Years 5 & 6

Darwin’s Delight

Welcome back to the first half term of the new school year, we hope you had an enjoyable summer holiday. This half term, our topic is ‘Darwin’s Delight’ and our curriculum focus areas are History and Art.

In our History lessons, we will be learning about the changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The children will discover where people settled, where these time periods fall on our historical timeline and the impact they had on our lives today.

In Art, we will be building on the drawing skills that the children have learnt previously and focusing on creating pattern. We will also be learning about printing techniques in order for the children to create their own design. The children will learn about, and compare the work of Angie Lewin and William Morris.

In Science, the children will be comparing the life cycles of amphibians and mammals, grouping animals according to their characteristics and investigating adaptation. They will also be developing their knowledge of how plants reproduce.

In maths, we will be starting with our unit on place value which will support the children with developing the sense of numbers up to and including millions numbers. We will be comparing and ordering these numbers; developing our rounding skills and learning more about negative numbers in context. Speedy recall of times table and division facts is important for all areas of maths and so these will be a priority for us.

In English we will be focusing on mainly on non-fiction writing for the first half term. The children incorporate their new knowledge about Darwin and the Galapagos Islands, with a range of different text types.

Here are some things you might want to do at home:      

• You could undertake some independent research to learn more about Charles Darwin and his work on the Natural History Museum website.
• Visit the Great Plant Hunt website and be a plant detective – just like Charles Darwin!
• What can you discover about Lonesome George, the last giant Pinta Island tortoise? Can you create a fact file about this animal?
• Watch David Attenborough’s series “Galapagos”. It is a great source of information and includes fantastic footage of the islands’ animals.
• Choose an animal from the Galapagos Islands and create a collage of this from resources in your home.

Homework

We will be continuing to set homework this half term in line with the homework policy:

• In Year 5 and 6, maths homework is set every Thursday and is due in the following Tuesday.
• Children are expected to read a minimum of five times per week and this is to be recorded in their planners (Year 6) or reading records.
• Children should access TT RockStars for a minimum of 10 minutes daily.
• Throughout the year, additional spelling, punctuation and grammar homework may also be set to support the learning taking place at school.
• Homework club is run every Thursday during lunch time if the children would prefer to complete this at school.