To celebrate Black History Month Year 5 learnt about the Windrush generation. We looked at the reasons why people came over from Commonwealth countries in 1948 to settle in Britain. We listened to first-hand accounts of people from countries such as Jamaica to find out what life was like in places like Birmingham, when they arrived. We listened to stories of the hardships people faced in order to make a better life for themselves and their families. We then imagined that we had emigrating to Britain from Commonweath countries in the Caribbean and wrote postcards back to our friends and families describing what life, in Britain, was like. We described the weather, people and the opportunities such as going to school as well as eating fish and chips!
In English, for the past 5 weeks, we have been focusing on openings and endings using a story called ‘The Constellation’ to inspire us. Having learned the text and its feature really well, we have been busy story mapping and boxing up our own plan to write our own version. This week we have begun to innovate (change a few parts and ideas) of the story pattern to make a story more of our own. They’re looking really good! Soon we will plan and create a complete version of our own story using the pattern a rough guide. Lots of progress has been made already.
In maths, the children have finished their first two units on place value and addition/subtraction.
Thank you for your hard work at home with reading, spelling and times table practice. Please will you continue to read for at least 10 minutes every night with your children and learn spellings and times tables regularly too. Please do put what your children are doing at home in their planners so they can receive regular house points!
As part of Shakespeare Week Year 5 are completing work on Romeo and Juliet; we read the book in one go as the children were so desperate to see what happened to the lead characters.
Over the week we will look at William Shakespeare and impact he has had on the whole world.
Children have been encouraged to read more of Shakespeare's plays/stories and see if there is a common theme throughout them all.
Massive thanks to those that were able to come and take part in our Inspire workshop this week - we hope you didn't find it too hard. We feel that the workshops really give our grown-ups the opportunity to see how hard the children have to work and the high expectations of our school.
The videos used for the Maths operations are now on our school YouTube channel. Click on the image to be taken directly to our YouTube channel.
Over the last few weeks, Year 5 have been focusing on The Highway by Alfred Noyes in our English lessons. We have recreated the story, looked at how the vocabulary is used and have written lots of description sentences.
This week we finish off the narrative poem topic by writing our own stories, following the structure of the orginial story.
Click the image to hear our favourite version of the tragic poem.
A key component of Maths this term is going to be times tables knowledge. You can never over practise times tables, so even if you think you know them up inside our and back to front KEEP PRACTISING!
Click on the image to continue your rock star dreams!
We were welcomed into the school with a fantastic selection of traditional Arabic foods and drink.
We hadn't tried any of them before - some were a massive success, others we weren't too sure about.
To start with we learnt all about the Prophet Muhammad and how he started the Islamic faith in 517 A.D.
We all had our photo taken with traditional head wear on - these were later used for our very own calendars.
We were told how to write our own names in Arabic and then had to have a go at writing it ourselves. Arabic is written right to left so that took some getting used to.
We had lots of fun experiencing some of the traditions at Olive school and look forward to inviting the children to our school.
Click here to the visit Olive School's website
Click on the the link to look at our new eTwinning School in Birmingham. We are looking forward to visiting them on Thursday and will share our experiences with you.
What an adventure we all had last week!
Children arrived and excitedly unpacked their things into their tent.
Once unpacked, Mrs Goode took the register and told the children which team they were in. Children were split into four teams, Team Aldrin, Team Jemison, Team Peake, Team Ride and Team Armstrong, and then rotated around five activities.
Children created nebulae pictures using chalks and pastels.
Looking at the stars with a telescope from Warwick University and then outside using our iPads.
Moon Rock cakes were very popular!
We enjoyed designing our own space suits with different NASA logos.
Mrs Clark and Mrs Cowdery were on hot chocolate duty! We enjoyed a hot chocolate and cookie while watching 'Space Chimps' before bed.
Some children slept well and they all enjoyed breakfast in the morning before clearing away the tents.
Over the next few weeks we will be looking at the classic text of Oliver Twist - we might possibly watch the film but we are focusing on the text which is VERY different.
Looking at how Charles Dickens used dialogue to develop his characters is part of our key focus, although we will also look at the historical aspects of the story as it links nicely with our history topic - how cruel were the Victorians?
The end goal is to write our own little stories based on Oliver, Fagin and Monks' experiences in the story, ensuring we use dialogue to develop the story and our characters.
Year 5 have really enjoyed reading and completing writing activities based on Cherry's expeirences in Zennor.
We have role played and freeze framed to explore characters emotions, we have looked at the structure of the story, as well as thinking about speech and how that can add to a readers experience and understanding.
Even though it is a heart breaking story, we recommend that everyone read it.
Year 5 have been rocking out the last few weeks during our Music lessons!
Our Rock education started with listening to Livin' on a Prayer. We then thought about the pulse and tapped, stamped and jumped to it.
Since then we have listened to We Will Rock You by Queen and Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple, each time comparing it to Livin' on a Prayer and deciding which one we preferred and why.
The next stages will to continue to learn more rock songs and even attempt to create some rock music of our own
We will continue rocking for as long as we can!
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