Mayfield Primary SchoolYEAR FIVE: SPRING TERM
OUR YEAR FIVE DURING SPRING TERM
OUR CORE INTENTION IN ACTION
SPRING TERM 'WHEN I GROW UP...' THEME: AMAZON ADVENTURE
A 'When I Grow Up' Spring Summary
January saw us ready to deliver Amazon Adventure as our Spring Term ‘When I Grow Up…’ theme. As Global Developers set their designs on the remaining natural habitats of the world, and just as future sustainability of our planet is being discussed by world leaders, Year 5 were set a challenge to prove how important it is to preserve and protect the Amazonian region. A Geography driven theme meant we could focus heavily upon: maps of the region including environmental regions and climate zones; trade and land use; how the landscape emerged and is sustained and take a look at Brazil in particular as a further contrasting country to our own. Our History studies allowed us to explore the Mayan civilisation in relation to this region and what links their are to the native Amazonian people of today. Within all of this we constantly asked about the threats to the future of the Amazon. Our Science studies took an Amazonian feel as we considered life cycles and reproduction processes for animals, plants, amphibians, insects and birds of the region. We then moved into an Earth and space related theme: considering the planets, sun and moon in our solar system and their movements in relation to each other. Whilst our Religious Education studies allowed us to consider the significance today of Sikh stories and then, during this significant time of year in the Christian calendar, whether God intended Jesus to be put on trial and crucified.
We studied rainforest inspired Art by Abel Rodriguez and Ruth Daniels before creating our own interpretation of these. We also designed and made phase our multi-functional Amazon survival belt in Design & Technology. In Physical Education we focused upon gymnastics during our indoor sessions, whilst outdoor we spent time on Tag Rugby and developed the children's skills within small game formats. During Music we were focusing upon performing melodies with our glockenspiels and following direction from our class 'conductors' and Computing offered us the opportunity gather and interpret data about our region and compare this with our area of study. We used data loggers and simple spreadsheets to do this.
Our English was a packed term of persuasive letters, Amazon adventure stories, a guide to Amazon survival and a report about the Mayan civilisation. In Mathematics we centred upon fractions, decimals and percentages during the term and completed our work with multiplication and division.
The protection of the environment was the major aspect of our PSHE & Relationships work - this naturally combined with our wider theme studies, whilst we also looked at what jobs and careers we might aspire to and what the workplace may be like. We finished the term by looking at online marketing and how they can target particular groups of people.
