Happy Half Term Y5 20.10.23

In Mathematics, we forged ahead with our journey through addition and subtraction. This week, our primary focus was on mastering the column method, a written technique that showcased the importance of exchanging between columns to ensure accurate calculations.

In our English lessons, we culminated our thrilling first-person narrative stories titled 'Lunar Return.' You demonstrated remarkable skills by incorporating parenthesis, dramatic dashes, and subject-specific vocabulary to craft beautiful stories. Your dedication to this creative process shines through, and I'm incredibly proud of everyone. Our stories are now in the publishing stage, ready to be proudly displayed in the classroom.

During our Spelling sessions, we delved deeper into the 'ible' spelling pattern, unravelling the concept that, in most cases, removing 'ible' from a word leaves an incomplete and nonsensical word. For example, in "horrible," removing 'ible' would leave the meaningless "horr." This helped up with our mini spellings quiz at the end of the week. Good work, team.

On Wednesday, it was time for our last Forest School session. In this last session, we had the chance to pick from a range of different activities that inspired us. We had the chance to build shelters using equipment, create fires, toast marshmallows, go on bug hunts, and try our hand at archery. We have loved all of our sessions. They have been amazing, and we'll cherish every moment.

In PHSE, we explored the significance of sleep and discussed factors that influence the quality of our sleep. Our discussions linked to a Bible quote: 'In peace, I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety,' from Psalm 4:8. We also completed a reflection task as we have now wrapped up our first HeartSmart unit.

During our Computing lessons, our understanding of websites and search engines continued to grow. We can now explain how search engines follow specific rules to rank results and provide examples of criteria used for this purpose.

In Science, we concluded our experiment into water resistance, deepening our understanding of this concept. This involved making three different shapes out of plasticine. We then dropped the shapes into water to see which one sank the quickest. We then concluded that the one that sank the quickest is the one that is the most streamlined.

Music took an interesting as we didn't do any music at all . . . instead PC Nick paid us a visit! We love seeing PC Nick and were very excited to welcome him to our classroom for his first visit of the year. During the visit, he talked us through how to have fun and enjoy Halloween and Bonfire Night. There were lots of top tips. Thanks, PC Nick!

In R.E, we approached the end of our journey through the Bible. In this lesson, discussed how the bible provides guidance for daily life. We read five different passages from the Bible, honing our reading skills to summarize their meanings, and deliberated on which books we believed held the most important messages.

We paused our learning about the British Empire in History to honor Black History Month by studying Katherine Johnson, one of the key women who contributed to N.A.S.A's missions into space. We explored her remarkable contributions to society as a whole, and were surprised to learn that, at the time, people did not fully appreciate her work.

In Art, we continued creating our visual poetry zines. At the start of the lesson, we listened to the poem once more. Rather than thinking of colours (like last time), we thought of the images that the words evoked. We then enjoyed crafting these images, shapes and pictures using paper and scissors, bringing our zines to life.

Our Physical Education activities provided a wonderful way to stay active and have fun because we played crab football! It was great fun and made us giggle!

We wrapped up the week with Show and Tell. All term, we have been busy sharing the amazing things that your have been doing to enhance your learning at home. I would like to extend a big thank you for all your hard work. . . THANK YOU!

As we head into the half-term break, there's no new homework, so take this opportunity to catch up on any outstanding tasks on Spagtastic or Maths.co.uk. However, school would also like you to keep playing TTRockstars and continue reading during the break.

Thank you for a great half term, Year 5! I hope you have a wonderful half term break,

Miss Pennance