Year 5: Blog items
Year 5 Use the force...vocabulary
Date: 13th Jan 2022 @ 4:47pm
This week we have started our new science unit: Forces, where we will be learning about the physics of movement on Earth and in space. This unit includes lots of new vocabulary and interesting theories that the pupils will need to learn. In the first lesson, pupils were given a list of words such as: gravity, friction and deceleration, and had to work collaboratively with their group to match the word to its definition.
Date: 13th Jan 2022 @ 2:14pm
During our PE sessions this half-term, we are lucky enough to have Miss Britt teaching us dance.
We started off the term by warming up and getting to know Miss Britt, learning a few simple dance moves and practicing some fitness based activities to get us used to the amount of stamina needed to sustain a full dance routine.
As we progress through the half-term, we will be making up and learning dance routines relevant to our learning that takes place in class.
Year 5 Building Frame Structures!
Date: 8th Jan 2022 @ 5:34pm
Upon our return to Year 5, we spent Wednesday afternoon building our own frame structures... out of raw spaghetti!
We spent time as a class looking at beautiful buildings around the world, some that we knew (Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal and London Bridge) and some that we didn't know (The Louvre... in Abu Dhabi and The Centre Pompidou).
Next, we had to design what we wanted to build and explain why we wanted to build a frame structure in the way we had designed.
Then came the hard part! Putting our ideas into practice with just spaghetti and Blu-Tac. This took a lot of teamwork and patience, but it is fair to say we did an excellent job! Year 5 are really looking forward to our Design Technology unit over this next half-term.
Date: 13th Dec 2021 @ 8:19pm
In line with our RE topic of Hinduism, Year 5 were lucky enough to receive a visit from two practicing Hindu's.
They told us about their life, how they found Hinduism and why they started to practice. They had brought in lots of important objects for us to have a look at, and even let us try on the traditional clothes of angarkha and sari's.
It was fascinating to learn about Hinduism in such a creative and practical way to assist our theoretical learning.
Date: 13th Dec 2021 @ 7:57pm
We have been getting into the Christmas spirit over the past few days!
Last week we enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner with all of the trimmings whilst we were sat laughing and singing with our friends whilst we pulled crackers.
It made it even more festive as we were dressed in our Christmas jumpers!
It definitely got us into the spirit!
Now Press Play... Anglo-Saxon Adventure
Date: 5th Dec 2021 @ 10:24am
Using our 'Now Press Play' equipment, Year 5 immersed themselves into an Anglo-Saxon experience.
Each child became a character who had been blamed for the escape of the village ox. They were immediately sent into exile and walked for miles to a nearby forest. As they were walking, they came across a camp of Vikings who were planning to burn down their village. They had to warn their neighbours whilst worrying that they would never see their family again.
During this experience, we learnt about:
- How the Anglo-Saxons relied on the land to survive
- The structure of Anglo-Saxon society
- The role of King Alfred in the conflict between Anglo-Saxons and Vikings
Date: 5th Dec 2021 @ 10:19am
Year 5 have really enjoyed learning about the Anglo-Saxons.
To start our unit, we recapped on our chronological knowledge of History. Once we all knew where the Anglo-Saxons came in history, we then talked about the reasons why the Anglo-Saxons invaded.
We have also investigated the different areas of Anglo-Saxon life: kingdoms, laws and punishment, the social hierarchy and the names and places the Anglo-Saxons created that are still around today!
The children were fascinated to learn new words such as churl, weregild and Mercia.
Date: 5th Dec 2021 @ 9:54am
As part of our Hindu topic in RE, this week we have been focusing our learning on Holi. Holi is a Hindu festival that celebrates spring, love and new life.
Holi (also known as the 'festival of colours') is a colourful, fun festival where there is singing, dancing and throwing of powder paint and coloured water. In this festival Hindu's celebrate their god Krishna and the legend of Holika and Prahlad.
As you can see in the pictures, Year 5 have been creating their own Holi art. They really enjoyed putting their knowledge into practice.
Date: 25th Nov 2021 @ 8:39am
This half-term we have been learning how to code animations and games, using a website called code.org. In this lesson we had to code part of a Minecraft game and could even add sound effects and music to make it more realistic. These skills will help the children as they move through school, as computing skills and coding have become part of our everyday lives. Pupils move from 'block-coding', to 'free coding' and eventually may be able to write their own lines of code.
