Category Archives: Maths

Fun with Fractions!

What a wonderful start to the week Kestrels had!

Year 5 absolutely powered through there fractions work, they made light work of multiplying fractions. Last week they looked at unit fractions (fractions that have 1 as the numerator) and this week they looked at non-unit fractions.

The whole class could see clearly that a simplified way of completing these multiplication questions was to multiply the numerator with the number stated:
For example, 1/4 x 3 is also the same us 3 lots of 1/4, which you can do as 3×1. So, the answer is 3/4. Last week they had also seen that it can also be done as a repeated addition of 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4, which again is 3/4. This is a good way to check answers.

Well done Kestrels.

Area

Today Year 5 consolidated their learning of area and extended to area of compound shapes. It was good to see children explain their understanding by guiding those that were not here last week.
It was clear that all the calculations needed were easy to do if we were secure in our multiplication facts. That is why going on Times Table Rock Stars, daily is so important.
We also needed to remember that area is measured in the unit (cm, m, km) squared.

Perimeter

Year 5 looked at perimeter today. They showed they understood how to calculate the perimeter of a shape.
It was important to remember metacognition – thinking about what they already knew. It was important to remember the properties of shapes: knowing that rectangles have two equal, opposite sides. This information helped when calculating the perimeter of a shape quickly.
Have a look at Tanatswa’s work:
One of the challenges was to draw a rectangle which had a given perimeter of 14cm. This was a challenge in that they had to visualise the shape and understand that each of two sides had to have the same length.

Ed Shed and TTRS

The class had some time today to sharpen their skills on Ed Shed and TTRS.
It was easy to see who has been practising at home.
It is important that we practise everyday so that we can complete our Year 5 and 6 words, as well as be quicker with out times tables. We know that confidence with our spellings helps us as writers and readers. Confidence with our times tables helps us with everything in maths, which is so important.
Keep up this confidence year 5.

Pi

Amaya and Lexi have learnt a song that teaches them the numbers of Pi.
No spelling mistake….I did mean Pi and not Pie…Hee hee.

But what is Pi?

Succinctly, pi — which is written as the Greek letter for p, or π—is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle.

It is a very long number indeed as you can see. Not a big number, but a very long number as it is a decimal number.

And what is the point of pi?

So there you have it. Pi.
Have a look at Amaya and Lexi singing Pi.
Amazing girls, well done!

Square Numbers

Today Year 5 were investigating cubes and cubed numbers.
They looked at making a square with 6 cubes….it was impossible (no matter how much they tried). They added 3 more cubes, so that they had 9 cubes, and tried again. They definitely made a square with 9 cubes.
They continued with more cubes and then went on to investigate cubes, seeing that they were 3D shapes and that they needed the same number of square across, up and along.
So adding to our numbers which are square numbers, we now know what cubed numbers look like.
2 squared is 2×2= 4
2 cubed is 2x2x2= 8
Have a look at the cubes they made.

Square Numbers

Today Year 5 investigated square numbers. They arranged arrays to see what shapes they made. When they tried 3 x 3 it made a square shape.
We could see that because all the sides were the same.

The children then made more square numbers and saw that each side needed to be the same: a number multiplied by itself is a square number.

Have a look at what they did.

Multiples

Year 5 looked at multiples this week. They have done extremely well thinking of all the numbers that will be in the times table. They are even going on to look at lowest common multiples.

Today they looked at FACTORS and factor pairs.

Factors are the numbers that are multiplied together to make a multiple.

If we look at the multiple of 36-
the factor pairs are:

1 and 36 (because 1×36=36)
2 and 18 (because 2×18=36)
3 and 12
4 and 9
and 6 (because 6×6=36)

So they factors are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 36.

It can be confusing to learn factors after multiples, but the class were great and can distinguish between the two.

Keep up the good work Year 5!