Our Class Positions of Responsibility:

Eco Council - Eli and Izzy

Sports Council - Noah E and Edith

Travel Ambassadors - Ruby F, Aiva, Sophie and Ciara

Online Ambassadors - Arthur and Ruby S

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Thursday 23rd May

Our topic in Geography this half term has been Volcanoes! We have learned about how volcanoes are formed and where they are located. We have also completed an in depth study into Iceland and specifically the Westman Islands. We've discovered how the people of Heimaey were affected by a volcanic eruption and why people would want to live to volcanoes, despite the destruction they can cause. 

We have been impressed by the children's previous knowledge, from their Earthquakes topic in previous years as well as their own knowledge!

We have ended our half term of learning by working in groups to make our own volcanoes - constructing, Papier mache, painting and erupting...!

World Cup of Books!

We have been nominating and voting for book recommended by everyone in the class, to decide on our World Cup of Books finalists! Each child presented a book they have enjoyed and tried to persuade others to vote for their book by outlining the plot and explaining why it was great. We had 5 rounds of voting, leading to our final 8, then 4, then 2 and finally our winner.....

Loki - A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell.

This will be our class book after half term, but hopefully all of year 5 had some new book recommendations which they can read in their own time too!

Wednesday 22nd May

This week in Maths, we have been learning about scaling and correspondence problems! We spent time thinking about different ways to represent the word problems, including bar graphs, bar models, and drawn representations. These helped us to understand the one and two step problems, and accurately calculate the answers. 

We worked collaboratively to create our own worded problems for others to solve too!

Check out the photos of examples of our work...

Gilwell Park Day 2

Thursday 2nd May

We started our day with a wonderful cooked breakfast, cereal, fruit, and toast (using the famous Gilwell Park toaster!). Once we were stuffed, we headed out for a full day of fun... With Miss Honour's group starting with the 3G Swing - thankfully no nausea from the brave participants!

Luckily, the rain has so far held off and we have enjoyed a jam packed day of activities, including Shelter Building, Orienteering, Jacobs Ladder and Team Building! Our instructors have commented on how well behaved and enthusiastic all three groups have been, and it's been great to see each member of the class face a fear, push themselves to try something new or help a peer to succeed. 

After a much anticipated visit to the shop, we were treated to a delicious dinner this evening, plus lots of choice in the salad bar, topped off with brownie & ice cream for dessert! This gave us lots of energy for the campfire sing-a-long where we learned new songs and actions/dances!

Hopefully we are all now asleep for our final night...!

Gilwell Park Day 1

Wednesday 1st May

We arrived at Gilwell Park late this morning and, after a picnic lunch, we started our first activities. Miss Honour's group started with Crate Stacking and I was very impressed by the team work the pairs showed to succeed! We also had 2 groups doing Backwoods Cooking, where they made baked banana chocolate, pizza and smores on an open campfire! 

We were treated to a tasty dinner before some more team building games, this time out on the field to run off the last of our energy, with the girls winning the Tug of War contest. We had a relax in our lodge, drinking hot chocolate before bed time... 

Friday 26th April

Every member of the class has engaged so well with our Jabberwocky poetry unit, producing their own versions using the correct grammatical structure and creating their own portmanteau words! 

Our final pieces were written up nearly, in well-presented, cursive scripts, alongside illustrations of their imaginative monsters. 

We ended this unit by performing poems with expression, emphasis and acting to small groups, with some incredible performances to the class as well. 

Well done everyone!

Wednesday 17th April

We have started summer term in English by reading and watching performances of the poem, Jabberwocky. We will continue to focus on the poetic conventions used and create our own versions!

Today we rehearsed and performed the poem to our partners and to the class. Well done everyone for their efforts to act the poem clearly.

World Book Day

We had great fun completing our creative homework task to show our favourite book, scene or characters! The year 5 teaching team was very impressed by the high standard and effort from everyone. A special well done to Lara (Arsenic for Tea), Julien (the sorting hat from Harry Porter) and Zara (the football pitch to represent Beth Mead's book) who also showed their representations in assembly on Friday.

Year 5 also celebrated by joining in the WBD football quiz, watching the Puffin talk with Robin Stevens and completing a 10 minute Authorfy Challenge with Andy Griffiths!

Tuesday 13th February

Thank you to all the parents, carers and family members (and year 6) for visiting us this morning for Learn & Share. 

Year 5 had fun planning and organising activities that they have enjoyed learning over the last half term. It was great to see so many joining in with our Dance unit of the Hand Jive and The Twist, creating Art printing, watching small group renditions of Beowulf and many others sharing their books and learning. 

