Mindset, Multiplication and Maps

As always the children in Year 5 have been working extremely hard. It is lovely to see the children are growing in confidence and becoming more independent with how they approach their work. At the start of the week we revisited the messages from the Growth Mindset workshop. The children thought about the skills needed to become successful in their learning, including ‘how’ good learning takes place and that ‘effort’ always leads to success.

This particular aspect has been so obvious to see in maths over the last few weeks. The children have been focusing on multiplication methods and moving from informal to more standard methods of calculation. Not an easy method to master particularly if you are a bit shaky on your tables. As always, I have been repeating my mantra and reminding the children about how important it is to learn the multiplication. I can see that some of the children have been putting in the effort and are breezing through these tricky methods.

If you would like to support your child to learn the multiplication facts, than pop into school and pick up some resources from me so you can help at home.

We’ve made a great start to our next history enquiry too. The children enjoyed comparing old and new OS maps and looked at how Unsworth has changed. They worked in small groups and created 3D models of how this area might have looked 100 years ago. The children added pop up houses, farms and even Victoria Mill which once stood where our school is today. They were amazed to learn that even their houses did not exist 100 years ago. We’ve also had some great resources brought in by one of the children, showing his great grand parents gardening in their ‘new’ 1960s house and the initial stages of our school being erected in the background!

In science the children have been thinking about how different animal groups begin their life, including those that start as an egg and those that give birth to live young. The children worked in pairs to show different life cycle models, adding on information about each stage of the cycle.