Year 5 Weekly Blog wb. 9th February

We are still fully immersed in the world of Peter Bunzl’s Cogheart as we prepare to write our own explanation texts. To help us sound like true experts, we have been mastering several sophisticated grammar features:

• Passive Voice: Shifting the focus onto the action (e.g., "The gears are turned by the clockwork heart").

• Modal Verbs: Expressing degrees of possibility (e.g., "The mechanimal could malfunction if over-wound").

• Conjunctions: Using both subordinating and causal conjunctions to explain the "how" and "why" behind mechanical movements.

Our focus has shifted from the outside of shapes to the inside! We have been exploring area, starting with the basics of rectangles and progressing to calculating missing lengths. Today, the children will take on the challenge of finding the area of irregular shapes by partitioning them into smaller, manageable parts.

As we reach the end of our unit on the Maya civilisation, the children put their knowledge to the test in a retrieval quiz—and the results were impressive! We also spent time comparing the Maya to other civilisations we’ve studied, looking at the similarities and differences in their social structures, inventions, and daily lives.

Today marks the beginning of an exciting new investigation into age and body growth. We are looking at how humans change as they grow, collecting data and making predictions about the relationship between age and physical development. It has sparked some great questions about biology and the human life cycle!

Our spellings for next week focus on words with irregular spelling patterns. These can be tricky, so please encourage your child to practise:

ancient, amateur, awkward, criticise, equipment, excellent, foreign, pronunciation, symbol, yacht

Important Dates & Reminders for Next Week: Mon - PE

Weds - Last writing intervention before school (selected children only)

Fri - Valentine's pop up shop

Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend when it comes to it!