditation as a tool to help with inner focus and to regulate their breathing. The Year 5's had a brilliant time putting this to the test by taking the time to relax and meditate.

Well done to all the children for a brilliant start and getting back into the swing of our learning so quickly! It is lovely to be back with you all.