Year 5 News 24.03.23

Our week got off to an exciting start as we began our John Muir Award! The sunshine kept us company the whole time, and it was lovely to be out in the open air. As part of our session, we walked around the moss and even went onto the moss itself! We learnt about the different types of plants and animals that can be found there too. As we walked, we heard chiffchaffs, robins and many other wonderful birds. One of our favourite parts was jumping on the moss because we could feel it bounce! It was so much fun. We also carried out an experiment to test the acidity of the water on the moss. The results showed it was very acidic! We can't wait for our next session.

In Maths this week, perseverance and resilience were needed once again as we mastered the skill of subtracting fractions. We took it one step at a time, and created a check list to help us complete each important stage. By the end of the week, we had become more confident and began to use our skills to tackle one and two step word problems.

In English, it was time to do your independent piece which we call our 'Hot Write'. You weaved our key skills beautifully throughout your work and did an amazing job at showing what you had learnt. I could also clearly see the key layout features and parenthesis in your writing. Well done, team.

In Computing this week, we learnt about E-Safety. We talked about online social interaction (including online gaming), and the ways that we can keep them fun and positive. We learnt that what you say or post online can have an impact on others, whether or not you know the person in real life, so it's important to consider the things we can do to keep interactions fun and positive.

In R.E, we continued learning about the Islamic faith. We learnt about the different features of a mosque, and then we moved onto consider how a mosque promotes the idea of community. You were given 9 different statements that shared facts about how a mosque supports its community. You then had to choose the five that you thought were most important.

In D.T, we began creating our cushions. We practiced our skills and then used blanket stitch (our focus stitch) to join two pieces of felt. It is fab to see that our cushions are starting to take shape.

In Geography, we discussed how the climate of the Alpine region affects the homes people live in. To kickstart our learning, we became architects and designed a house that we thought would work well in our local environment. We then discussed how it would have to be adapted to suit the conditions of the Alpine region. Finally, we designed an Alpine home.

In Science, it was time to test our knowledge and understanding of all things Earth, Moon and Space as we have come to the end of our Science unit. After a little bit of revision, the battle was on to see who the science champion was as we took part in a blooket.com quiz. We enjoyed the fun elements that this fab website whilst testing our knowledge at the same time. It was great to see how much you were all able to remember. Great work team.

In history, we continued to think about our key enquiry question: What can we thank the Ancient Greeks for?' This time, we were learning about democracy. We learnt that ancient Athenians used a democratic style of government to make decisions about how the city-state should be run. However, there were limitations to their democracy as not everyone could vote. We then looked more closely at what democracy looks like in the UK today. We learnt about parliament, its role and how it is made up of three parts. Finally, we compared the Ancient Greek style of democracy with the democracy we have. We realised that there are elements that are very similar. Democracy is certainly something that we have today which we can thank the Ancient Greeks for.

In MyHappyMind this week, we learnt about active listening. We learnt that this can help us understand the perspective of others. Did you know that 'Active Listening' is a term given to a set of skills we can use to show someone that we care about what they are saying. These skills include: making eye contact, smiling, remembering what is said, asking questions and summarising what someone has said. These are great skills to use during a conversation. See how many you can use the next time you are talking to someone.

Thank you for a wonderful week.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Pennance