Happy New Year, Year 5

Happy New Year, Y5!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break. It was so lovely to see you all again and hear about the amazing things you have been up to. Mrs Whittingham, Miss Griffiths, and I would like to thank you again for your thoughtful cards and gifts--we felt very blessed.

After catching up on what we had been doing over the holidays, we jumped into DT and History on Tuesday morning. In DT, we continued making our stuffed toys. In this lesson, we added decorations (appliqué) and started stuffing the extra pieces we'll be adding on. In History, we immersed ourselves in our new topic, Ancient Greece, by learning about Ancient Greek religion. We explored the different gods and goddesses and, after much deliberation about their strengths and weaknesses, created a set of Top Trumps cards based on them. We even had a chance to play a game or two!

On Tuesday afternoon, it was time for PE and Music. During your first PE session of the week, you practised the different skills involved in dodgeball and decided what qualities make a good player. You worked on different types of throws to improve your aim and played games to practise these skills. We ended the session with two games of dodgeball. In our first music lesson of the half-term, we recapped how to hold the recorder, how to blow into it, and how to play note B. We even learnt a rap to remind us to hold the recorder in our left hand, with our left thumb covering the back tone hole.

PE was also one of our lessons on Wednesday afternoon, and hockey was the focus. We learnt about the straight dribble and the loose dribble. After practising these skills, we applied them in a game of hockey. During the second part of Wednesday afternoon, we enjoyed a Computing lesson. We are continuing with our videography unit from before the break and have the exciting task of creating our own videos. In this lesson, we decided what we wanted to talk about in our video and planned our script.

By Thursday afternoon, our focus shifted to Geography and Courageous Advocacy. In Geography, we continued our trade unit by learning about the different ways goods are distributed. We discussed the costs and benefits of these methods and considered whether transporting goods around the world is a good thing. For Courageous Advocacy, we recapped our focus on conservation and took a deeper dive into why it's important. We learnt about ecosystems and how changes in an environment can impact an entire ecosystem. This highlighted why it's so important to care for our world. We then worked on writing our class worship which we're looking forward to sharing with you next week.

On Friday, we started our first RE unit of the term, which is all about Jesus. In this unit, we will explore why Christians view Jesus as a great teacher. In this lesson, we learnt that he taught through parables--short stories conveying important life and faith lessons. We focused on:

• The parable of the foolish builder, which teaches the importance of building our lives on a strong foundation.
• The parable of the sower, which illustrates how people respond differently to spiritual teachings and reminds us to be open to growth.
• The parable of the lost sheep, which emphasises God's love for everyone and how He seeks to bring back those who stray.

Through these simple yet profound stories, Jesus conveyed significant ideas that still guide people in living good lives.

In PSHE, we started our new topic: Too Much Selfie Isn't Healthy. We discussed how helping others--through sharing, listening, or simply being present--often brings more joy than focusing on ourselves. This reminded us of the Bible quote: "Love your neighbour as yourself." (Mark 12:31)

In our morning lessons, we followed our usual routine of Maths and English. In Maths, we've been exploring multiplication with two-digit numbers. We've learnt two methods: the area model and long multiplication. The area model helps us visualise multiplication by breaking numbers into tens and ones, solving step by step. Long multiplication organises our calculations neatly, helping us track numbers and understand place value. By practising these methods, we're improving our skills and preparing for division in our next lessons. Keep up the great work--you'll master multiplication in no time!

This week, our English lessons began in a rather unusual way! As we entered the classroom, we could hear waves crashing and wind howling. On a table, there was a mix of random objects like feathers, a hammer, nuts, bolts, and screws. This got our imaginations flowing as we started predicting what our next story--the book that will inspire our writing--would be about. There were lots of great ideas! As the week went on, more clues were revealed, and we finally learnt that our new story is called FArTHER. We explored its beautiful illustrations and brought them to life through drama. To end the week, we created a personification poem inspired by the imagery in the story.

Thank you for working so hard this week. It's been wonderful to see you all again and dive back into our learning journey.

Have a fantastic week,

Miss Pennance