Grade 5

Reading

In Reading, students continued their novel study of War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. Throughout the weeks, students have participated in Think–Pair–Share discussions and paused at key points in the chapters to reflect on important events, character perspectives and themes. Students practised reading through echo reading with the teacher and fluency pairs, where they read and listened to one another to build confidence and expression. Each week, students also expanded their vocabulary by learning and applying new words such as vague, wary and inquisitive.

Writing

In Writing, students have continued developing their narrative writing skills. They are learning how to structure narratives with clear beginnings, rising tension and satisfying endings. Students are focusing on developing characters, describing settings, and using dialogue and descriptive language to make their stories more engaging for the reader.

Students have also begun learning about persuasive writing through the topic “Should horses have been used in World War I?”. During this unit, students are learning how to clearly state their opinion, write strong topic sentences, and support their ideas with reasons and evidence. They are also learning how to structure persuasive texts using introductions, body paragraphs and conclusions.

Numeracy

In Numeracy over the past two weeks, students developed their understanding of factors and multiples. They learned how to identify multiples using algorithms, and how to find the lowest common multiple and highest common factor of two or three numbers. Students also explored multiplication strategies, including using factor pairs, the distributive property with the area model, and the associative property to solve problems more efficiently. They applied these strategies when multiplying by two-digit numbers using materials and diagrams to support their thinking.

Cross Country

Students participated in our school Cross Country event, running a course around the school and placing within their races. Students displayed great persistence and enthusiasm throughout the event, and it was wonderful to see them supporting one another by cheering and encouraging their peers along the way.