P5 September - December

English:

In the first term of P5 we will focus on various aspects of grammar, including  nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.  We will also be using  our knowledge on tenses, punctuation marks and grammar to be able to spot mistakes and fix them correctly through ‘Improving Together’ and editing passages. It is important that the children can recognise where types of punctuation are needed and are able to insert them into sentences or a passage.

The children are making good progress in their use of joined handwriting and it is making a great difference to the neatness of their written work. We will continue to look at this through handwriting lessons.

Comprehension continues to be a focus this year and some new methods, such as reciprocal reading and accelerated reader, added to the traditional forms, have helped the children to understand what they are reading, and develop skills of inference. It is important that the children keep reading and, when possible, are questioned at home on what they have read to confirm understanding.

Our whole school focus is on creative writing this year. The children will build upon their skills of adding detail, writing in full sentences and using the correct punctuation and grammar. The children will use the skills they have gained through grammar and reading to write a variety of compositions. These will include recounts, reports, imaginative writing and poems

Numeracy:

The greatest area of focus throughout P5 is in confirming and developing knowledge and speed of recall of number bonds and times tables. These are vital to the children's progression in numeracy as these skills are needed so regularly, in a variety of topics. It is important that the children not only complete their mental activities every night but also revise tables on a regular basis, even when not set for home work.

With the progress in tables and the use of multiplication the children will be able to explore how to solve problems for all four functions, with the emphasis being on recognising key vocabulary in questions and subsequently being able to carry out the correct calculations.

World Around Us:

Our World Around Us theme for this term is ‘Prove It.' In this theme, we will explore the meaning of evidence and how it is used to prove something. We will complete many exciting activities, looking at different pieces of evidence and what the proof is. The use of evidence will be linked to Mesolithic times and how evidence has been used to show how they lived. We will explore the Mesolithic way of life, looking at what they ate, where they lived and other aspects of their life. We will study caves and the designs in these and then the children will complete their very own cave man paintings.