Date: 19th Nov 2021 @ 4:12pm
As part of our final Forest School session, we spent our time outdoors learning different types of survival skills.
Year 5 made dens out of different materials and learnt how to secure them using a range of knots and understood why it is important to protect ourselves from cold weather whilst out in nature. We then made a fire and understood why different factors such as the wind and types of energies can have an impact on their effectiveness.
To finish our sessions, we made pizza, shortbread and hot chocolate.
We have had such a great time and learnt so much about the outdoors.
Date: 15th Nov 2021 @ 4:03pm
This week is Anti-bullying Week 2021
In year 5 we have written about the Christmas Truce 1914, which happened on Christmas Eve, 1914. The Children wrote a postcard home explaining what had happened and how it made them feel. Following this, we made 'kindness hugs' - a nice way to show someone that you care.
#ANTIBULLYINGWEEK
Date: 12th Nov 2021 @ 4:15pm
This half term our music lessons are all about Hip-Hop culture, and focus on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, by Will Smith.
This week we listened to and appraised, 'Me, Myself and I' by Del A Soul - discussing the structure and style of the song and comparing it to 'The Fresh Prints of Bel-Air'. We also discussed the term 'pulse' and tried to move to the pulse in the different tracks.
We played a rhythm game, where we had to repeat the pattern created by the leader, and finally practised and performed 'The fresh Prince of Bel-Air' together as a class.
Date: 12th Nov 2021 @ 4:05pm
We recently started our three week journey of Forest School last week. This is time where we can enjoy being outside and connecting with all things nature!
So far, we have engaged in activities such as singing round the campire, finding frogs and making honey shortbread over the fire.
We all love our time in our dedicated Forest School area, and we are learning so much about how to properly care for wildlife and our planet.
Date: 5th Nov 2021 @ 3:54pm
This week we have introduced Remembrance Day to our class, focusing on why we have a Remembrance Day and why poppies are used to symbolise this important day.
Using special watercolour paints and paper, children in Year 5 produced a range of beautiful poppy art to decorate a fallen soldier. We had to use special techniques to create the different effects on the special paper.
This is the start of a two-week period we have in school to remember and honour members of the armed forces.
Date: 5th Nov 2021 @ 3:48pm
October was Black History month, and in Year 5 we enjoyed finding out about promenent Black muscians from the past. This linked with our learning in Music, where we were listening to, and making observations about Motown music from the 1960s and 1970s. In our writing journey, we researched the singer and musician, Stevie Wonder, and wrote a historical narrative about his amazing life. As part of our guided reading sessions, we read about other famous Black people who have had an impact on the world; Sislin Fay Allen, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela.
In space, no-one can here you learn
Date: 4th Nov 2021 @ 4:08pm
This term our science topic is , 'The Earth and Space'.
We will be learning about some of the amazing things that can be found in the universe, including planets, moons and asteroids. In our first lesson, we worked together as a class to create a scale diagram of the planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Using the actual sizes, we calculated how big we would have to make the planets to fit on our classroom ceilling - Jupiter has a diameter of 142,800 km (11.2 x bigger than Earth), so in our diagram, Jupiter had a diameter of 66cm. We also used the same method to calculate how far apart the planets would be on our diagram, using their relative distance from the Sun - Earth is approximately 149,000,000 km (1 Astronomical Unit) away from the Sun, but on our diagram it is just 40 cm. The pupils then used real photographs of the planets to paint or colour them in the correct colours.
Date: 21st Oct 2021 @ 5:00pm
We took part in 'What's Under Your Feet' task where we had to check the food supply for birds. We threw a pencil onto the grass to select the area and this would be the place we were going to dig up to investigate. Once we had selected our area, we measured 30cm x 30cm ready to dig up. We used a spade to dig up the top layer of grass and soil and tipped it onto a tray. Using rulers and plastic dishes, we placed worms and other wildlife in to measure the lengths of the food source for birds. Whilst we were doing this task, we saw seaguls stamping their feet on the grass to trick the worms into thinking that it's raining so that they would come to the surface.