Thursday 8th February

This week, we have started a new Whole Class Reading book - Cogheart by Peter Bunzl. We wanted to see what it was like to have etiquette and posture lessons so after reading the first part of chapter one, we tried balancing books on our heads, as they do at Lily's school!

Wednesday 7th February

We were very excited today to go on our Anglo Saxon themed day at St Albans Cathedral! 

We spent the morning adding to our knowledge about what food they grew and ate, before having the opportunity to make butter and conserve, like they would have done 1500 years ago!

In the afternoon, we explored the cathedral and met an Anglo Saxon warrior, who was a little scary with his shield, sword and helmet! Ryan was lucky enough to try on all of his costume and found it very heavy! We also saw and discussed some artefacts as well as learned how St Albans related to the Anglo Saxons.

Wednesday 24th January

We are learning 1950/60s dance moves in our PE lessons this half term 💃🕺Today we imitated and performed The Twist, which we watched versions of on the projector! We combined this with supported jumps, the Hand Jive and partner moves from the last few lessons to perform some brilliant routines!

Wednesday 17th January

We have been recapping our learning about Non-Chronological Reports, and linking these to our History topic of Anglo Saxons.

Children have been gathering notes about a variety of different topics such as 'food', 'clothing' and 'language'. Today, they memorised an interesting fact they had found and shared these with others in the class!

Over the next few lessons, we will begin to write grouped paragraphs and make these into beautifully illustrated double page spreads!

Friday 15th December

🇪🇬🐫🐪 Ancient Egyptian Day 🐪🐫🇪🇬

We're very impressed with everyone's outfits and have started the day by learning Ancient Egyptian Maths! Now we're making canopic jars from clay, making sure we take our time to create a string pot base and an animal head. 

We have also learned about the Egyptian writing system of hieroglyphics, practiced writing messages and written these on papyrus. I wonder what coded messages have been written and taken home on scrolls?

Finally, we have made our own 3D sarcophagus, designing the exterior and creating mini-mummies! Inside these are miniature book of the dead, amulets and other possessions, to represent the things the Egyptians took to the afterlife.

Thursday 14th December

This half term, we have been learning about circuits & lights in DT, and have used our skills to create a light up card!

Children designed their illustration and thought carefully about how they would include a light, which would switch on and off. They had to use copper wire tape, with LED lights and a cell battery, making a circuit which connected up when part of the card folded. 

Here are some examples of our cards and circuits - we have to evaluate our process on Monday and then you will be able to see them in person!

Tuesday 12th December

Back in September, Year 5 set themselves a challenge to read 200 books collectively this term ... And with a week to go, we're proud to say we've made it!

On here is a great range of texts from books read in class or in groups, from our book corner or from home. It's wonderful to see a mixture of books read aloud to younger siblings, favourite classics and new releases on the list!

Now we'll see how many books we can beat our Goodreads Reading Challenge by 📚

Wednesday 6th December

This morning we tuned into Waterstones' Virtual Schools Author Talk with Katherine Rundell. We learned all about how she uses her real life experiences to enhance her characters and story telling. As well as this, we got inside information about her new book, Impossible Creatures, which linked very well to our Monsterology unit before half term. All children were engaged well and we were inspired to apply her skills to our independent writing of short stories focused on a main character. 

Wednesday 6th December

Year 5 had great fun putting their Gymnastics jumping, climbing and shape skills to the test in their lesson this afternoon. They worked well independently to challenge themselves to try a new skill, with pupils helping each other to improve, both on the floor and gymnastics apparatus.

Well done to the brave pupils who made it to the top of the full sized horse!

Wednesday 29th November

Year 5 have worked hard this half term to practise their Gymnastics and create interesting & well performed paired routines. Today we got to see the final pieces, which showed so much improvement and great technical skills! 🤸‍♀️🤸‍♂️🤸

Throughout our unit of work, we learned about unison and canon, mirroring and matching, as well as balances, rolls, travel and jumps. All the routines were created by the groups, showing such a brilliant variety of skills and techniques! Well done year 5 👏

Thursday 23rd November

This week, Year 5 have been learning how to calculate using long and short multiplication by 2 digits. We have persevered to remember our times tables and the method, to enable us to be accurate! 

Today, to apply our learning further, Year 5 used our Cross Curricular Orienteering resources to practice multiplying by 1 or 2 digits! Everyone was so engaged in trying to solve as many questions as possible from different locations on the map.

