World Book Day provided Year 5 with the opportunity to celebrate some of our favourite books and their authors. There was lots of excitement and discussion throughout the day and we hope that all of the children across the school are inspired to enjoy reading even more.
What was special about the date on Tuesday? That’s right, it was 22.2.22! The children marked this palindromic date by engaging in a range of challenging, collaborative mathematical tasks. In Year 5, we worked together to make the numbers up to 22 by just using four 2s. We also used tangrams to make new shapes and explored other palindromic numbers and ambigrams. The children really enjoyed the opportunity of working with each other to apply their mathematical knowledge and skills in a range of different ways.
Over the course of this half-term, the children in Year 5 have been working to master a range of balances in their PE lessons. These have included individual and partner balances. They have been focusing on showing their strength by engaging their core and holding for 5 seconds. This week, the children paired up to create a sequence of 4 balances out of the selection we have been learning. This was a mixture of individual and partner balances where the children focused on their timing and synchronisation which they then performed as part of a sequence, in groups, to the rest of the class. The children had great fun evaluating each other's routines.
In our history lessons this week, we evaluated the contribution of King Alfred to the history of England and considered whether or not he deserved to have the word “Great” associated with him. Some of Alfred’s achievements resulted from the courage and fortitude he showed as a warrior and leader in defeating the Vikings in battle and his wisdom in making peace with his enemies after the conflict. Alfred also introduced laws that were fair and consistent, organised the running of the country and recognised the importance of education in society. Some of us thought that he was truly a great king whilst others believed that several other monarchs have achieved just as much and also deserve a similarly flattering description.
This week in science, Year 5 have been investigating how to separate mixtures. We worked together to choose different approaches and use different types of equipment to separate a mixture of flour and oats (a sieve worked well), paper clips and sand (a magnet was useful) and finally sand and water. For the last one we used filter paper as the fibres that make up the paper have holes which are so small, only the water can pass through and the sand gets left behind.
Working with each other to generate vocabulary and ideas is an important part of the writing process in Upper Key Stage 2. Here are Year 5 thinking about how to draft a description of the opening battle scene in Macbeth. Not only are the children aiming to use some fantastic descriptive language to engage the reader but they are also encouraged to employ specific writing techniques such as similes, metaphors, alliteration, repetition for effect, hyperbole and personification. “Ear piercing thunder cracked and rumbled as bolts of lightning slashed across the bleak night sky like mighty swords…” – sounds like a good start by someone.
Year 5 have been inspired by the artistic work of Andy Goldsworthy to use some of the natural materials they could find in our beautiful school environment to create their own natural collage. We also learnt that art of this nature is ephemeral – it will not last forever so appreciate it while you can before it is gone!
To complete our geography work on natural disasters, Year 5 have been constructing 3D models to show their understanding of the main parts of a volcano. We used our creative skills to produce cross-sections that show the location of the main vent, secondary vent, magma chamber and crater.
There has been and air of excitement across Year 5 all week because the children have been baking their own bread. After evaluating a range of commercially available breads, the children chose their own ingredients to customise their own recipe. They then learnt how to make a basic bread recipe, how to incorporate the ingredients to form a dough, what “proving” and “knocking back” means in the world of bread making and then they baked! Once our bread was ready we enjoyed eating and evaluating the fruits of our labour.
Year 5 have shown some great thinking skills during the course of the week and there is so much work in so many learning journals that speaks volumes about the ability and attitude to learning of the children. The Year 5 teachers have also been exceptionally impressed by the quality of the homework that has been completed over the past few weeks. We received so many well organised and engaging letters that sought to persuade the teachers to give the children an end of term treat (we are still thinking about it) and there were a whole range of informative and well designed fact sheets about famous volcanoes from across the world. Well done Year 5!
It has been another busy week of learning in Year 5. Our science lessons have focused on air resistance. We learnt that air resistance is the result of collisions between the leading surface of an object and air molecules and so it is a form of friction. We started to think about the effect that surface area has on air resistance and we tested some of our ideas by designing a range of parachutes to see how their different sizes affected the speed at which an object attached to them falls to the ground. In English, we have been analysing the personality of Ernest Shackleton so that we can better understand what made him such a resilient and courageous leader; this will help us to create authentic diary entries when we come to write as the intrepid Antarctic explorer over the next couple of weeks. Our geography lessons have enabled us to understand better some of the surprising advantages and more obvious disadvantages of living in close proximity to a volcano.
