Year 5 Learning Updates
2024-2025
Here is our space to celebrate our exciting learning experiences!
Term 2 Week 5, 6 and 7
Design and Technology
We ended the term with Christmas Design and Technology. The children wowed us with their creativity by creating the most beautiful, natural Christmas tree ornaments. We preserved orange slices by drying them, as the Vikings would have done with native fruits and meat in order to have food to eat over the colder winter months. We then used twine to attach cinammon and star anise (with some help from a modern glue gun). The children's homes will be heady with the scent of winter spices!
We also made some delicious Viking flatbreads by grinding oats in a pestle and mortar, adding wheat flour, a pinch of salt and some water and then cooked them over an open fire in Discovery Walk (with expert help from Mrs Chapman). The flatbreads tasted delicious, and we made them a little sweeter with a squeeze of honey. Having learnt that Vikings were fans of boardgames, including one that was similar to chess, we were inspired to make our own noughts and crosses boards by using a square knot to join four sticks and decorated discs with Viking runes to use as counters. What a wonderful day of Viking creativity!
English
What a brilliant term it has been, full of reading! We've sadly finished our core English text, She Wolf, and our 'Drop Everything and Read' text, Wonder. We absolutely loved both books and more than a few tears were shed during them (mostly by the teachers!). The children became excellent investigators, spotting similarities between the texts as we read them. We moved on to a festive short novel, 'The Dog Who Saved Christmas', in which, similar to She Wolf, the main character is neuro-divergent, and he does not enjoy the changes that Christmas brings. He feels this way until he finds a stray dog who makes him feel safe and secure, despite the changes that Christmas brings. The children wrote some brilliant free-verse poems full of figuarative language and imagery and lots of them enjoyed performing them in class. Who knew that our Year 5s were poets?!
Christingle
It's that time of year again, when the classrooms take on the zesty scent of oranges! This week, we took part in a Christingle service, but beforehand, we were reminded about what a Christingle is and what it represents. The children wrote and illustrated a fact file explaining the meaning of a Christingle and why people of the Christian faith might attend a service in Advent. We hope you are as impressed with their factfiles as we were!
Term 2 Week 3 and 4
English
What a busy term it's been already, and the countdown to Christmas has barely even begun! We have been very busy in English, creating double-page spreads to tell our version of the story, 'She Wolf', which is a gripping and emotional tale about a young Viking warrior on the hunt for revenge. The children were so impressive with their use of figurative language, including similes, metaphors and personification. Their artistic creativity was incredible too, as you can see from the photos below. Excellent story telling Year 5!
Science
In science, we have continued our research into how to separate mixtures. We had an enjoyable afternoon investigating how to use a sieve to separate larger and smaller solid particles, how to use a filter to separate a liquid and a solid, and how to use heat to separate a solute from a solvent through evaporation in a solution. The children worked methodically and sensibly in their groups, using their science understanding to decide the best method for separating mixtures.
Term 2 Week 1 and 2
History
In History, we have been exploring our topic of the Vikings (or pirate raiders). Our most recent topic was all about the food that they ate. We all enjoyed learning about the delicious Nattmal (evening meal), which would have consisted of a hearty stew with meat and vegetables in, as well as bread. We wondered whether we would enjoy the taste of auk (a now extinct bird), walrus and seal as much as the Vikings did. We learnt that the Vikings ate a lot of stew (or skause), as they would also have it for breakfast (Damal) with stale bread and fruits. We are really looking forward to making our own Viking flat breads at the end of term! We hope you are as impressed with the beautiful presentation of our work as we were!
PSHE
Anti-Bullying Week - Choose Respect
We celebrated Anti-Bullying Week as a school by thinking carefully about how we respect each other and ourselves. We had a brilliant day wearing odd socks to symbolise the importance of accepting and celebrating ourselves and others in spite of our differences. In class, we took part in a live lesson with lots of other schools around the country to learn about how to show respect, even when we might be having a challenging time. As one of the areas of development for the Diversity Council is to introduce more signing to the children in school, we all learnt the sign for 'respect'.
