Kestrel

Welcome to Kestrel Class

For the first three weeks of English, we are reading High Rise Mystery by Sharna Jackson in which children use the text to explore a range of genres and styles of writing. In particular, children will learn about the techniques of writing a crime/detective story as they progress. The sequence of learning builds up to children planning and writing their own detective story using the author’s various techniques and structure yet innovating on the setting and the characters. One of the many strengths of this text is that it is aware of the various ways people communicate in modern life and the role technology plays. References will be made throughout to the more informal language of speech (whether it be through dialogue or texting) and the language of writing (whether it be through writing narration, reports or emails), laying the groundwork for developing this further in Y6.

For the final three weeks of the term we will be reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief takes children on an adventure through the discovery of a sword, tied to which is an ancient-looking scroll, to writing an ode, exploring character and setting development, and then writing an own version narrative chapter. Following reading for Research into Greek Gods, the children will complete the sequence by writing an extended narrative in role as an invented demi-god.

In Maths, we are looking at decimals and how to multiply and divide them by 10, 100 and 1,000. In addition to that we will also cover negative numbers and the converting of units.

Relevant My Maths homework will be set each week - so please make sure homework is completed every Friday.

In Science this term, we are looking at micro-organisms where the children will explore good bacteria with a food tasting session as well as be a part of a mould experiment to see how quickly it can grow.

Our foundation subjects for this half term are as follows:

Geography: Rivers

PSHE: Changing me

Music: Identifying important musical elements

PE: Athletics

Spanish: My home

RE: Christianity

DT: Building a bridge for a purpose

Homework this term is all about our History topic on the Mayans. There are a variety of homework activities you can choose from which children have stuck in their HW books.

Here are a few links that may prove useful when completing this homework:

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Maya/353445#:~:text=The%20Maya%20created%20farmland%20by,the%20planets%20and%20the%20stars.

https://kids.kiddle.co/Mayan_civilization

https://maya.nmai.si.edu/maya-sun/maya-math-game