Year 5 News 21.04.23

Welcome back to our last term together! I hope you all had a lovely Easter break. This term we will be learning all about the Amazon Rainforest. We will be journeying there with Fred, Con, Max and Lila in our new book 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell. This will be our class story and it is one of our '5 Favourite Books'.

We began to read our new class story this week during our English lessons. First, we read the blurb, looked at the front cover and then made predictions about what we thought might happen in the story. From the blurb, we learnt that at the beginning of the story our characters are in a plane which crashes over in the middle of the Amazon rainforest (and they are without their parents). As a class, we felt that this story may be an adventure or quest story. As a class, we predict that the characters are going to need to overcome many different challenges to survive the new dangerous world they find themselves in. After making our predictions, we read the first chapter which led to many questions about the story. I'm looking forward to reading more! In our other English lessons, we began our new Talk4Writing unit. This unit will be based around a 'wishing tale'. We shared what we would wish for and then dived into writing our 'Cold Write'.

In Maths, we continued finding out about fractions. We challenged ourselves by learning how to answer mixed fraction word problems. The bar model was one of our chosen strategies, and we reflected on how they can help us work out multi-step problems. By the middle of the week, we came to the end of our fractions unit, and we began looking at decimals, fractions and percentages. Our first lesson recapped our Year 4 knowledge. I was so impressed to see how much you had all remembered.

In our MyHappyMind lesson, we began our fifth and final unit. This unit is called 'Engage'. Did you know that scientists have proved that when you feel good you do more good things? Isn't that an interesting thought. We also learnt that when we engage in something and feel positive, we can achieve more. In this lesson, we discussed the top tips we have learnt from each of the units and considered how they can be used to help us feel and stay positive.

To kick start our afternoons off, we welcomed Mrs Tibbetts on Monday for our next John Muir session. For this session, Mrs Tibbetts told us all about barn owls. We then found out that owls produce something called an owl pallet. Initially, we found the idea a little unsavoury, but once we started dissecting them our 'ews' were soon turned into 'wows' as we found all manner of interesting things inside. We also began our Big Art project on Monday. For our project, we each drew a leaf which could be found in the rainforest because the rainforest is our focus this term. Next week, we are going to use mixed media techniques to add detail, colour and texture to our leaves. When finished, we will use them to decorate the classroom and bring the rainforest to Wybunbury.

On Tuesday afternoon, we took part in a First Aid session. It gave us the opportunity to learn about minor and severe bleeding. We were able to identify the differences and talk through the steps of how to seek help. We enjoyed learning how to use the bandages to dress a wound, and we talked about the things could use if we didn't have a first aid kit. We also found out how important it is to stay calm, monitor the casualty and, if necessary, call for an ambulance. PC Nick came to visit Year 5 on Friday to talk to us about the 999 service. We knew that ringing 999 can connect us to the police, the fire service, the ambulance service and the coast guard. We learnt that when you call 999, the operator will ask you which service you will need. Did you know it's ok to ask for all services if you think the emergency needs it? PC Nick also talked about making sure we only use 999 in an emergency. If it's not an emergency, but you still need the police PC Nick told us that we can call 101. Next, we learnt about defibrillators. Every school and police car has one. It's important to know where our closest one is because it can be used to save lives.

As part of our Health and Safety week, Fireman Si came in to tell us all about road safety. We learnt about the different types of crossing, the importance of booster seats and seatbelts and how to get the right sized bike helmet when we're cycling. We also learnt about the importance of not being a distraction when we are being passengers in a car.

In our Coding lesson, we discovered what nested loops are. This enabled us to repeat a set of commands multiple times. We used lots of trial and error techniques and were proud when we completed something, that at first, was a challenge.

We continued with our Courageous Advocacy project on Wednesday. As you know, we are helping to save the bees, and we are promoting this by hosting a sunflower competition. This week, we have been diligently packaging sunflower seeds ready for people to take home and start planting! Exciting times!

On Thursday afternoon, normal lessons were paused as it was time for 'Marathon Madness'! What an amazing job the PTA did in organising and hosting such a fun event, and Mr Sun came out to shine on us all afternoon too. After running our warm up lap, it was time to take part in 20 minutes of madness as we ran, hopped, hooped (and much more) around the track. It was wonderful to see everyone taking part and raising money for Team Lewis Trust and school. We even had the chance to take part in rugby activities too! Well done, everyone!

I hope you have a fabulous weekend, 

Miss Pennance