Simonside Primary School

Medium Term Project Planning

Academic Year: 2016/17 Year group: 5 Term: Summer

Essential Question:

What makes a dream destination?

REAL Project Outcome:

Mexican fiesta with live mariachi band created by year five children

Parent welcome to spectate

Date for exhibition/project outcome:

Thursday 29th June 2017 (AM)

Enrichment (trips/visitors):

Eco-materials taster session linked to Mexican

instruments

Travel agents visit to discuss destinations, prices

and travel

Journey around the North East to discuss travel

and transport choices

Project Launch:

Day of the dead face painting, bunting making, menu designs for

Pablo’s Restaurant with a link to problem solving in maths.

Immersion: Welcome to the Mexican Fiesta!

Pablo’s Mexican Restaurant, Sign post to main Mexican locations,

flower entrance, Mexican dancer on door, beach and inflatables, day

of the dead scene, best seats in the restaurant at Pablo’s, Nacho

Ordinary Writing display of children’s work. Taco bout’ a great class

displaying our amazing topic work!

Celebrating cultures & diversity/events & dates:

The Battle of Puebla- 5th May

Ramadan- 27th May

School photographer- 13th June

Fathers day- 16th June

Summer fayre- 30th June

Maths- Mexican problem of the day

displayed on challenge board Problem solving- word problems and group

problems

Using graphs to interpret data- which is the most

common mode of transport used in Mexico

Money calculations using real life scenarios

created by the children and their Menus (Pablo’s)

Fractions, decimals and percentages- this will

include fiesta fractions and converting

Multiplication, division, addition and subtraction

Multi-step problems

Reasoning- each week we aim to challenge each

child and give reasoning questions during maths.

English Books/Novel

Kensuke’s Kingdom- Is it really a dream destination?

English Coverage

Persuasive fiction writing- sell your city, narratives,

flashbacks- arrived on a desert Island but what can you

remember, writing from other peoples perspectives-

Day of the Dead focus, drama and play scripts- The day

we invaded Mexico.

SPAG

We will be covering a range of grammar tasks including

types of words and types of phrases. Weekly spellings

will be given to children to learn at home and during our

spelling lessons. Your child will receive a weekly piece

of grammar homework which will be a recap of our

lesson work.

Spellings

A mixture of the year 5 spellings set in guidelines and

high frequency spellings. Children will use a range of

methods to help with learning their spellings on a

weekly basis.

Possible project questions

What makes a dream destination?

What affects our opinions?

Do we all think the same about our world?

Can money impact our thoughts?

How is out locality different to Mexico?

PSHE

We are all equal ! Comparing our beliefs with the variety in

Mexico. This will include our civil rights,

expectations and reasons behind why these

differ. This will also relate to the elections.

History & Geography

Our locality v.s. Mexico

Grid references and compass use

Different areas in Mexico city – how are they different?

Is Mexico a dream destination? Focus on London as a EU

comparison

Earthquakes across Europe- why do people still visit these dream

places?

Time zones as a cross curricular link

Science

Understand mixtures & solutions

Know about reversible changes; identify

irreversible changes through the means

of cooking Mexican meals

Describe changes as humans develop &

mature – Children will describe the

process through drama

Computing Understand uses of networks for collaboration

& communication

Using the internet safely and why we must be

careful- linking to a Mexican school and

creating pen pals for y5 children. We will

discuss the safety for emailing each other

RE What do we know about the bible and why is it

important to Christians?

What is the importance of the bible?

How does the bible impact Christians worship?

Why do Mexicans celebrate Day of the Dead and

how does it compare to the Christian religion

Music Singing traditional Mexican

songs

Making Mexican instruments

Cornet club

Drumming – to display at our

project outcome

ART & DT

Artist focus: Leonora Carrington Mexican tile designs for corridor display.

Planting chillies & monitoring growth in

different areas of school. This will link to our

science topic of plants

Day of the dead face painting afternoon

Aztec pastel drawings