It has been a very busy end to our Year 5 Autumn Term. The children have made bread, which was delicious! We have rounded off our geography learning about natural disasters by learning about tsunamis and where in the world they occur. We have also finished our writing using Shackleton's Journey as our inspiration and look forward to using Macbeth as a stimulus for some of our writing after Christmas. Additionally, we have been singing our hearts out, preparing for our carol concert and are exciting at the prospect of singing at the O2 in January. Happy Christmas from everybody in Year 5!
Year 5 have been super scientists this term. We have completed investigations to test the viscosity of liquids, the effects of water resistance on different shapes and even made parachutes to examine the effects of air resistance. Today we have really enjoyed our STEM day and have used excellent teamwork to produce some fantastically innovative marble runs. We also enjoyed our time in the library this week and have really benefitted from an organised and inviting library space.
Over the last couple of weeks in Year 5, we have been writing a persuasive letter from Ernest Shackleton to a prospective crew member. We have been looking at the writing skills needed to successfully persuade as well as learning how to use relative clauses to create complex sentences. In our science topic 'forces', we have looked at gravity, friction and air resistance. This week we investigated whether the surface area of a parachute had an impact on the air resistance and how quickly the parachute would fall. In maths, we have been multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1000 and continued to consolidate our understanding of the vocabulary linked to multiplication.
This week we have immersed ourselves in our new geography focus about natural disasters. The children have learnt about how and why volcanoes are formed. We have started to read our new core text, Shackleton's Journey, and have used our powers of persuasion to write an advert as if we were Ernest Shackleton recruiting his crew. To put the story into context, we have compared and contrasted the Arctic and Antarctica and recorded this information in a Venn Diagram. We have made links in our learning by applying our understanding of Venn Diagrams in maths to organise multiples and common multiples.
Last week, we enjoyed welcoming a visitor to our school for our Anglo-Saxon day. The day helped to reinforce our learning about what life was like in Anglo-Saxon times. The children took part in many creative activities including: an archaeological dig, illumination writing, making medicines with herbs, candle making, making ink and writing with a quill. Thank you so much to the parent helpers who joined us for this wonderful day.
In maths, we have started our new topic, addition and subtraction. We have been learning how to estimate and approximate answers to calculations by using our understanding of rounding numbers.
We have completed our narrative writing inspired by the Lost Thing and have been really impressed with the imaginative endings the children have written.
In science, we have been learning about the phases of the moon - when you look up in the sky tonight, you should see a waning gibbous!
In art, we have been learning about sketching straight and curved lines. We have looked at the difference between outlines and edges as well as how to shade effectively to make a shape look 3D. This week we have completed our first piece of writing which has resulted in some fantastic character descriptions of the Lost Thing from our core text. In history, we have been learning about where the Anglo-Saxons invaded and which places in the UK still have Anglo-Saxon place names. Our science lessons have looked at the ways in which Aristotle discovered that the Earth is spherical.
Last week the children launched into our Earth and space science topic with some astronaut training!
And so we come to the end of a great year of learning and fun. What a fantastic bunch of children to teach. You are all set up now for a fantastic Year 6. Have a brilliant summer. See you next year!
This week, Year 5 have been refining our watercolour skills. We have built on our colour mixing work from a previous lesson by using various shades of green to show the effect that light has on trees. We did this by using lighter shades of green which we then changed subtly to darker shades to emphasise the position of the Sun. Additionally, we practised a variety of techniques when painting our trees such as “wet on wet” and scribbling with the objective of making our trees lifelike. We will use these methods when painting our final piece which will be a landscape of our school field.
After a very busy morning enjoying ourselves at KS2 Sports Day, Year 5 spent Thursday afternoon improving their public speaking skills. We built on the skills we developed when we were younger – “Show and Tell” in Key Stage 1 and “Soapbox” in Lower Key Stage 2. We are expected to talk to our class for approximately two minutes on a subject of our choice without using a powerpoint presentation. Some of us already have the confidence to talk in front of others but we all know it is very useful to be able to improve the confidence and clarity with which we communicate to others. It is also great to find out about the wide range of interests that the children have in Year 5 – so far we have heard speeches about Rubik’s Cubes, crows, horses, drumming and allergies.
We all hope you enjoyed our assembly on Wednesday morning. It was great to share our happy memories of our trip to the Isle of Wight with all of the parents and we are already excited about going to Marchants Hill in Year 6. During our English lessons this week, we have been learning about poems called kennings which contain words on each line that describe something or somebody – essentially an extended metaphor - for example:
Coffee drinker
Finger pointer
Homework giver
One of our favourite activities this week was to develop our watercolour skills - we learnt how to mix paints to give us a range of different colours.
Oh…the answer to the kenning poem is a teacher.
