Term 1

 Friday 9th September 2022 

This was our first week in Year 5 and we have done lots of exciting activities which makes a great start to the school year! In English, we have been learning about oracy (expressing through talk) and we acted out different scenarios by changing the tones of our voices. We also watched a video about a robot and did TV reports about his journey. The focus of our Maths all week was place value and we did some problem solving and practised exchanging. 

Our topic this term is World War 1, and we used maps to look at Europe now versus how it was in 1914 (the year the war started). During our Art lesson, we focused on tone and we looked at the artist Paul Nash who lived during the first world war. We also did some French, learning some actions, and practised some ball skills and gymnastics skills in PE.

 Finally, we went over the zones of regulation and how to deal with our emotions when we are struggling. We also looked at how dangerous spam emails can be and what to do if we receive them in our Computing lesson. During Friday's assembly, we took part in a whole school quiz which had a History, Science and General Knowledge round.

It has been a great week and we are really enjoying Year 5 so far! 

Friday 16th September 2022

We have had a busy second week in Hawk class! In English, we used our imaginations to come up with our own story endings for the robot's journey after leaving the factory. We also practised how to use fronted adverbials and direct speech ready to write our story endings next week, which we are excited about! In Maths, we have been practising place value and how to work out more than or less than a number. We even challenged ourselves with word problems!

In History this week, we learned about different events of the First World War and created a timeline of this. We started RE this week, where we learned about a Muslim girl called Sara and came up with questions we might want to ask her about her life/religion. We also had so much fun in PE doing basketball and practised dribbling the ball. We carried on talking about E-Safety in Computing and discussed why having strong passwords is important when using devices and websites/apps. 

We are so excited about doing Mini Police this term and filled out forms about why we want to join Mini Police and what we want to learn from it. We felt so proud to get our uniforms and ID badges in the assembly this week from real police officers! It's been a great week and we can't wait to learn more exciting things next week! 

Friday 23rd September 2022

In English this week, we used our story ending plans from last week and wrote our own imaginative story endings for the robot's journey. We made sure to use fronted adverbials, direct speech and lots of expanded noun phrases to make our stories descriptive, editing as we went to make it the best it could be! In Maths, we practised how to use mental strategies to work out more tricky Maths problems, as well as practising column addition and some subtraction. We then moved onto some problem solving involving this. 

Mini Police was so exciting! We learned about the different ranks in the police force, as well as what questions are asked during a 999 call. In Art this week, we continued practising tone, looking at another painting by Paul Nash and using viewfinders to draw a section of it. For our Curriculum lesson, we learned about how World War One started and what life would have been life in the trenches, including how heavy the guns were that the soldiers had to carry!

We rehearsed the first verse and chorus of Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi, singing it together beautifully as a class and learning the rhythm of the song. We also learned about different ways people edit photos online in Computing and discussed why this can be useful for security reasons, but also potentially damaging to people's self-esteem. In PE, we learned how to pass the ball in basketball.

It was a super fun week this week and we can't wait for Week 4! 

Friday 30th September 2022

This week in English, we have been writing a poem based on a Paul Nash World War One painting. We used lots of similes and metaphors to make our poems descriptive and exciting to read. We went to the computer suite to type them up. In Maths, we remembered what we already know about acute, obtuse and right angles and learned how to draw and measure angles using a protractor, moving onto some problem solving. 

During RE, we learned about Shahada (the first Pillar of Islam) and about the story of the Prophet Muhammad being the messenger of God. Art was really fun this week! We were sketching the same Paul Nash picture we used in English, practising our tone. In Mini Police, we started to look at booklets and, together as a class, we discussed whether we thought things were a crime or not and who it might affect. We carried on practising our basketball skills in PE, and started to play a game depending on how confident we felt. Finally, we sang some more Bon Jovi (Livin' On A Prayer) together as a class in Music and had a bit of a dance along to it!

We have had an awesome week and we hope everyone has an amazing weekend! 

Friday 7th October 2022

This week in English, we have been looking at expanded noun phrases and complex sentences. We used this to help us write sentences describing what it would be like in the war, and to retell a scene from War Horse. We also thought of questions we'd like to ask Sydney, the main character of the book One Boy's War and did hot seating, where we put ourselves in the shoes of him. In Maths, we have been learning about inverse operations and did some problem solving, as well as practising column subtraction.
 

During RE, we looked at the second pillar of Islam (Salah) which states that Muslims must pray five times a day whilst facing Mecca. In Mini Police this week, we started to learn the phonetic alphabet and spelled our names out using it. We managed to remember the whole phonetic alphabet as a class! In Computing, we thought about all the things about online safety that we have learned about this term and planned a comic strip which we will do next week. During PE, we practised ball skills and played a game of basketball.

This morning, we voted for our house captains, sports captains and eco-councillers after hearing the candidates do their speeches yesterday, and the votes were announced during celebration assembly. Our brand-new climbing frame was opened this week too - we had so much fun playing on it and are so excited to have it at our school!

We have had a brilliant week this week and hope to have an amazing week next week! 

Friday 14th October 2022
We have had a really fun week! In Maths, we learned about multiples, factors and prime numbers, and did some problem solving. In English, we practised how to use reported speech and began to plan diary entries as if we were a soldier in WWI. We then wrote our diary entries, making sure to use our toolkit checkist such as expanded noun phrases, temporal connectives and past tense. We then edited our work to improve it and started to publish it in neat handwriting. 
 

We thought about what we already know about WWI in our Curriculum lesson and then drew/

labelled a picture of what a soldier would wear when fighting in the war. We also did some Art, where we looked at a war painting by John Nash and practised how to use different tones, using powder paint to add some colour. In RE, we learned about the Third Pillar of Islam (Zakat) which states that Muslims must give to charity to help the poor. We used our comic strip plans from last week and created our own comic strips in Computing, which was based on our learning about internet safety. Mini Police was really fun - we learned about the Duke of Cornwall Safety Award, where we looked at different crisis situations and what to do safely. Finally, in PE we practised passing and shooting in basketball.

We are really excited for Science Week next week! 

Friday 21st October 

This week was Science Week and it was so much fun! We did lots of exciting experiments based on what we'd learned about forces. We learned about gravity, air resistance and water resistance. We also learned about the scientist Albert Einstein and how his research changed what we now know about Physics. We used a mixture of complex and compound sentences to write a fact file about him.
 

One experiment we did ourselves was to weigh objects and then test whether they fell at different speeds - we discovered that no matter their mass, gravity pulls them down at the same speed! We also made chose a research question and designed an experiment based on air resistance. We then made parachute and carried out our investigation, drawing conclusions based on our results. Finally, we investigated whether the shape of play-dough affects water resistance when dropped into water, and found that the sharp, pointed shape fell the quickest because it was more streamlined. We had a family learning afternoon where we showed adults our experiments and taught them everything we learned this week about forces!

In Maths this week, we learned about square numbers and cube numbers, and did some problem solving to practise what we'd learned. In Mini Police, we learned about beep tests and did one ourselves outside to test our fitness! Finally, in PE we practised some basketball skills. Our House and Sports Captains also helped the Year 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s with some PE, where they took scores as the younger children went around a fitness circuit.

We've really enjoyed Science Week and hope everyone has a good half term!