27 Oct 2017

Yr5 Curriculum Update – 27/10/17

Working together to achieve success for every child

 

 

A snapshot of our learning in Year 5 over the last couple of weeks to share and discuss with the family:

 

Our  Transdisciplinary Unit of Inquiry: Sharing the planet

“Biodiversity relies on maintaining a balance within nature”

 

Our Unit of Inquiry has moved into the personal inquiry stage. Students have chosen an area of the subject to delve deeper into, using their research and recording skills to find information about biodiversity and interdependence. We have also begun considering what our responsibilities are as human beings towards our local environments and the planet in general. It turns out there is a lot we can do individually and as a school to help maintain the balance within nature. Students have begun to think about the action that they would like to take.

 

All this research has tested our reading comprehension skills as well as exposing us to lots of new vocabulary. Students have learned some different fix-up strategies for when they get stuck, as well as being more aware of the need to grow their ‘brain dictionaries’.

Each student now has at least 2 specific targets to help tem develop their writing. These will be increasingly evident in their writing samples as the unit progresses.

 

 

Maths

Now the students’ decimal addition and subtraction skills are developing in competence, we have been increasingly using real-life contexts for them to apply their knowledge. Decoding these ‘word problems’ is an essential skill both in life and in maximising potential in assessments. Students have benefitted from the opportunities to tackle these problems with a ‘growth mindset’: making mistakes and working with partners to construct understanding is, we believe, the most powerful learning experience students can have in Maths.

 

Opportunities for Home Learning:

Being a confident reader helps to open up so many opportunities for our children now and into their adult lives. In Year 5, we teach comprehension skills as well as vocabulary and word decoding for the children who are still getting there.

Reading at home is a way that parents and carers can make a real impact on children’s achievement. Please provide opportunities for you child to develop as a fluent reader at home. They do not need to read aloud every day as curling up quietly with a book is a brilliant learning habit to develop.  However, children do need opportunities to discuss that they have read with an adult. You can help by unpicking new or challenging vocabulary; thinking about the motivation of characters; identifying connections between the story or information that your child is reading and their lives or the units of inquiry that they have learned about. Please contact your child’s class teacher for further support or advice.

Please help your child to record their reading in their homework diaries.

In general, Hong Kong does not have a great record for environmental protection. The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities for us to make a positive difference. We can start by reducing, re-using and recycling in school and at home. Let us know how you get on!

Get out and about in nature now the weather has cooled down. The Rainforest walks up in Tai Po Kau are a great example of ‘rewilding’ where biodiversity has been deliberately returned through the planting of native flora. Over the last 20 years or so, native animals have begun to thrive and the forest there is no longer silent.

 

 

Upcoming dates for your diary:

  • 27 Oct – PTA Quiz Night
  • 31 Oct – Parent meeting for Year 5 Camp 3-3.45pm
  • 2, 11 Nov – Parent Consultatoions
  • 28 Nov – 1 Dec Year 5 Camp

5C on the roof garden doing some ‘maker’ learning – designing birds and insect protection for our ‘crops’.

 

 

5S maths- peer teaching addition/ subtraction strategies