Glorious Greeks – What have we learned this half term in Year 5?

Written by Amelia W, Rosie & Iremide

This half term, we have been learning about the Greeks’ influences on our lives today. It’s been an amazing and very busy 7 weeks!

Magnificent Maths

This term we have been learning new methods – short and long multiplication and short division. After that, we started learning about fractions including equivalent fractions, mixed numbers and improper fractions, fractions on a number line, sequences and non-unit and unit fractions.

Exquisite English 

Firstly, we rewrote the story of Odysseus in our sentence stacking lessons. We also wrote (on our own) a new ending to the story. Then we learnt about Athens and Sparta. To help us understand their different ways, we wrote a diary entry and a message in a bottle. Then with all the ideas, we planned, then wrote a balanced argument about which lifestyle was better. Why don’t you ask your child which state they preferred and why?

Heavenly History

In History, we learnt about how the Ancient Greeks have influenced our lives today. The first influence we learnt about was the Olympics. In the Olympics, they had several sports including discuss, javelin, relay races and wrestling. We then found out that without philosophers we wouldn’t have many things in our lives today – they paved the way in English, Science, Astronomy and Maths. Another invention by the Greeks was the columns (some are still used on famous buildings today) and Greek sculptures. The types of columns are Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. 

Sensational Science

We learnt about the processes of separating solids and liquids. We also found out about how salt and sugar dissolve in water. In an experiment, we found out when you change the temperature of the water, the hotter the water – the quicker the tablet will dissolve. 

Here is what one of our teachers said about Science this half term:

What another exciting half term the children have had with the second part of our science topic: Properties and Changes of Materials. The children began by filtering to separate insoluble solids from liquids, sieving to separate different sized solids and using magnets to separate iron and steel from non-magnetic materials. The children then used their knowledge and irreversible and reversible changes to heat a salty-water solution to evaporate the water so that only the salt remained. The children then used the microscopes to view the salt in finer detail and were shocked to discover the colour and shape of salt! The topic was rounded off by a child-led investigation – What affects how quickly carbon dioxide is created in the reaction between an effervescent tablet and water? The children were incredibly excited to decide on a variable they wanted to change for their small group investigation. Some of the ideas the children came up with were: changes in water temperature, the amount of water they used, the amount of effervescent tablet and the type of liquid used. The children had lots of fun timing how long it took for the lid of the Benecol container to explode off! The children recorded their results carefully and were able to draw conclusions from their findings.

Astounding Art

In art, we looked at different shapes, sizes and designs of Greek pots. Then we decided which shape we would use to make our Greek pots made out of clay. The main colours the Greeks used were black, orange and brown. There were lots of pictures of mythical creatures and people -even gods! We made our own out of clay and then painted them. Here are some examples:

Glorious Greek Day!!!

We had so much fun on Greek day! As you know, we dressed up as Greeks then did lots of activities. The three activities we did were an Olympics (classes went head to head in jumping, running and throwing challenges), a quiz and chariot making! We used saws to cut wood and added wheels to our cardboard chariots before decorating them. We had the best day of Year Five ever!