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Lilac Class

Teaching Team: Dr. Charles, Mrs Karnati and Ms Edmed

lilac@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

 

Autumn Term in Lilac Class 2024

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to Year 5!  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the children at the end of year 4 and am really looking forward to teaching them this year.  In my letter to you I will give a brief outline of the work we will be covering and will give you some key information.  Please ensure that you read my weekly blog on a Monday about what we are covering during the week and any important events that are happening in Lilac Class. 

In English for the first couple of weeks of this term our work will centre around the book entitled ‘The Tree and the River’ by Aaron Becker.  We are studying this text as a whole school community and it explores man’s impact on the natural environment.  Our task is to re-write the story in our own words, focusing on describing how the setting changes throughout the story.  After this piece of work Lilac Class will be writing Space Poetry, a diary account, a non-chronological report about the tropical rainforest and persuasive writing in the form of a travel article or blog post about visiting Belize.  For Whole Class Guided Reading, Lilac Class will be reading ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis.

This term our Time and Place topic is the Ancient Mayan Civilisation and our key question of enquiry is ‘What legacies did the Ancient Mayan Civilisation leave behind?’  Lilac Class will be finding out about the Spanish Conquistadors and their discovery of the Ancient Mayan ruins whilst exploring the tropical rainforests in Central America, at the beginning of the 16th century.  We will be learning about how the Mayan people lived their lives and their religious beliefs.  We will also be creating Mayan art and conducting a geographical study about Mesoamerica, particularly focusing on Belize. 

In Science, our area of learning is ‘Earth and Space’.  We will be researching and finding out facts about the different planets in our Solar System, the Sun and the phases of the Moon.  Lilac Class will then be looking at mass, weight, force and gravity and the work of Sir Isaac Newton.  We will also be visiting Herstmonceux Observatory where the children will have the opportunity to be involved in many ‘hands-on’ practical activities and be given talks by experts in the field of Astronomy.  In Music, we will be listening to ‘The Planets Suite’ by Gustav Holst.  We are creating our own ‘Space Compositions’ and ‘Moonscapes’ as well as singing space songs.

Our SPaG work (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) this term will cover the revision of the plural and possessive apostrophe ‘s’, recognising and writing expanded noun phrases, learning about subordinate clauses and the use of conjunctions and relative pronouns.  We will also be learning about parenthesis, modal verbs and fronted adverbials.  Each week we will be learning a particular spelling rule and how to spell a selection of words from the Year 5 and 6 Spelling List.

In Mathematics during the Autumn Term, our first unit of work will cover Place Value and in our second unit of work, Addition and Subtraction. In our third unit we will be covering Multiplication and Division learning about multiples, factors, prime numbers, square and cube numbers as well as multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1,000. 

In RE, our learning units are ‘God’ and ‘Incarnation’.  When studying ‘God’ our key question is ‘What does it mean if God is loving and holy?’  We will be analysing key words that Christians use to describe God and thinking about what the Bible actually says about God.  We will also be learning about the Sacrament of Confession or Penance.  When studying ‘Incarnation’ our key question is ‘Was Jesus the Messiah?’  We will be examining evidence in the Bible that led Christians to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.  In addition, we will be thinking about what the Messiah will be like when he returns and where in the world he will be born.

In ICT our unit of learning for Term 1 is entitled ‘Computing systems and networks’. 

In this unit, the we will develop our understanding of computer systems and how information is transferred between systems and devices. For Term 2 our unit of learning is entitled ‘Creating media - Video production’.  This unit gives us the opportunity to learn how to create short videos in groups. At the conclusion of the unit, we have the opportunity to reflect on and assess our progress in creating a video.

PE this term will be on Mondays and Thursdays; please ensure that your child brings their PE kit in on these days.

Homework will be given out on a Thursday and needs to be completed in your child’s Homework Book by the following Tuesday.  The Homework tasks will also be put on the blog at the beginning of the week.  It will consist of the following: 

  1. A ‘Classroom Secrets Kids’ activity that will be set each week for your child to do that relates to the work we are doing in class.
  2. To complete, alternative weeks, either a piece of research or a Maths worksheet that will support the work that we are covering in class.
  3. To learn spellings that are also covered in class lessons and to write sentences containing these words.
  4. Your child will be given a new Home School Reading Record Book.  Please can your child read to an adult at least twice a week and can you ensure that the record book is dated and signed.  Reading Records will be checked on Wednesdays and Fridays. 

If you have any concerns or questions please feel free to talk to me or email me at lilac@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk.

Kind regards,

Dr Charles

 

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