Year 5 Learning Update – Globe Trotting Around North America

Overview

What a busy few weeks we have had in Year 5. The children have immersed themselves in our topic – Globe Trotting Around North America – and have been learning about all the differences that can be found across the continent including the biomes that can be found there, the land use and the different ways that different tribes have lived depending on their origin.

Big News! We have our class ‘State-Off’ coming up next week so would love the children to practise naming as many of the 50 states from the USA as they can. Which class will be victorious? We will find out soon! 

English 

‘The Midnight Fox’ by Betsy Byars is a traditional tale set in North America and we have been focusing our English all around this book. The children are currently rewriting the story from the fox’s perspective but last week, they wrote the most exceptional letters!

In the story, Uncle Fred goes fox hunting and when the children were faced with a recent newspaper report about fox hunting, they become so passionate about the topic! The children learned that Jeremy Hunt MP wanted to have a free vote on whether the ban on fox hunting should remain or be lifted and they wrote persuasive letters to him to encourage him to either leave the ban in place, or allow a free vote on the issue, depending on their own personal opinion. Please see some outstanding examples below.

Design Technology

As mentioned above, the children have been learning about the different tribes that live, and have lived, across North America. They have learned about how, depending on their origin, these people lived in homes ranging from teepees to igloos, lived on everything from deer to seals and wore a range of clothing and colours. From this research, the children have begun designing and completing their own weaves. Here are a few examples from last week.

We are excited to share the children’s other pieces of artwork with you at the end of term and hopefully some of their stories too. Look out for our final website update for 2020! We are so proud, as always, of how hard the children are working and particularly with how hard they have worked in their assessments over the last few days. Their results will be shared with you soon when you receive their end of term reports. 

Many thanks, 

The Year 5 Team