Last week's Year 5 News!

In our English lessons this week, we wrote our innovation stage poem. Using the plans that the children had created, they wrote their poems. I modelled my own narrative poem, writing out each stanza at a time, discussing the use of rhyming couplets, suspense and punctuation. The children used this to help them write their own sections of the poetry – I love the poems they created. At the end of the week, the children considered what they would include in their imagination poems for the following week.

During our Maths lessons this week, we continued to develop our knowledge of multiplication and division. We learnt about square numbers this week. We used arrays to represent a square. We then moved on to learn about cube numbers. We used multi-link blocks to represent 3D cubes. This helped the children to recognise how we find cube numbers. Later in the week, we then learnt about Inverse Operations again. This is something we have revisited now that we are on multiplication and division. The children are gaining a better understanding of finding the inverse operation. This will be something that we continue to consolidate over the term.

In our History lesson this week, the children explored what housing was like in the Victorian times. We used the iPads to explore the website https://matterport.com/industries/gallery/mentzer-house-victorian-home. On this website, the children found a virtual tour of a Victorian house. This allowed the children to explore each room and consider what life would have been like to live there and how it has changed now.
In our Music lesson this week, we learnt how to play the C chord on our Ukuleles. Once we had mastered this chord, we then played 'A Sailor Went to Sea'. The children also learnt the names of the parts of the Ukuleles. We then moved on to learn about the Composer of the Month – Johann Sebastian Bach. We listened to a piece of his music and wrote how we felt about it and whether we liked it.

In our PSHE lesson this week, the children recorded scenarios of how they would counteract a negative comment with a positive comment.

This week, we had our first DT lesson. Miss Handforth introduced the children to their learning for this term. The children will be learning about Automata toys and making their own! During their lesson, children explored the mechanisms within an Automata toy. They explored the cams and followers and how the mechanisms moved in linear and rotary actions.

In our PE lesson this week, we started our second unit on Health-Related fitness. At the beginning of the lesson, we spent time considering what the phrase 'health' meant and how we sustain a healthy lifestyle. The children discussed the impact of exercise, diet and lifestyle. We then went outside to explore our own fitness levels. The children took part in a shuttle-run. They were required to run for 5 minutes with their partner counting how many 'laps' they could do within that time. The children were amazing. Everyone persevered and supported one another. The children then recorded their score and evaluated their ability. Over the term, we will aim to develop children's fitness through exercises each week.

During our French lesson this week, the children consolidated their knowledge of counting from 11-31 and played games to help them recall the numbers. We finished our RE unit this week. The children used everything that they had learnt about the Story of Daniel and the Story of Nehemiah to answer the questions: How do Christians believe that God speaks to people through the Bible? They represented their story on the outside of their shoebox and then inside the shoebox they shared the hidden message of the story which was being told.

In Forest school this week we used our knowledge of the weather, and the direction it travels, to plan for the best location to build our shelters. We learnt how to tie a hammock under our shelter and build a free-standing wall using branches. We investigated how the trees adapt to grow in their position and studied the ash tree in more detail. Our session also featured our own fires, marshmallows and more popcorn!

As part of Anti-Bullying this week, we read the book 'Some people have two Dads'. Before reading the story, the children considered the question 'What does a family look like?' The children gave lots of fantastic answers. We then read the book and the children wrote questions on post-it notes that we used as our discussion. Following our discussion, we considered a scenario. 'A few years have passed and Daisy, the daughter in the book, has moved to your school and you have become her "buddy". She is happy initially but then becomes quiet and withdrawn. She tells you she is being picked on because she has two dads.' The children created a plan of action of how they would help and support Daisy. They came up with so many fantastic ideas and we shared these as a class.

We had another great week – well done Year 5!
Miss Welch