Class Assembly

This week we have had a brilliant time learning and rehearsing our Ancient Egyptian class assembly! The year 5 teaching team has been super impressed with the children's ability to learn their lines, take stage directions and be able to deliver their performances so confidently.

This morning was our performance to the rest of the school and parents/family and we enjoyed it tremendously!

Friday 17th November

This week we have recapped and practised multiplying by one digit numbers, and recently moved onto multiplying by 2 digits! We have thought very carefully about how to layout long multiplication so we remember to multiply each digit and reach the correct answer. Everyone has persevered well to tackle these tricky problems!

We have used colours to help us know which digit to use when we are multiplying - see the following images as our examples! 

Thursday 9th November

On Tuesday, we finished our Art unit by investigating Fauvism, and looking into Matisse & his works. We used photos of the school premises to sketch am outline, then contrasting colours to paint. We also attempted to use a range of brush strokes to give our pictures further impressionist features. We hope you enjoy looking at our works in progress and final pieces!

Friday 3rd November

This week, we have been busy reading, analysing and writing a variety of setting descriptions based on different forest scenes. We are particularly looking at recognising and using high level noun phrases and ambitious verbs. We have also been trying to use the past progressive tense, which will will continue to use in our writing next week.

Wednesday 1st November

Today we started our new PE topic, Gymnastics! Miss Honour was impressed by year 5's knowledge of gymnastics vocabulary, such as unison and canon, as well as being able to show a variety of different shapes, such as pike, straddle and tuck.

By the end of this half term, we will have improved our skills and technique, planned a paired routine and performed to the class. We began by practicing jumps and rolls, linking 3 moves and performing these in unison. Well done everyone!

Thursday 12th October

We had a fantastic day today, learning all about Orienteering with Cross Curricular Orienteering! We learned how to read a map and use these to move ourselves around a course, as well as finding markers located around the school grounds. The instructors commended year 5 on their enthusiasm and behaviour, as they not only engaged well in their session but helped the Year 1 children to participate in theirs this afternoon too! 

We are looking forward to using this new resource in PE lessons and across the curriculum after half term!

Wednesday 11th October

This half term in PE, we have focused on developing our Team Games skills in Lacrosse! It has been great to see all pupils enjoy learning new skills and playing a new sport. We have built upon their previous year's units by thinking about defending and attacking principles, applying these to using a lacrosse stick. This week we combined our 4 weeks of learning to play in practice 6-a-side games, focusing on our teamwork and sportsmanship.

Everyone is looking forward to our final lesson next week, where we will be running a mini lacrosse tournament, both playing and taking on leadership roles.

Friday 6th October

As part of our Geography topic of Rivers, we have been conducting an in depth study into the River Nile, which will link to our History topic after half term.

We used atlases to locate Egypt and the River Nile, as well as looking at the geographical features in Egypt, thinking about why the Ancient Egyptians would have lived there. We also learned about the importance of flood cycles for the River Nile, which enables farming to occur in the fertile areas near to the river.

Here is a selection of our work from the last couple of lessons:

Thursday 5th October

For the past couple of weeks, we have been immersed in our Monsterology writing unit, where we have learned about a range of monsters and created our own bizarre beasts!

We have written a non-chronological report about our new creatures, including a range of clauses, ambitious vocabulary and scientific facts. We are currently presenting these as a double page spread, so we can create our own Monsterology book!

Here are some examples of our nearly finished pages!

Thursday 5th October

In Maths, we have been investigating decimal numbers and are now applying this to multiplying by powers of 10. 

We have recognised we move our digits one place to the left when multiplying by 10 and today are proving this using manipulates and place value grids. 

They have all been great at verbally explaining this process and what the counters represent!

Thursday 28th September

We are happy to be sharing our reading in our new class reading log from tomorrow! Each week a child will be randomly chosen to complete a page all about their reading! Check back for updates throughout the term!

Thursday 21st September

This week in Maths we have been investigating negative numbers. We started by counting with a counting stick to practice, and then had an interesting debate on what negative numbers are and whether they were smaller than decimals. 

Today we related negative numbers to temperature, investigating line graphs and tables, as well as storeys in a building. 

The pupils all engaged well and showed good resilience to solve some tricky problems!

Friday 15th September

For the past two weeks, we have been reading 'The Lost Words' poetry. These are acrostic poems focused on British wildlife and plants, with beautiful illustrations too.

We have read and analysed lots of poems from the book, looking at the poetry techniques used, such as alliteration, personification and metaphors. Year 5 worked hard to improve their vocabulary and use expanded noun phrases and prepositions throughout our lessons, producing some thoughtful poems on their chosen animal or plant.