Y5 News 09.02.24

Happy Friday and happy Interfaith Week, Year 5!

This week has been a special week because we have celebrated Interfaith Week. As part of Interfaith week, we welcomed an important visitor to school. His name was Imran. He came in to teach us all about the Islamic faith. During his worship, we learnt about the five pillars of Islam, and we got to see some amazing artefacts. In our Interfaith Week RE lesson, we tried on different clothes which was certainly very exciting and interesting. We talked about how clothes make us feel. Some clothes made us feel comfy and confident whereas some clothes made us feel uncomfortable. This led to a discussion about how we view the clothes people wear. Next, we read the story: 'Nasruddin and the Honoured Guest' which is an important story from the Islamic faith. In the story, Nasruddin was invited to a special feast. He had to go in clothes that he had been working in. He wasn't treated very nicely, so he went home and got changed. When he came back, everyone was extremely kind to him. Nasruddin felt that his clothes were being treated in a more important way than him, so he fed his clothes instead of himself; he thought people respected and wanted the clothes rather than him. As a class, we talked about the message behind it. We felt the message was: Don't judge someone before you get to know them, and don't judge someone badly because of how they look and what they wear.

It has also been a special week because some of us went to Young Voices. You had a great time and were a credit to the school. Well done! Those of us that didn't go got to enjoy an extra Forest School session. In the session, you had to imagine that you were stranded in the wilds of Canada. Mr Hadfield explained that you would only be allowed to take ten items with you. This sparked lots of discussion as it was a tricky decision. It got even trickier because eventually Mr Hadfield said you had to narrow it down to one item only! Once this was decided, you got to work building your shelters, learning how to make fires and toasting marsh mellows. 

In Maths, we have been learning how to do short multiplication, and in English we have started writing our cliff hanger narratives. 

Our Earth, Moon and Space topic continued into our Computing lesson this week. Before using the iPads to gather research about the solar system, we looked at the relative sizes of each planet by using different spherical objects. We realised that Mercury is a tiny planet. Did you know that if the Earth was the size of a grape, Mercury would be the size of a peppercorn and Jupiter would be the size of a basketball? We found this task fascinating. Next, we started gathering information about the planets in our solar system. We used a great website called: https://www.solarsystemscope.com/ Did you know that Earth is 93,000,000 miles from the sun! That is a long way. Neptune, the eight planet and last planet in our solar system, is even further at a staggering 2,880,000,000!

This week, in our DT lessons, we have been busy bees creating our prototype cushions. This meant we practiced joining two pieces together using blanket stitch to make a mini cushion. 

We continued with our history unit this week. Each week we will be answering a historical question to help us better understand how the Ancient Greeks have impacted our lives today. This week, we learnt about the difference between schools in Sparta and Athens. We realised that they were very different. We compared these schools to our school and realised we learn similar subjects! However, the way school was organised and the type of people that were allowed to go to school was very different.

In PE, we enjoyed dodgeball on Monday. We had lots of mini games to practice our skills. On Thursday, you continued to enjoy football skills with Coach James.

Finally, in computing we learnt how to search and sort using databases.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. See you tomorrow, 

Miss Pennance

P.S: This week's homework in on Maths.co.uk