Earth and Space
For the final term of Year 5, we take to the skies to learn about the Sun, Moon, Earth and our wider solar system! In this mainly science based topic, children learn about every day phenomena such as, why seasons occur, why a year is 365.25 days and how we know the Earth is not flat! We use the school’s outside space to build our own solar system; representing the planets with comparable objects such as fruit and use our drama skills to demonstrate how solar and lunar eclipses occur.
Using the library and iPads, children independently research aspects of the Earth, Sun and Moon. In literacy, they use their newly acquired knowledge to write a non-chronological report that includes accurate facts and technical language. In numeracy, we use scaling to compare the relative sizes of the planets.
The children are encouraged to find out about early astronomers and what their contribution was to what we know now about space. They draw around their shadows on a sunny day and look at how they change in length and position throughout the day and write their own explanation of why we have night and day. We record work in lots of different ways, including using ICT, drawing pictures and even with chalk on the playground!