Yr5 Weekly Update – 28/10/16
Unit of Inquiry
Central Idea: Media can influence an audience’s thinking and behaviour.
This week we have finished introducing the children to the semiotic codes when viewing different media. They are the gestural, audio, linguistic, spatial, and visual codes. The children have been looking at different ways media is influencing them and becoming aware of this. For example when we inquired into the gestural semiotic code, we have looked at analyzing body language and facial gestures, how is the author getting their message across to us as the audience without using any words.
Literacy
We have now moved into using texts. The children are also activating their prior knowledge before reading a text with us. This is looking at what vocabulary and phrases may be in the text, writing down what they know about the topic they are going to read about, and what questions or wonderings they have around the topic. This gets the children ready and focused to read the book and activates the schemata that helps the children to build on further learning. The children also have vocabulary sheets that they have to choose words from the story they didn’t know the meaning of and write it in a sentence, write their own definition of it, write some words that are similar to it and draw it. All working towards developing their understanding of what they are reading.
We are continuing with our focus on using the context to help work out unknown words. So the children should be stopping if they don’t understand what a word means; read the sentence again, what prior knowledge do they have about this topic and then to look for clues in the rest of the sentence to help them work out the meaning. Then the children look in the dictionary to confirm. This will build up the children’s comprehension of text and the skill of analysis.
In writing teachers are looking in depth at each child’s piece of writing they did last week. This tells us their individual strengths and next steps. This helps to inform our teaching.
From this, overall there is a need for the children to add more detail into their writing. This means that instead of saying “I have a black dog” they need to think about their audience and what they may need to know so they can visualize what the child has written in their head. So it may now change to “I have a black dog, that has two ears that flop down on its head. Its tail waves from side to side when someone talks to it. The pink tongue hangs out between its shark like teeth. One of its feet has a white sock on it that goes up to its knee.”
Maths
This is our final week on shape and space. Children have been using protractors to measure angles and more work consolidating perimeter and area.
Keep delving into the My Maths website as the children also need to keep practicing their understanding about decimals, this is ordering them, writing in expanded forms, writing them as a fraction, and renaming them for maintenance.
Other news
Please start thinking about equipment that your child needs for camp. You don’t need to go out and buy new things, borrow from other people if they have it.
Parent conferences on Tuesday 1st November and Thursday 10th November. Please book in if you haven’t done so already. If you find can’t make your appointment time please ring and let school know as we will be prepared and waiting for you.
Homework
- Twenty minutes daily reading;
- Try some of the online maths activities to reinforce learning in angles, perimeter and area – students have been given their login and passwords for MyMaths.
- To investigate looking at different forms of media through the lens of the semiotic codes. Bring in some examples to share with the class.
