History
In our history topic, we have been learning all about the Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Vikings and how their history has impacted us. To launch our topic, we explored who the Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Vikings were, where they settled in Britain and why. We learnt that 7 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were created, that artefacts have been recovered from the Sutton Hoo burial site and that there were various types of crimes and punishments at the time. Did you know that they had a punishment ‘Trial by water’? If the accused did not drown when put into water then they must have been guilty, however, if they drowned then they were innocent. In particular, we enjoyed our residential trip to York, exploring many places such as The Jorvik Viking Centre where we learnt how to dig for clues, we met a Viking who told us old stories and explained the language that was used at the time, we listened to the history of Clifford’s Tower and maybe the most scary part of our visit was the York Dungeons! Here we learnt of the different crimes and punishments, with some of us even being brave volunteers! Take a look below at all the fun we have had with this topic.
English
Over the last 10 weeks, we’ve really enjoyed reading our love of reading text: How To Train Your Dragon. To begin, we carried out some ‘hot seating’, asking our character, Hiccup, some questions that we had put together in our groups. We then went on to looking at the characters of both Hiccup and his friend Fishlegs, thinking about how we would describe both their appearance and personality. In our character descriptions, we focused on using expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials, relative clauses and similes to make our writing more exciting for our readers. We went on to write a short adventure story, with some twists and turns, whilst including inverted commas for dialogue. We tried our hand at being news reporters, relaying some of the current news to our class. After this, we wrote our own newspaper reports, after a dragon was spotted flying over the houses of Meir and CCTV footage caught images of the dragon on our school grounds! Finally, we wrote an explanation text, to guide readers into being able to successfully train and tame their dragons. We have produced lots of incredible pieces of writing and have enjoyed learning about how to train a dragon… should we ever need to.
Science
We have absolutely loved our science topic! In our lessons, we’ve been learning all about SPACE. We have looked at creating patterns to help us remember the names of the planets in our solar system in the correct order, we have learnt how the planets orbit the sun, how the moon moves, how we change from day to night, why we don’t live on Mars and the size differences between the Sun, the Earth and the moon. We have thrown ourselves into our science topic, asking and researching our most curious questions and showing a brilliant understanding of our wider world. Most of all, Year 5 really enjoyed our Space Day! We had a special visitor, who brought a Space Dome into school, where we were able to learn even more interesting facts about our planets. We went on to use fruit representations for the planets and measured the distances between them and the Sun, decorated our own space suits and created models of the Sun, Earth and moon to demonstrate how they orbit, some of us then to created an iMovie using our models. After school, on Space day, parents and carers were invited to join us where we engaged in lots of wonderful activities, such as creating the phases of the moon using Oreo’s (yummy!), reading space stories in tents in the large hall using torches whilst enjoyed hot chocolate and biscuits, we created our on constellations using black card, marshmallows, cotton buds or using the pens and chalks. Telescopes and binoculars also allowed us to try and explore the night sky for ourselves. Our teachers were able to show us a ‘night sky’ app which enabled us to discover the planets aligning in the sky. It was incredible! We’re not sure who enjoyed it more, the children, the adults or the teachers! We were so impressed with Year 5’s curiosity and love of learning about our wider world! Well done, Year 5.
Maths
In maths, we’ve been working exceptionally hard, looking at squared and cubed numbers, building them first using the resources in our classroom and then using our times tables knowledge to identify squared and cubed numbers. We have also learnt to multiple and divide by 10, 100 and 1,000 remembering our jumps and which direction to move our digits depending on the calculation. We have worked on our short multiplication and finding strategies to support our independent work where we find some multiples more challenging than others. This led us to using long multiplication of 3 digits x 2 digits and moving up to 4 digits x 2 digits with some regrouping too. Wow did we find this a challenge to start with, but with a lot of perseverance, resilience and support to one another we have got it… as long as we remember to ‘drop the egg’. Finally, using our times tables knowledge again, we have looked at short division. Some of us have been using the numicon to support our independent work and we have understood the importance of knowing our multiples. We’ve worked really hard to overcome some of the mathematical challenges we have faced, excellent effort Year 5! Next, we’ll be delving into fractions.
Art
Recently, Year 5 have learnt all about Barbara Hepworth and her sculptures. We explored the difference between Barbara’s abstract artwork and Kev Harrington’s realistic artwork and how detail can be added to show emotion. Using clay, we looked at different techniques for shaping using coiling, layering and detailing. To attach our clay parts we learnt how to make slip and how to use the score, slip and blend technique. After this, we designed and created our own sculptures, using Barbara Hepworth’s work for inspiration. Year 5 showed incredible resilience when creating their sculptures and supported one another wonderfully. Finally, we were able to paint our sculptures and are excited to see them on display in our corridor. Take a look at some our sculptures below!
PSHE/RE/SMSC
In PSHE, we’ve been learning all about first aid… thinking about how we can help when there has been an accident. We looked at how to carry out basic first aid to assist someone with cuts, burns, bleeds, choking, head injuries, asthma attacks and allergic reactions. Some of us shared our experiences with the class and how we have dealt with incidents like these before. We also named items that can be found in a first aid box and discussed how they could be used. Using this learning and scenario cards, we were able to identify the best first aid to administer. We showed great understanding on the importance of checking for dangers around us, staying calm to support the casualty, how to check for a response and when to call 999 and ask for an ambulance. Finally, we acted out in pairs how to support a casualty whilst keeping ourselves safe too. In addition to our first aid topic, we also covered how to be safe and responsible online. Looking at appropriate behaviours towards others and age ratings of games and apps. Year 5 then modeled scenarios of positive behaviour towards others, created posters, took on our ‘how to be responsible online’ quiz and even digitally signed to say they had understood the importance of keeping themselves safe online, what to do when they need help and how to be respectful towards others online. Well done Year 5! You showed great maturity and understanding of others and their feelings during these sessions.
In R.E, we’ve focused on how Christians decide how to live, thinking about ‘What would Jesus do?’, we discussed the four Gospels of the Bible and watched videos of some of the parables. From this, we were able to discuss the messages given to Christians and how these messages would impact the lives of believers. These lessons sparked some beautiful discussions across the classroom, showing respect and acceptance of others and their beliefs.
During this term, our SMSC day was “I believe…” where we looked at Martin Luther King. Throughout the day, we looked at understanding the term racism and that it can be towards any ethnic group, we looked at how racism looked in the time of Martin Luther King and discussions took place about examples of modern day racism and why some people display forms of racism and how this can be changed. The children were shocked by some of the things that they heard from historical examples of racism and expressed sadness for those who had to witness this type of behaviour from others. We used a sorting activity to explore racists and non-racists examples and anti-racism posters were created by Year 5 and displayed, with pride, in our floor books.