Science
We have loved learning about changes in science. We carried out an investigation in the length of time it would take sugar to dissolve in ice cold water, room temperature water and warm water. We needed to ensure that it was a fair test by using the same type and amount of sugar each time, stirring each cup the same amount of times and using the same amount of water. We found that the warm water enabled the sugar to dissolve more quickly. Our next job is to find out how to recover the sugar from the water, I wonder if you know how we could do that?*
*(By warming the solution and separating the water and sugar through evaporation of course!)
Term 1 Week 7 and 8
We're so close to the end of term! And what a term it's been; we have worked our socks off in Year 5 and we are all feeling very proud of ourselves.
Poetry
In the final weeks, we enjoyed an absolutley brilliant online workshop delivered by EastSide in which we explored the life of Sybil Phoenix, the first black woman to be awarded an MBE. We warmed our voices and bodies up so that we were ready to create freezeframes depicting different parts of Sybil's life and then we applied our knowledge of figurative language to create similes, metaphors and kennings to describe the powerful, inspiring Sybil. It was a brilliant afternoon learning all about a new hero of ours!
Art
As well as inviting 'virtual' visitors into our classes, we also had a visit from local lino-print artist Gemma O'Malley. Gemma is an incredibly talented artist who is inspired by the world around her and is especially fascinated by people. She creates lino prints by making cuts into lino tiles, spreading ink on them and then pressing them. Some of the most challenging parts of the process is having to do any writing backwards and making sure Gemma knows which parts of the print she wants to keep white and which need colour. Gemma taught us how to make our own prints and we are very impressed with the Viking shields that we created.
Term 1 Week 5 and 6
RE and Computing
We are continuing to explore the Christian world view in RE. Recently, we discussed the Creation story, which plays a part in Islam, Sikhism and Judaism too. We went outside and found something we thought to be beautiful in nature. Some of the reasons we chose the items were that they reminded them of ourselves, they were beautiful colours and that we recognised that there was beauty in their imperfections. We then headed back into the warm for small group discussions. We challenged ourselves to think of ideas to support the theory of the world coming to be through just creation, through just evolution and through both. The adults in class were so impressed with the deep thinking and respect shown by all of the children.
Computing
In Week 5, we enjoyed a morning of computing. We explored scratch and created a challenging algorithm with lots of code! Our journey of discovery led us to create a music room, ask for an instrument and then create a piece of music which needed to include a loop. Phew! The adults were amazed by the children's perseverance and their positive attitude towards sharing their learning and celebrating each other's successes.
Term 1 Week 3 and 4
RE, PHSE and English
We have settled into Year 5 and back into school life. An important part of this is remembering how we treat others and recalling our school values of friendship, kindness, honesty, respect and perseverance. We have explored these values in PSHE by discussing inclusion and what it means to be inclusive. We created short dramatic pieces to convey how people might feel if the they were, initially, excluded from something and how we can behave to make people feel more included.
In RE, we have been discussing the Christian faith. We learnt about the Holy Trinity of God being represented by the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. We think you will agree that the children excelled in the areas of creativity and design.
In English we have been loving 'She Wolf', a thrilling novel about a young Viking seeking to avenge her mother's death. Initially, we reviewed our understanding of expanded noun phrases in order to add detail to our work, we think that Ylva, Cathryn and Geri (the main characters) would be very impressed with our descriptions of them!
Term 1 Week 1 and 2
Velkomin to Viking Day
What a wonderful start to the Year! We began to answer our Question of Discovery, 'Were Vikings always vicious?' by exploring how they travelled and jewellery that they wore. We had a wonderful time using our Design and Technology skills to build our very own longships and brooches. Lots of us also enjoyed expressing ourselves through a fierce Viking dance! We can't wait to find out more about the Vikings!
