Welcome back to school, Amethyst! We are looking forward to an exciting and busy Summer Term as we start our new topic of 'South America'.

The sunnier days will bring more activities to life as we are ale to enjoy more of our outside environment. This week's warmer weather has been a perfect opportunity to take our learning outside to orienteer for facts about the South American continent and its countries.

English

In English, we will be exploring our new text 'Pugs of the Frozen North'. This will add a cooler contrast to our topic work as we explore the journey of 66 pugs and their companion Shen, on their venture through the Arctic. So far this term, the children have written a diary entry in the role of Shen, created fact files about some of the animals in the book and written spine poems describing the Kraken.

Maths

During Maths this term, Year 4 have been working on fractions. They have spent time learning about equivalent fractions, finding fractions of an amount and decimals. As the term moves on, the children are beginning to explore the value of money and giving change.

Year 5 have spent some time this term learning about decimals as well. They have been using column methods of addition and subtraction to add and subtract decimals and have applied their knowledge of place value to ensure that their answers are appropriately presented.

Science

Throughout our topic of 'Living Things and their Habitats', the children have spent time exploring how plants reproduce, the processes of mammal reproduction and researched the work of Jane Goodall. The children have explored the methods of sexual reproduction using flour and have tried to reproduce plants asexually using cut offs. As the term continues, we will begin learning about 'Animals including Humans'.

Topic

For our topic of 'South America', the children have explored much of the Geography of the continent. We began by exploring maps of South America and identifying the countries within it. The children they researched the geographical features of these countries, including the human and physical features. To add to that, we have spent a great deal of time further enhancing our knowledge of the rainforest. The children have loved the topic so far!