Musical Motown Masters - Dancing In The Street
Date: 21st Oct 2021 @ 4:49pm
In today’s lesson we listened to our main song ‘Dancing In The Street’ to remind us of the tempo of the song. We looked at what a music stave was and the meaning of the time signature. We also learnt the notes, F A C E and E G B D F and where they are placed on the stave. We played the glockenspiels to ‘Dancing In The Street’ and finished the lesson by learning the verses and chorus to the song where we performed it.
Date: 19th Oct 2021 @ 12:21pm
Year 5 have had a great 6 weeks of football coaching in PE, delivered by our local FA qualified coach. In our final lesson this week we were playing small-sided, competitive matches on the MUGA. To be successful pupils had to use the skills that they have learned over the course of the unit: controlling the ball, dribbling, defending and shooting. As we were playing as a team, pupils also had to work together to attack and defend as team, and support others to win the match. Pupils developed their tactical awareness, developing tactics to beat the other team by scoring and defending. Everyone enjoyed this, and has made progress with their football skills and their tactical awareness in games. A big 'thank you' to Mr Williams for supporting our learning this half-term.
Date: 15th Oct 2021 @ 4:06pm
During Black History Month, Year 5 have been given the topic of 'Influential Musicians' to research and create work about.
Over the past week, we have looked at numerous Black musicians, including: Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin and Martha and the Vandellas. We have had so much fun singing and dancing to their songs, but had even more fun writing about them.
We have been planning our historical narrative around Stevie Wonder so we spent a lesson researching his life.
Date: 11th Oct 2021 @ 7:24am
This week in Science we took part in an investigation to find out which materials are soluble.
We first ensured that we all knew what the terms around solubilty were so we could talk scientifically during our experiment.
We then took turns to gather a material and stir it into water and watch what happened. We used sand, rice, sugar, salt, coffee and whipped cream! As you can tell from the photographs, our children in Year 5 learnt so much about the materials and their solubility. Once we had finished our experiment, we spent time to write our results down and compare them with what different groups found.
Date: 11th Oct 2021 @ 7:17am
This week we took part in No Pen Day! This included doing our normal lessons but in a slightly different way... with no pens! Some people might think this is hard, but in Year 5, we rose to the challenge!
During Reading into Writing, we annotate a historical narrative using typed features and gluing them down and in Maths, we completed another tri-jigsaw (to do with addition and subtraction, our current topic). During PSHE we took paert in an activity where we tested how far sneezes and coughs go by using a water sprayer, and finally in Geography we had a research lesson about rivers. The research lesson allowed children to find out what they wanted about rivers, and some children even found rivers from their home countries that they didn't know about.
A great day was had by all in Year 5.
Date: 2nd Oct 2021 @ 11:55am
This week in Maths we have come to an end of our place value unit. During this unit, we investigated Roman numerals which the children found fascinating!
To finish the week off, the children in Year 5 were able to put their new knowledge of Roman numerals to the test by doing a tri-jigsaw. This involved working out what the Roman numerals were in numbers and then putting the tri-jigsaw together on the template. The children engaged in lots of brilliant conversations about the numbers, as well as using their problem-solving skills too!
Date: 30th Sep 2021 @ 8:32am
This weeks science lesson was an investigation into materials: Which materials are electrical insulators?
We started by predicting which materials we thought were insulators and which were conductors. Then pupils made a simple circuit from wires, batteries and a bulb, and then created a gap in the circuit to stop the electricity flowing. The pupils then placed a selection of materials into the circuit and observed whether the bulb was illuminated or not. Pupils recorded their observations in a results table. We also discovered that some materials were better conductors than others - these made the bulb even brighter. Our conclusion was that metals are good conductors of electricty!
Date: 24th Sep 2021 @ 5:04pm
In our science lesson this week, the pupils were asked; Which cup would keep a hot drink hot the longest?
We worked as a class to plan an investigation to decide on the best material to make a cup for a hot drink: plastic, metal, cardboard or ceramic. After discussing how to make the test fair and making a prediction, we put hot water (75 degrees C) in each of the four cups and measured the temperature - using a thermometer - every two minutes. Although it was quiet close, the cardboard and plastic cups kept the water the warmest, whereas the metal and ceramic mugs allowed the water to cool. This is because cardboard and plastic are insulators of heat, but metal and cermic are conductors of heat.
In conclussion, if you want to keep your brew warm, use a plastic mug!
